H A * ay
 
 ^
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 YALE LIFE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1885 
 
 BY 
 JOHN ADDISON PORTER
 
 SKETCHES OF YALE LIFE: 
 
 BEING ' 
 
 SELECTIONS, HUMOROUS AND DESCRIPTIVE 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 COLLEGE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 
 
 ARRANGED AND EDITED 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ADDISON PORTER 
 
 Of the Class of 1878 
 
 , 30. (T. 
 
 ARLINGTON PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 CORCORAN BUILDING. 
 
 i 886
 
 Unir'ersity Press 
 
 Tuttie, Morehouse & Taylor 
 
 .Vew Haven^ Conn.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THIS little volume owes its publication to a vacation 
 which the editor recently passed at New Haven. The 
 interest of the subject had been, however, held in mind 
 for some time, and -the resolve made to offer the results 
 of the study to the public, if circumstances should 
 permit. 
 
 The attempt to illustrate the social life of a college 
 by means of short, crisp articles, the work of under- 
 graduate authors, writing in full accord with the spirit 
 of their times, is, so far as the writer can learn, entirely 
 unique, in this cou'ntry. In some memorial volumes, 
 such as the " Harvard Book " and the " Yale Book," 
 certain phases of undergraduate life, particularly ath- 
 letics, have been fully and well summarized, from the 
 standpoint of the contributor who takes a retrospective 
 view of their development. " Verses from the Harvard 
 Advocate " and Yale "Elm Leaves " do justice to the 
 creditable productions in rhyme which have emanated 
 from each of these historic institutions. In the dainty 
 little volume of Professor Henry A. Beers, modestly 
 entitled " Odds and Ends," may be found many a re- 
 flected sunbeam of our academic life. For its true his- 
 torical spirit, and the richness of its statistical informa-
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion, " Four Years at Yale ; by a Graduate of "69," 
 ranks as a classic in student literature. 
 
 The numerous so-called "college novels" have con- 
 tributed their share, or, perhaps, more than their share, 
 towards picturing the typical New England colleges. 
 But the element of fiction is much stronger than reality 
 in all of them. Some flatter ; others libel ; few or none 
 give true insight into what the American student com- 
 munity is when not dressed up in holiday attire for 
 public inspection. 
 
 This volume, on the contrary, is really a glimpse be- 
 hind the scenes. In making his selections, the editor 
 has sought neither to enforce any theories, nor to point 
 any morals, but simply to portray Yale student-life of 
 the past half century exactly as he found it, believing that 
 if this were done adequately, the volume could not fail 
 to interest members of other colleges, as well as Yale 
 men, and even that portion of the reading public 
 which is inclined to sympathize with the literary efforts 
 of young men. 
 
 All attempts at "fine writing" have been rigorously 
 excluded from these pages. Likewise " prize-pieces," 
 however superior in maturity of thought and literary 
 finish, were obviously out of place in this book. The 
 only liberty the editor has allowed himself with the 
 text, excepting a few verbal corrections, was occa- 
 sional condensation. Editorial notes were deemed 
 superfluous, in view of the class of subjects treated ; 
 they speak for themselves quite emphatically enough.
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 Most of the pieces appeared originally in the Yale 
 Literary Magazine ; the others in the Yale Record and 
 Yale Cottrant. 
 
 That the collection contains some of the early work 
 of men who have afterwards become distinguished, is a 
 fact which will probably render it not the less attrac- 
 tive to the general reader. Nevertheless, it would 
 hardly be courteous or fair to these gentlemen to dis- 
 close their identity. For it should not be forgotten 
 that all of the papers which compose this book were 
 written with no thought of ever reaching other than 
 student eyes ; that many of them were doubtless hastily 
 penned ; and that others are probably very far from ex- 
 pressing the present opinions of their authors. What- 
 ever merit they may possess, must be ascribed not to the 
 borrowed plumage of dignified names, but rather to the 
 invariable good humor, frankness and vivacity, and the 
 occasional keenness and depth displayed by cultured 
 young men in writing of themes, scenes and incidents 
 near and dear to them at a very impressionable period 
 of their lives. 
 
 The editor closes his congenial task by respectfully 
 asking that his effort may be received with the cour- 
 teous consideration which is usually granted to an ex- 
 periment, and hoping that the results of his research 
 may be judged creditable to American student-life in 
 general, and to his Alma Mater in particular. 
 
