Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1910 — An Eccentric Professor. [ARTICLE]

An Eccentric Professor.

The late Professor Sophocles of Harvard was a short but finely built man, with bushy, snow-white hair and beard, olive complexion and piercing black eyes, and looked like some venerable Arab sheik. Reserved and shy in manner, he was yet full of genial humor. Once, in the class-room, he asked a student: “What was done with the bodies of the Greeks who were killed at Marathon ?” “They were burled, sir.” “Next!” “Why, they—they were burned." “Next!” “I—l don’t know, professor;” “Right. Nobody knows!” He was never married, but lived alone in one of the college buildings, and prepared his own food, getting up curious Turkish dishes. He allowed a servant to visit the room to make up his bed, but would endure no further disturbance, and the floor was unswept from October to June.