Kitty's Last Exit

His ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. He learned his letters in bookish Boston, graduated at the head of his class ('82) from Harvard, taught Latin at Phillips Exeter. Thereafter for 48 years he was Kittredge of Harvard, Shakespearean and Chaucerian scholar, authority on witchcraft and Norse religion, one of the last Victorians. But above all, "Kitty" was Harvard. When he died last week, part of Harvard died with him.

Professor George Lyman Kittredge's last exit was unstagy. He died peacefully in bed in his Cape Cod summer home at Barnstable, at 81. But Harvard men will remember him for his studied, perfectly timed classroom entrances and exits, his imperious walking stick, his haughty, traffic-stopping marches across Harvard Square, his pearl-grey suits and wing collars, his snowy beard (which he kept so, according to legend, by dippings in laundry bluing). One day (also according to legend) he presented himself, magnificently dressed and bearded, at a Beacon Hill mansion for tea. The girl who opened the door exclaimed: "Jesus Christ." "Not at all," snapped Kitty, "I am George Lyman Kittredge."

Kitty's English 2 (six Shakespearean plays, great chunks of which had to be memorized) was one of Harvard's hardest courses and its best show. Kitty tolerated no coughing or sniffling during his lectures. Once, halfway through, he coughed himself. He pulled himself together, said, "I am sorry, gentlemen, I cannot go on," and marched out. He lectured by the hour on single lines of Shakespeare, missed not a syllable of the Bard's meaning.

On fine spring days Kitty sometimes suddenly stopped his lecture, announced "The day is too beautiful, gentlemen, even for Shakespeare," and stalked out.

"Gentlemen," he told his students, "I am not only the greatest living Shakespearean scholar, but the greatest student of Chaucer, also." To pedants surprised at his lack of a Ph.D., he retorted: "Who would examine me?" Once he went to Oxford to look up an obscure point of Shakespearean scholarship, was told: "There is only one man who can tell you that. He is a Harvard professor and his name is Kittredge."

Kitty's death was almost the end of a great chapter in Harvard scholarship. Surviving him, but long since retired, are two other legendary professors of English at Harvard who were born in the same year (1860) as he: Charles Townsend ("Copey") Copeland and Bliss Perry. Kitty, the last to retire, stuck it out to 76 (TIME, Feb. 17, 1936). At his last lecture the room was crowded with reverent Harvard visitors. Kitty lectured as usual on The Winter's Tale. But he did not end his lecture as usual by marching up the aisle and uttering his last sentence at the door as the bell in Harvard Hall tolled the hour. Instead, he stood on the platform and said quietly, "We'll stop here." A roar of applause rolled over his bowed head. Then Kitty silently waved his students from the aisle and went out.

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