 J. A. P. 
 NEW HAVEN, November, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 COLLEGE BUILDINGS i 
 
 South Middle 3 
 
 The Old Chapel 10 
 
 A Room in Divinity 13 
 
 The Library by Moonlight 18 
 
 Odd Corners of the Campus 24 
 
 The College Bell . .28 
 
 DORMITORY LIFE 33 
 
 Under the Elms 35 
 
 On the Fence 37 
 
 Third Term Loafing 43 
 
 Hearthstones 47 
 
 The Steam Devil . . . . . . . .54 
 
 Rainy Days .60 
 
 A Night in "Our Entry" 64 
 
 Under the Eaves 68 
 
 Who and Where ? .73 
 
 "Where do you Room?" ....'. 77 
 Hobbies 84 
 
 PEN PORTRAITS 89 
 
 The Man about College .91 
 
 The Dun 94 
 
 The Sweep 99 
 
 The Bore 105 
 
 The Sponger no 
 
 The Croaker . . .114 
 
 The Chum . . 117 
 
 The Successful Landlady 121
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 126 
 
 Singing 129 
 
 Bowing 136 
 
 Sleeping 141 
 
 Class-Room Manners 146 
 
 The Club 149 
 
 Slang 154 
 
 Whist 158 
 
 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS 165 
 
 Reflections on a Great Bugbear 167 
 
 Examinations 174 
 
 Analytical Algebra 178 
 
 Balbus 184 
 
 IMPEDIMENTA 191 
 
 My Umbrella 193 
 
 My Pipe 198 
 
 M}' Stove 204 
 
 My Clock 209 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES .213 
 
 Thimble Islands 215 
 
 Ambulatory 222 
 
 Our Sailors 227 
 
 Monologue on Tin Cans 235 
 
 The Old University Shell 241 
 
 Vagaries 950 
 
 Quinnipiac 254 
 
 Ducking 257 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES 263 
 
 A Vacation in Old Clothes 265 
 
 Long Vacations 371 
 
 Freshman Rains 275 
 
 Moriarty's 280 
 
 Smoking 284
 
 COLLEGE BUILDINGS.
 
 0o till) 
 
 IF the thousand strange and varied feelings which 
 rise up in the breast of Mr. Verdant Green, as in com- 
 pany with paterfamilias or materfamilias, he parades 
 for the first time Yale College campus in search for 
 Graduates' Hall could be skillfully, and withal truth- 
 fully recorded, they would, in my opinion, form an 
 article of no little interest and amusement. I judge 
 at once from analogy and observation when I say that 
 one-half of every Freshman class experiences a feel- 
 ing of disappoinment when first it sees its Alma Mater, 
 so far as she can be seen in her buildings. I, for my 
 part, have very distinct recollections of my first sen- 
 sations as I stood and gazed up at those wondrous elms 
 and down at that fabled fence, and felt myself really 
 beholding at least the casket of that jewel for obtaining 
 which I had spent my youthful strength over hard Virgil 
 and harder Xenophon. Was the fence always as unin- 
 viting as it then seemed to me? Were the elms always 
 inhabited by worms, and the grass on the much-talked- 
 -of green always as brown and irregular as at the time of 
 my entrance examination ? The only men whom I saw 
 on the campus were tutors scowling under the weight 
 of examination-papers, or Seniors bargaining over their 
 last articles of furniture with the second-hand men. 
 I wondered why the divinity buildings, which seemed 
 the most commodious and pleasant of all the dormi- 
 tories, should be appropriated to the use of the Theo-
 
 4 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 logues, and thought that when I got in college, there 
 was where I would choose to room. I criticized the 
 wooden turrets of Alumni Hall, but found some matter 
 for admiration in Durfee and Farnam. But when I 
 turned my lordly eyes toward "the old brick row," 
 which contained the most considerable number of 
 Yale's buildings, who could describe my feelings of 
 contempt? I estimated them in a sort of declining 
 series North, North Middle, South and South Middle. 
 I persuaded myself that it might be possible for a gen- 
 tleman's son, seeking to experience Yale social life in 
 every aspect, to try a year in North or North Middle, 
 with its modern improvements, in case he could not get 
 into Durfee or Farnam. But I winked wisely, and in- 
 formed my guide that, although I was a sub- Freshman, 
 I was not such a fool as to believe that rooms in South 
 were ever among the first choices on the campus, or that 
 any respectable men of their own accord chose to make 
 the woe-begone South Middle their residence. And 
 though I went home elated by my " white paper," yet 
 my joy was tempered by the thought of how much room 
 for improvement there was in our college, and of how I 
 for my part would have to forego till Junior year the 
 far-famed dormitory life at Yale. 
 
