Onomatopoeia

    One thing about this type of education, it certainly taught an individual to be philosophical about death.

    He could ruminate conversably on the ultimate fate of a Greek shade or the Mesopotamian interpretation of the underworld.
    Even contemplate figuratively what Achilles felt was his true funeral abode.

    Shoel. The grave. Romantic poetry might have little practical application but it was great conversational stuff.

    A book or two by obscure authors sure broke the ice at parties, was unbeatable verbal jousting.

    Too bad the joke was on him for majoring in it.

    Few people really cared what onomatopoeia was or that Presquile was in Maine. Worse, they acted like you were nuts for studying the Aeneid. The Aeneid! It did, too, have importance. Literature, that is.

    Why it gave a man depth, a presence, a gracefulness that transcended petty, material strivings. Too bad, one couldn't show the white palms of one's hand for a living or revel in soft flesh as the natural mark of a born aristocrat. O tempora, oh mores: that the classics had fallen so low.

    It was maddening that literary civilization was within a hair's breadth at being snuffed by the ordinary convention of task bearing.

    Being a poet, so basic to everything, didn't even show up on Manpower's computer scan.

    The universities didn't care they were having the times of their lives parsing verbs and conjugating declensions, telling graduates "the pendulum will swing".

    The best retort for that was the pithy epigram of the working man toiling in honest sweat within the secure bounds of a trade.