When Jim moves to Lincoln, Nebraska, to attend the recently established university, he is mentored by Gaston Cleric, a “brilliant and inspiring young scholar,” and this period is “one of the happiest” (257) times of Jim’s life. As the new head of the Latin Department, Cleric monitors Jim’s entrance examinations and supervises Jim’s coursework. During Jim’s first summer in Lincoln, the two men play tennis and take long walks. The young university has no college dormitories, so Jim rents two rooms from an elderly couple with a study looking out over the prairie. Sometimes, Cleric stops by Jim’s lodgings in the evenings and talks until midnight about Latin and English poetry. Jim believes that Cleric could have been a great poet: Cleric’s imaginative conversation can bring ancient figures to life. Although Jim greatly admires Cleric’s scholarship, he realizes that he can never be a scholar—Jim is still preoccupied with the prairie landscape and the people of his childhood.

On a March evening during Jim’s sophomore year, he watches a star that reminds him of “the lamp engraved upon the title-page of old Latin texts” (263). Jim realizes the impact of his childhood experiences as he reflects on Virgil’s phrase, “Optima dies . . . prima fugit,” translated as “the best days are the first to flee” (263).