 My hasty condemnation of South Middle at that 
 time was but a striking instance of the evil of judging 
 simply from external appearance. I have since had 
 occasion to change my opinion, but never on account 
 of any different impression it has made on my vision. 
 It stands to-day, as it has stood for many years, in every 
 architectural sense, a blot and a monstrosity. I might 
 go so far as to say that, with a thorough acquaintance 
 with its interior peculiarities, it seems even more re- 
 pulsive to me in this one sense, than it did at first.
 
 SOUTH MIDDLE. 5 
 
 The simplicity in the design of South Middle can 
 hardly be called regal ; the brick, though not of the 
 Philadelphia manufacture, to which Mr. Mitchell takes 
 exception, lacks beauty in more senses than one, with 
 its blotched and irregular surface, deformed and un- 
 gainly, with shutters varying through all conceivable 
 shades of green and blue, rotten and leaky roof, low, 
 square windows and diminutive panes of glass, sharp 
 angles everywhere, and a generally reckless disregard of 
 all laws of symmetry, it easily belies the description, 
 " aedes h&c nitida et splendida" made of it at its dedication. 
 Dismaying, indeed, the appearance of a South Middle 
 room when at the beginning of Sophomore year you 
 stroll into your destined home ! The low ceilings, 
 which you can easily reach with your hand, the bare and 
 irregular floor, the damp and chilling atmosphere, dirt 
 and dust everywhere, and over in one corner, piled to- 
 gether in hopeless confusion, your slender stock of 
 furniture, upon which alone you can rely to make an 
 Elysium out of this Hades. I will not say that pa- 
 tience and taste will not go far in doing this, and not- 
 withstanding the exclusion of tall articles of furniture, 
 make comfortable and cosy what at first seemed so in- 
 tractable. But there are certain inherent natural objec- 
 tions which no art can overcome. If you would go into 
 the hall after dark, you do so at your own risk, for the 
 stairs are irregular and full of treacherous wavelets, 
 and posts are numerous, and lights there are none. 
 Bed-rooms are either pf moderate size, dark, and with- 
 out ventilation, or else just large enough to get an iron 
 bedstead in, but boasting a diminutive window, while 
 there are no closets at all, except where you crowd your 
 scanty store of coal and wood, when you are lucky 
 enough to have any. Some go so far as to say that
 
 6 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 South Middle is unhealthy. But their constitutions 
 are weak, and such as are likely to suffer in a room 
 close to suffocation, with its low ceiling, if you shut the 
 windows, and puffing in countless colds if you open 
 them. For them, neuralgia perches on their four bed- 
 posts, while ague, rheumatism and consumption frisk 
 sportively from under the doors, through the windows 
 and around the corners of the walls. 
 
 These seem objections sufficient to restrain the rash- 
 est from any longing to test practically the qualities of 
 South Middle, and that it is occupied at all would 
 seem to imply the existence of a very rigid and unjust 
 law of the Faculty which compels students to inhabit 
 rooms so unfit for habitation that to avoid them they 
 would leave college were it not for their greater 
 desire to graduate from Yale. But strange as it may 
 seem, this is by no means the case, and yet a vacant 
 room is seldom found in South Middle. Year after 
 year, high and low, rich and poor, aristocrat and ple- 
 beian, join in a frantic rush for the privilege of living 
 in this wretched shanty. Men bred in the lap of luxury 
 and accustomed to every convenience, with perfect 
 willingness submit to such miseries as only South Mid- 
 dle can supply. There is a charm about this old build- 
 ing which acts like a magnet on Yale men, and which 
 must be based on grounds capable of explanation. The 
 reason is altogether a mental one, and has to do with 
 every phase of college social life. Not to go too far 
 into this subject and attempt to analyze a thing which 
 by its very nature defies any such attempt, there is, in 
 the first place, the mental satisfaction which one feels 
 at his release from the clutches of that ringleted fiend, 
 the New Haven boarding-house keeper, as she has been 
 so happily called, and your lordly sense of freedom as
 
