A．an eccentric characterB．an unconventional teacherC．a ……
TEXT A
The first time I saw
Stephen Leacock at close quarters he came swinging into a classroom in Moyse
Hall, the serenely ugly old Arts Building of McGill University in Montreal. The
room was packed with undergraduates like me who had come with huge curiosity to
listen to their first lecture on political science by a man whose humorous
writing had rocked the English-speaking world with laughter, but who was a
campus character for very different reasons.
Leacock enjoyed a
reputation for eccentricity and for an impish individualism that expressed
itself in blunt speech on every subject. Naturally we looked him over
carefully.
What we saw was a shock of graying hair crowning a
rugged face that wore a friendly smile, emphasized by crinkles of mirth about
the eyes. I remember thinking, "He could use a haircut." His necktie had slipped
its moorings, and his tweedy suit looked slept-in. Across his vest his watch
chain had come apart in the middle and had been put together with a safety pin.
The effect was of a man who gave no thought to his appearance. But his manner
was far too buoyant to suggest the absent-minded professor.
His
apparel was topped by one of those loose, black gowns professors wore in those
days. Leacoek’s had been acquired about the time he received his Ph. D. from the
University of Chicago in 1903. Even though the garment was showing signs of wear
in 1914, it was still one of the essential properties of his play-acting. At
least a dozen times during every lecture it would slip off his shoulders and
seize him by the crook of his elbows. Without pause in the flow of talk and
motion—he was a walking lecturer— great shrug of the shoulders would hoist the
gown part way into place.
Leacock was tremendously proud of his
Chicago Ph. D. , but it was inescapably in character that he must spoof it. "The
meaning of this degree," he quipped in a lecture, "is that the recipient has
been examined for the last time in his life and pronounced full. After this, no
new ideas can be imparted to him."
In similar vein, after
returning from a holiday abroad he told his class, "I was sitting quietly in my
cabin when a steward knocked and, after making sure I am called Doctor, asked if
I would come and look at the stewardesses knee. I was off like a shot, but
another fellow got there ahead of me. He was a Doctor of Divinity."
What came through to me, even in the first lecture, was Leacock’ s warmth
and humanness. I knew I was listening to a man who loved young people and was
determined to give them as much wisdom as he could. His teaching methods
were unconventional. He couldn’t resist the temptation to explore bypaths.
In discussing the days of Queen Victoria, he mentioned Disraeli, and this set
him off to talk about the man rather than the Prime Minister—his way of living,
his quick mind, his dilettantism, his great love affair with his wife. The
digression lifted the great statesman into a framework of his own and, when
Leacock returned to the main line of his subject, the listener understood, in a
way no textbook could inform him, how such a man could bring off the coup which
gave Britain control of the Suez Canal and made the Empire impregnable for
decades to come.
The student were eager to see Leacock because he was ______.
A．an eccentric character
B．an unconventional teacher
C．a renowned political scientist
D．all of the above
