Robert Oppenheimer's high school Latin teacher on her star student:
He received every new idea with perfect joy.
Now there's a compliment I would love to receive. From American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, 2005.
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He received every new idea with perfect joy.
How odd - the only archetypal personality that could honestly be described that way is a simpleton, such as The Ruler of The Known Universe in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series.
There are a great many ideas which are simply unworthy of prompting joy upon being received - indeed, I would argue, a very great many are worthy of despair.
And no, I don't think the fact that the topic of study was Latin makes much of a difference - it's an awfully messy language at the end of the day, with a lot of irrational constructions and conventions that I would to struggle to imagine ever sparking joy in anyone.
Perhaps some staggeringly patient Saintly figure, or some Buddhist master able to detach themselves with infinite patience from earthly sufferings - even such hideous things as trying to cope with the madness of consistently inconsistent declensions, completely arbitrary (and often self-contradictory) word order, or feverishly nonsensical sentence-clause constructions.
...that said, I doubt even Oppenheimer could have found joy in studying ~Georgian~...
>shudders
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