 SOUTH MIDDLE. 7 
 
 you know yourself master in toto of your own actions 
 so long as you are out of recitation-room. These old 
 disfigured walls tell no tales which will bring down 
 upon you the righteous indignation of some poor lone 
 widow, if you indulge in an invigorating game of hand- 
 ball against them. She who exercised a royal sway 
 over you during Freshman year to the tune, perhaps, of 
 eleven p. M. at the latest, and no noise at any time, has 
 been gathered to her fathers, and you yourself reign in 
 her stead. Come in at seven o'clock, if you please, 
 or come in at one o'clock, or do not come in at all, and 
 you yourself alone are made more happy or more un- 
 happy thereby. There are laws, to be sure, which are 
 supposed to put some limit on individual freedom, but 
 their very existence when their penalties may never be 
 incurred, or may be avoided by an agile dash into your 
 bedroom, only imparts an additional flavor to breaking 
 them. For instance, here, if you want to sing, and it is 
 in hours, you can sing, and if it is not in hours, you 
 can sing just the same. At least so I have found it. 
 There is an indescribable mental pleasure in feeling 
 yourself limited by no bonds except such as you wil- 
 lingly form for yourself. But pleasant as these things 
 may be, they touch simply on the surface of the matter. 
 It is the men whom you meet and the society which you 
 enjoy which constitute the chief charms. Here is a 
 variety of company suited to every varying mood of 
 the mind. When you have been reading or studying . 
 and dozing at the same time till you are weary and dis- 
 gusted, you can scour the building in search of a con- 
 genial atmosphere in which to rest yourself. 
 
 I, for my part, never could agree with the oft-re- 
 peated sentiment that it would be a blessing if old 
 South Middle would fall down or burn down, some
 
 8 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 time when no one happened to be in it. Apart from all 
 considerations of a sentimental character, as to the 
 claims of such a relic of antiquity, but simply as a dor- 
 mitory, I would that South Middle stand for ever. It 
 seems to me that as much solid enjoyment can never 
 be gotten out of the modern, fashionable buildings 
 which are usurping our campus, as these irregular and 
 unsubstantial structures afford. There is an astonish- 
 ing charm about these low ceilings and these cramped 
 walls. We do not want the stiff and staid elegancies of 
 a parlor in a student's room. The tasteful arrange- 
 ment of nick-nacks and memorabilia about the walls of 
 a South or a South Middle room, in a college man's in- 
 imitable style, and the open fire, which I beg to state, is 
 no myth, furnish a far more attractive ideal to my 
 mind, than the tinted walls, gorgeous chandeliers, steam 
 radiators, standing like so many tombstones to the 
 memory of a departed fire, and expensive tapestries 
 which are necessary in Durfee or Farnam. It is inter- 
 esting to see with what pleasure an alumnus when in 
 town comes once more to visit his room in South Mid- 
 dle. One of the rooms is pointed out as the one which 
 Chancellor Kent occupied when he was in college. A 
 story is told of his expressing a desire one time when 
 he was in the city here, some thirty or forty years after 
 he had graduated, to see his old room. Of course it 
 was occupied, and the Chancellor coming to the door, 
 knocked. The occupant, whoever he was, was with- 
 out any expectation of such a visit, and sitting in his 
 shirtsleeves with his feet upon the window sill, cried 
 , s "'* out with genuine South Middle accent, " Come in." 
 His confusion at the sight of a venerable gentleman 
 was somewhat of the same character as that which many 
 of us have felt when surprised over his ponies by some
 
 SOUTH MIDDLE. 9 
 
 intruding tutor, or in some equally pleasant position by 
 some equally welcome visitor ; but the Chancellor sim- 
 ply remarked, by way of opening the conversation, 
 In this room, in precisely that position, forty years 
 ago, I resolved that I would become Chancellor of the 
 State of New York and I became sp."
 
 HALF a hundred years have passed away since the 
 old Chapel was dedicated. Scarcely as imposing as to 
 say " thirty centuries are looking down on you," nor is 
 it more than a mere child beside the ancient halls of 
 Oxford and Cambridge. It is not hoary with age nor 
 has it moss-grown columns upon which one could 
 moralize. Still, for the country, it is respectable in 
 years, while certainly no one who has enjoyed its hos- 
 pitality would wish to have its life prolonged. 
 
