What did I teach my students all these past years? Something about great books. Something about the fineness of language. Something about the play between God and godlessness, power and powerlessness, and the transcendent power of laughter. I remember a great lesson on Fern Hill… – and something about the Four Quartets. I remember spending two days on a single paragraph of Sylvia Plath, and three days on the death of Ikemefuna. I remember in my classes, in spite of all the difficulties attendant upon teaching, a kind of mutual respect – for the dignity of the students, the dedication of the teacher, the beauty of the texts.

I am trying to figure out just where fifty bucks on some third rate interim exam fits into all of that.