Chapter 24 — The Last Class
T
he last week of May brought apple blossoms through a soft, bright mist of new leaves. Peter Floyd, sitting in the sun on the steps of Chelsea House thought, as he had thought every spring, “Nature’s first green is gold.” He said it out loud to himself, said the whole poem over.
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower, But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Nothing gold can stay. That a perfect creation is that poem, he thought. Complete, flawless, so easy, fading the physical into the metaphysical, what Emerson would call the natural into the spiritual – and what an impact! Robert Frost must have been proud of that poem, but humble too, for he must have known that he had been touched by the grace of God. True, nothing gold can stay. Looking back, life at Kennebec Academy had had much gold in it, but it couldn’t last. Even now, I am waiting for the bell to call me to my last class. Back in February the Headmaster had asked him whether he planned to return in the fall. “No,” he had said, “I agreed to get through at 65. I will be 65 in the spring so I will not be back next year.” The Headmaster had expressed proper – and sincere – regret. “Let’s not make any fuss about it,” Peter had added. You know that I abhor sentiment. Mr. Chips makes me sick. If anyone wants to know, simply say I will not be back next year. I will be building a boat or writing a book. No secret, no ceremony.” And now, he thought, sitting on the step of his dormitory in the May sun, I have written my last examination, I have read my last set of papers and written my last criticisms on them, I have entered my last grades in my last mark book – except for the exams, of course – and I am about to walk into my last class. A clutch of 9th-graders – intelligent, responsive, occasionally inspired. Remember Jonesey’s description of a rope ski tow? ‘A snake with his tail in his mouth hissing up the hill.’ And full of adolescent hell, too. I have done pretty well with them, but pretty well is not good enough. Maybe I should stay one more year and teach one class really well, do a really good job, just for once. But no. It wouldn’t work. To attempt perfection is to challenge the gods, and no one has done very well at that since Apollo’s son drove his father’s chariot and Icarus took the big drink. Be grateful that we have had a vision of perfection and let it go at that. Today must be the last. No sentimentality, no tearful farewells. Still, I will let them know that it is the last and I will make an opportunity to tell them how good it is to have to do what you like to do ‘where love and need are one.’ To be paid to read good books and to talk about them and share them with intelligent people is the best of all worlds And I will tell them of some of the boys I have known, boys who have gone on to be – some of them – significant in their communities and their professions, some of them writers. Especially the writers. 112