 Just fifty-two classes have, one after another, sat on 
 those hard benches, and while vainly trying to sleep, 
 have mentally execrated the inventors of those instru- 
 ments of torture. During all these years they have 
 sought for soft spots on the boards, or for a comfortable 
 corner, from which they could enjoy the learned disqui- 
 sitions which have emanated from that pulpit. The 
 hacked and carved seats tell of restless bodies and idle 
 hands for which Satan could find no other occupation 
 than the school-boy amusement of cutting out initials 
 or class numerals. Our earliest predecessors, however, 
 do not seem to have left their marks behind them. 
 Either they were more reverent or possessed fewer 
 pocket-knives than the present profane and sacrilegious 
 generation. Probably the embryo Theologues of 1824 
 looked on the Chapel as a wonderfully fine and spacious 
 edifice, and would as soon have thought of defacing 
 its furniture as we will of marking the rich frescoing of
 
 THE OLD CHAPEL. II 
 
 the new temple. The wheezing of the organ was to 
 them the most glorious, dreadful music, the singing of 
 the choir was " angel voices." No daring sinner ever 
 ascended the steeple, fastened there some flaunting 
 banner, and then descended into the arms of the watch- 
 ful tutor. They did not paste "flushes" on the win- 
 dows before morning service, or abstract the cushions 
 to make bonfires and illuminations. What a shock it 
 would have been to those sober-minded youths to have 
 required them to worship beneath the gilded roof of our 
 new Chapel, and how surely would they have condemned 
 its gorgeous decorations as papistical and as works of 
 the devil. Yet it must at times have waked their carnal 
 natures to be dragged out of bed at six o'clock on a 
 cold morning to attend prayers, or brought in again at 
 half-past four, and on the Sabbath to have two outpour- 
 ings of the vials of wrath. It is little wonder that so 
 many of those sufferers have gone to another land from 
 the effects of two chapels, and no " Retreat " or " Nest " 
 to refresh the wearied flesh. 
 
 During fifty-two years the tide of college life has 
 flowed through the old Chapel. Year after year the 
 Freshmen have come in for the first time, wandering 
 around to find their seats, and have lingered at the dpor 
 to bow to the President or escort out the tutors. Year 
 after year the Seniors have studied diligently during 
 prayers and then, cramming their books into their pock- 
 ets, have risen to bow gravely and dignifiedly to the 
 President. The snab who first prinked and fluttered in 
 the gallery, in modest unconsciousness of the hundred 
 eyes fastened on them, have been long married to the 
 unfortunate youths who then in blind fatuity sat by their 
 side. Three Presidents in turn have graced that pulpit 
 and have expounded orthodoxly and learnedly to the
 
 12 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 faithful, while the unregenerated slept or played jack- 
 straw^ ; many generations of tutors have occupied those 
 proscenium boxes, and have watched sharply for delin- 
 quents, or, of a less censorious nature, have quietly over- 
 looked them.
 
 & ftoom in iDimnitg. 
 
 WHAT I took to be an evil destiny, in the form of last 
 choice for rooms on the campus, much against my will 
 banished me to Divinity, and yet like Parthenia among 
 the Allemanni, what I had looked forward to as exile, I 
 found very tolerable. 
 
 The Theologue is a genus, which I may vulgarly 
 call sui generis. I know little of him, and when I do, 
 it is seldom under the most favorable circumstances. 
 I have met him crossing the campus wheeling the ma- 
 ternal baby-carriage and leading two four-year old 
 twins and the "dolly" after him, as he edifies his 
 friends from out of town with anecdotes of " those 
 boys with so much animal spirit," and points to the 
 Italian gothic of the Chapel, comparing it with the 
 earlier style of the Library. Those of us who are 
 lounging on the Durfee steps smile at the genus, 
 think him a fruitful pastor, wonder who took the meas- 
 ure of his inexpressibles, and then turn to a new sub- 
 ject. I meet him again with a steaming pail of oat 
 meal, which he is carrying up to a club of no-body- 
 knows-how-many, but which we may call the x quan- 
 tity oat meal mess. The smell of oat meal hangs 
 about that room where a dozen hungry, empty disciples 
 are devouring twenty-five cents' worth of the farinace- 
 ous compound. At another time I find a student of 
 theology peddling reserved seats to a show at the the- 
 atre, extorting from the gentiles that they may build a
 
 14 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 temple at Jerusalem ; I see them playing hand ball in 
 the yard, with the spirits of a senior Kindergartener and 
 the activity of a two days old bull pup. Broadcloth 
 pants are carefully tucked up ; those that can afford 
 the luxury, indulge their vanity to the extent of a 
 gorgeous boating-shirt from Malley's, with fancy work 
 around the edges and a flaring, bold, bad anchor on the 
 broad breast. I look down from our tower on Divinity 
 at this odd mixture of human and divine and wonder 
 why they don't " brace up and be somebody," enter a 
 crew at Saltonstall, get up a nine, start a run of hare 
 and hounds and stop their baby antics where every- 
 body passes by and sees them. 
 
