Word: abbott
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This pedestrian, one need scarcely add, is Wilbur Cortez Abbott, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History. This is the Squire of Sparks St. the insatiable collector of this and that, the indefatigable narrator of faded stories, the herenow admirer of Oliver Cromwell. This is he who was called from Yale in 1920 to fill the eight-league boots of Mr. Harold Laski...
There is very little available material on Professor Abbott's early years. He was born, according to Who's Who, in Kokomo, Indiana on December 28, 1869. His undergraduate memories center around Wabash College, which graduated him at the age of twenty-three. From that date he studied and taught at Cornell, Michigan, Dartmouth, Oxford, and Kansas,--until he was found and hired by Yale in 1908. There, in 1917, he gained wide scholastic attention. He had, for some time, been intrigued with the notions of the sociological historians. He had, for some time, been laboring with 350 years...
When three years had rolled by, and Laski had departed, Wilbur Cortez Abbott, therefore, was the natural choice for the vacancy. As expected, he dropped snugly into the atmosphere of Brattle Street. His speculation was undramatic, his sufficient works dealt with the dead past, his lectures with innocuous anecdotes and data. He became, in the course of time, a stock-holder in the Harvard Cooperative Society, and an Associate of Lowell House; he acquired the grey hair and the mien of a Bank President. He fitted; he fits; he will...
Professor Abbott is perfectly comfortable, perfectly at home on the lecture platform. He seats himself in a swivel chair, places his notes and his elbows on the desk, gives vent to a sigh, perhaps even a puff, and begins. Fifteen minutes contain a dignified, non-irritating drone, dedicated to the fact that Gladstone had gained a reputation as a great minister of finance. Then there may be an interruption. The professor will rub his eyes. He will give assurances that the following story is amusing. The story will consume five minutes. There will be renewed assurances that the story...
When freed from his academic duties, Professor Abbott finds refuge "in the red house on Sparks St." Like Sir Christopher Wren, Wilbur Cortez Abbott has builded his own monument. Within the walls of 74 Sparks St. he has assembled all the evidence that one could need for an analysis of his mental processes. He has a beautiful collection of unused chessmen; sundry gargoyles stare out from his walls; there is a mug used at Nicky's coronation; framed on the wall hang a pair of European Court Fans; on a window seat, in the sun, sparkles a jewel handled Moorish...