The Rise of Gideon

Even then he looked scared. A frightened, chunky little man with darting eyes and a quick uneasy smile. He was no more than thirty when I saw him that first time.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he adjusted his shirt’s cuffs to the correct half inch below the sleeves of his immaculately pressed gray suit.

He announced his name: “Gideon Pratt.” He snapped his last name again and I wondered if he expected his audience, my fellow classmates at Richland University, to applaud. He had a “You-like-me-don’t-you?” look on his dark-featured face.

Ordinarily I would have given a new lecturer scant attention. After all, lecturers come and lecturers go, and while I remember many of my professors quite well, the instructors on the lower end of the academic ladder were a passing parade. They marched onto the stage of Bond Hall like drill masters ready to do battle with an unruly antagonistic platoon.

Gideon Pratt was different. Instead of waiting for us to stop talking he launched immediately into his lecture, which he was careful to announce was neither a defense nor an attack upon the Romantic poets, but rather a careful analysis. Actually, he apply described the Romantic Movement as a complex revolt against intellectualism, a point I happened to agree with. Despite his promise, he did launch into an attack upon Byron as a “juvenile” and “completely lacking in discipline,” and, since he was attacking a particular literary hero of mine, I resolved to argue with him about that on some other occasion.

On the whole, however, he seemed in good humor, despite his nervous, fidgety style, which I put down to opening-day shakes, natural to a new man on the faculty. Even his voice kept changing. First it was as smooth as cream, low and sonorous, persuasive. Then it was raspy, a scratchy file, snarling, venomous. At times he gripped the lectern as if to hold himself from flying off the stage. He kept looking up from his notes to scan us, perhaps anticipating that at any moment we might escape.

He removed his heavy black glasses, laid them down, picked them up, polished them, put them on. He was soaring to a climax on Keats when the bell rang, ending his lecture. Despite his nervousness, Gideon Pratt had enthralled me with his knowledge of the basic private details of each poet’s life. Literature lectures had never been like this. I began to clap, unintentionally I suspect, until soon all in my row joined me, and then the entire class until the hall resounded to the applause.

Gideon stepped back a pace from the lectern, removed his glasses, thrust them into his breast pocket, bowed slightly, shyly, and gathered up his notes. Since I was in the first row, just below the stage, I could hear him say “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” He dead-marched from the stage into the wings and was gone.

Gideon was always the same on that stage. Always nervous. Always roaring above his nervousness. As the weeks passed I thought he would get over being nervous, but he never did. He was scared, but what of? He had been a teacher for several years at Windom College in Cleveland before coming to our mid-west university. I put it down to the natural fact that this was his first year at a large school, and I would have been willing to let it go at that if, one day in late October, he had not left me a note in my mailbox. He asked me to meet him in his office.

I lunged up the stairs to the third floor of the Arts and Science Building, my knees shaking. I had no idea what he wanted. The only reason I had been summoned that I could think of was that I must have failed his last test and that I was about to be put on the carpet.

Rightaway he bobbed over from his desk and whacked me on the shoulder. “How’s the newspaper business?” he asked. I was taking a minor journalism course at the time. It was something of a shock to learn that Gideon knew it. I mumbled about my ambition to be a reporter. Gideon battled a tumbling black forelock that was always falling over his right eye. “Great profession, journalism,” he said. “Was a time I thought of becoming a newspaperman myself.”

I thought of asking him why he hadn’t, but that would have been impertinent. Still, I complimented him about taking an interest in my personal life. A copy of his book, The Wronged Romantics, was on his desk. It was required reading for his course. I picked it up and flicked the pages. “I like your book, Mr. Pratt,” I said.

Smiling, he plucked off his glasses. He looked five years younger. He half closed his eyes. A dreamy look came over his moon-shaped face. “It’s not the best book in the world, but it isn’t the worst either,” he said. He spoke as if addressing an unseen audience. His voice was as smooth as that of a professional television announcer. “I suppose you shouldn’t expect appreciation, not in this world,” he said dreamily.

“Well, some of those poets,” I replied, catching on that flattery was in order, “they weren’t appreciated, not in their own time.”

Gideon put on his glasses. His face flushed. He ran a tissue over his forehead, wiping away a thin stream of sweat. He leaned across the desk. “You and I know, Mr. James, the agony it is to write.”

“Of course, being a reporter, that isn’t exactly being a writer.”

Gideon pounded his desk. “Never say that! When you’re in journalism you contribute something important.”

“I meant,” I protested, “there’s a real difference between newspaper writing and real writing.” I was attempting to ingratiate myself with him and it was coming off badly.

“I wonder,” he said with a vague wave of his hand. “Sometimes I wonder.” He swiveled about and gazed out the window, lost in some reverie.

I glanced around the room. Books lined two walls from floor to ceiling. Stacks of books cluttered his desk. I was looking for his collection of the Romantics when he said “Books, books. The pain of life and the pleasure.” He sighed and swiveled back again. He picked up a clutch of papers, dug into them and came up with a typed manuscript that I recognized as my latest treatise. He handed it to me. There was a large red A on it.

I suppose I stuttered something out of pure pleasure, because this was the first A he had ever given me.

“You deserve it, Mr. James,” he said. “I wanted to see you about the paper because I happen to disagree with your main point, although I admit your argument is soundly presented.” He said the topic I had chosen, the influence of Teresa Guiccioli on the poetry of Lord Byron, was interesting. “The question is,” he said, “did Byron’s romantic nature lead to his liaison with Teresa, or did Teresa give him romantic ideas which resulted in his greatest poems?”