 I am not apt to be indulgent towards those with whom 
 I am not in sympathy. This is a natural feeling and 
 one which underlies the real friendships we form in 
 college. It is the secret of the bond which unites class- 
 mater at Yale more than at any other college in this 
 country that we know of. The social life is most inti- 
 mate, and it is not unsafe to say, most generous and 
 pure. We see each other from all sides and under 
 every imaginable circumstance. We learn each other's 
 vanities, foibles and strong points. We gravitate in- 
 stinctively to those with whom we are in sympathy, al- 
 though we do not on that account lose interest in the 
 rest. But as the corps to a West Pointer, so is the class 
 to us. All beyond are Philistines. We are to them the 
 most ungracious of men. We do not seek their good 
 will, and they must be suave indeed who receive any 
 from us. I sit with my feet on the window sill, and 
 muse as I contemplate the broad row of the opposite 
 building as it cuts off part of the most exquisite view 
 in New Haven. On my right I glance beyond the ro- 
 coco tower of North Church, the composite of the
 
 A ROOM IN DIVINITY. 15 
 
 State House and the beautiful gothic of Trinity, to the 
 rolling country beyond the harbor and across Long Isl- 
 and Sound. To my left I am irritated by the interfer- 
 ence of a building for Theologues. Let us watch them 
 as they appear to us. The last rays of the sun are light- 
 ing up that side and disclose at the first window the 
 Turk. We call him the Ttirk for his conceit and grav- 
 ity. He has received a. fez a gorgeous crimson fez 
 from a missionary cousin in Bulgaria, and sports this 
 Turkish trophy with the satisfaction of one who expects 
 to be a missionary some day and fight the Moslem faith 
 from under a Moslem fez. He stands at the window 
 now and surveys his sportive friends below. Fools 
 they are to him, who waste the precious hours which 
 should be devoted to a higher work. Next room con- 
 tains a parlor organ but worse than that, the The- 
 ologue sits and pumps the chronic spasms of jagged 
 melody from its ancient chest with Christian fortitude, 
 happy in the thought that physical exercise is not in- 
 compatible with devotion in the shape of variations on 
 the Missionary Hymn. As every other Theologue room 
 contains an organ in every state of preservation, tune 
 and pitch, I shall omit any further mention of them in 
 this brief catalogue of pious vanities. 
 
 I now see a Theologue before his glass yes, before 
 the mirror. Is he shaving, adjusting his white tie, 
 smoothing the clerical lock? None of these. I weep 
 as I pen the words he is practicing the benediction. 
 His hands are raised. "Is that right? No, the angle 
 of the fore-arm and index have not the real pulpit 
 angle. Ah, this is better," and after a few more pre- 
 paratory efforts, the dress rehearsal is given with closed 
 eyes and moving lips, the congregation is dismissed, the 
 prospective parson brushes his cylinder stove pipe,
 
 1 6 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 smooths his Prince Albert, and I hear the door close as 
 he leaves the twilight to appear in the role of a shepherd 
 before an audience who shall say, " How graceful Mr. 
 Sleeker is." The next window reveals the pulpit ora- 
 tor, the future Adirondack Murray. He gesticulates to 
 the setting sun, apostrophises the lightning-rod on 
 West Divinity, points to Hades in the ewer and threatens 
 perdition to the gas-burner. I can hear him from my 
 seat at the window, when the air is still. So on through 
 the various rooms of these future preachers, at whose 
 feet we may some day be listening, as we listen to Dr. 
 Hall or our own pastor. To-day we see but the un- 
 gainly, loquacious, green, sportive Theologue. We see 
 in him the type of the man who came down to Kahn's 
 dispensing wagon and asked the driver if anybody was 
 sick and if he might help carry up that heavy box of 
 medicines ; we see in him the man who ropes in the 
 little girl that peddles tooth-picks and supports two 
 fathers and eleven brothers, gives her a twenty minutes' 
 lecture on annihilation, predestination and homiletics, 
 and sends her away with a paper-collar box to the 
 woman who waits for her at the bottom of the stairs and 
 swears at the stinginess of Theologues, who would 
 " rob a poor man of his beer." I see in the Theologue 
 to-day a type of the man who became so infatuated at 
 the sound of a banjo duet, that he crept up from his 
 room, applied his ear to the keyhole and remained 
 there until a post-grad, from across the way rushed out 
 and caught him in the act. The ice was broken, the 
 Theologue entered, and the ears that vibrated to " Old 
 Hundred," accorded none the less to " Old Dan 
 Tucker" and "Susan Jane." Such is life. The The- 
 ologue is human. He enjoys life when he may, but for 
 the most part he has not the ubi cum omne. He would
 
 A ROOM IN DIVINITY. 17 
 
 be one of us, but finds the gulf too broad to span. He 
 is perforce extremely proper outwardly, for his living is 
 to be made by the exercise of strictly proper qualities. 
 His success in his ministry depends probably somewhat 
 upon the character for propriety he leaves behind him 
 at the Seminary. With us it is different. We act as we 
 feel, provided we keep out of the way of marks and 
 warnings. We care next to nothing for what the Fac- 
 ulty may think of our course of action, except in so far 
 as we may respect the opinions of men whom we re- 
 spect. We can never sympathize with the Theologue, 
 his path is too far from ours ; we can not admire him, 
 for we don't see that he possesses in any preeminent 
 degree the qualities that we admire in our fellows. I can 
 study him. He deserves and will repay careful study. 
 Psychologically we have a rare subject here, and if for 
 no other reason than this, I claim for the tower of West 
 Divinity a place in the catalogue of desirable college 
 rooms.
 
 Cibrarj) b 
 
 " And, oh ! how charm'd 
 Beneath her loveliness, creation looks." 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 MOONLIGHT has a thankless mission within college 
 precincts. 
 
 Othenvheres it is heartily welcomed. Childhood pays 
 it tribute in the celebration of time-honored games, 
 which are never so unreal, and yet never so full of real 
 enjoyment, as when it smiles upon them. It is youth's 
 golden dreamtime, whose fantasies, though over- 
 wrought, lend heart and hope to the otherwise droop- 
 ing energies. Lovers need its mystic influence to hide 
 the roughness and bring out the ideal in the two lives 
 just venturing out toward each other. Maturity leans 
 upon its staff, and thanks the moonlight for an hour of 
 rest of forward and backward looking of calm, un- 
 impassioned thought. Age, too, wishes benisons upon 
 it, as it creeps inch by inch over the sleepless couch, 
 calling up like some fabled necromancer the pano- 
 rama of by-gone days. 
 
 But college is so strong, and hale, and self-reliant, 
 that it will not be beholden to so intangible an agency. 
 In the first place, a score of roofs uplift their brown 
 shingles athwart its beams, and whole battalions of 
 chimneys and towers hold guard, as if moonlight were 
 as ruinous to young intellects as is rain to the glossy 
 beavers wherein young intellects reside. Then, hard
 
 THE LIBRARY BY MOONLIGHT. IQ 
 
 upon the roofs press the tree-tops, clad in dense foliage, 
 and swaying backward and forward, as if like sentinels 
 they would demand the passward of any stray moon- 
 beam that might attempt to smuggle its pretty self 
 within the forbidden domain. But, fortunately, tree- 
 tops sometimes fall into a reverie ; they move slowly 
 and more slowly along their beat, and at last, coming to 
 a full stop, compose themselves for a nap. Then it is 
 that the elfish moonlight which is not asleep, but wide 
 awake steals cautiously over the stained brick walls, 
 and transforms the homely walks into mosaics, and 
 rests here and there in little squares upon the grass. 
 But it finds no flowers, no shrubs, no garden alleys, no 
 cool springs, no whispering fountains. A fitful princess, 
 it has stolen from the paradise of an oriental monarch, 
 and finds itself amid the plain details of a northern 
 camp. And just as it is getting a little at home, and is 
 beginning to offset its wretchedness by the satisfaction 
 of having eluded the sentinels, and is, perhaps, a little 
 comforted by the notes of some soul-stirring song, 
 what breaks upon it but some cruel burlesque of real 
 music, or the boisterous shouts of returning merry- 
 makers, or the twanging of the irrepressible horn ? 
 sounds unearthly enough to frighten braver folk than 
 princesses. And if it lives down all these difficulties, 
 and begins its real mission ; if it seeks to woo, for an 
 hour, some young soul away from the technicalities of 
 books, away from the weary conflicts of an inner life 
 seeking after light, away from the narrowness and self- 
 seeking and littleness and faithlessness into which that 
 soul had strayed ; and if the young soul listens, and is 
 wooed, and with glad surprise feels the shackles loosen, 
 the selfishness remove, the clouds vanish, and a new 
 future dawn for his self-abhorrent self, and his poor
 
 20 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 deluded, much-enduring race, whom has the moon- 
 light for a co-worker but some student, who with no 
 difficulties to settle, no problems to solve, and no un- 
 utterable yearnings to be silent over bursts in upon 
 his thoughtful friend, and scatters all the light by de- 
 claring him for now the thousandth time "moon- 
 struck?" 
 
 To this general hostility, one building on the square 
 is a notable exception. Buttresses rise with its walls, 
 and climb into minarets above them. From a higher 
 elevation graceful arches look down upon these ; and 
 above the arches rise other minarets, above which, in 
 turn, slender towers hold sentinel. These adornments 
 attract rather than repel the moonlight, and about them 
 it flits in joyous gambols. The trees are taught not to 
 interfere ; and though there is a lack of landscape 
 gardening about the old buttresses, clambering ivies 
 atone, in a measure, for its absence. The building 
 enjoys a tolerable exemption from the discord of other 
 quarters, and seldom does an intruder break the spell 
 which the moonlight throws about it. 
 
 A grand spectacle is this building the College 
 Library of a moonlight night: a spectacle to dream 
 over, to muse over, to think soberly over. 
 
 It was the evening of a matchless October day. The 
 air balmy as summer was yet just cool enough to 
 make one reflect with comfort that it was autumn that 
 golden prelude to frosty mornings, and falling nuts, and 
 Thanksgiving joys. At this season there comes over 
 college a spirit which appears at no other time. The 
 mental rustiness which has crept over us during the 
 long vacation is just disappearing, the fine Fall days 
 put all in the best of spirits, and the year, with its plans 
 of pleasure and achievement lies before us, a bright,
 
 THE LIBRARY BY MOONLIGHT. 21 
 
 unsullied page. Though the leaves are growing sear, it 
 is college spring-time. 
 
 But, at this evening hour, the day's routine was over, 
 and everybody with a delicious sense of freedom was 
 making the very most of the leisure season. So it came 
 about that there was a quiet, satisfied murmur up and 
 down among the college buildings, reminding one of 
 the sounds which issue from a bee-hive at twilight. 
 Hours like these are to college the counterpart of those 
 domestic joys which the future whispers of, and happy 
 will it be for that future if the same spirit of cheerful- 
 ness and good will and undaunted purpose pervades 
 those, which is the life of these. 
 
 Before the open windows of a back room of North 
 Middle, I leaned back in a cozy arm-chair, and yielded 
 to the spirit of the hour. Soon the Library, in all the 
 glory of the harvest moon, gave texture to my reverie. 
 The moonlight fell upon it from the front, so that the 
 shadows seemed lost within the building itself, and all 
 that was visible from my stand-point at least was 
 bathed in one mild radiance. This building, thought I, 
 treasures within its recesses nearly a hundred thousand 
 volumes. In so large a collection of books, a majority 
 stand a chance of being and in this case I know that 
 they are the works of authors long since dead : and all 
 are so scrupulously guarded, and so tenderly cherished 
 that the remainder will be in excellent preservation 
 when their writers have mouldered into dust. These 
 volumes, too, hold a different position from that of their 
 fellows old and new gathered here and there in 
 private collections. Those may become, in an hour, the 
 prey of devouring flames, or like Roscoe's, they may 
 fall from the auctioneer's hammer to " pigmies rummag- 
 ing the armory of a giant ;" and at best they are objects
 
 22 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 of suspicion or ridicule oftener than of welcome. These, 
 on the other hand, are preserved from the elements by 
 massive walls and heavily mailed doors. One by one 
 the votive offerings of generations they have been 
 gathered, and no remorseless creditor will ever stretch 
 forth his hand to defile their garments. They form 
 themselves into a kind of literary commonwealth, and 
 all who enter their domain, do so with awe, if not with 
 reverential love. They are so located, moreover, that 
 they form the penetralia whence great teachers draw 
 their choicest lore : to them resort writers and thinkers 
 of the country round, and hundreds of youth feel, while 
 among them, their first deep thirst for broad research, 
 and drink in from them their first long draught. These 
 books, then the condensed summaries of the best 
 thoughts and best labors of multitudes of lives are 
 silently doing a great work : in fact, now that their 
 writers are gone, or are soon to go, the}' become their rep- 
 resentatives, each in its nook ever young with the spirit 
 of some toiler whose weary frame is long ago at rest. 
 
 At thoughts like these, the library ceased to be a dull 
 old building, by day the resort of book-worms, and by 
 night a nonentity. It became, instead, a spacious 
 palace, peopled with thousands of intelligencies which 
 had gathered from every age and clime here to take up 
 their residence. The other buildings seemingly so 
 astir with life and thought dwindled away till they 
 seemed like shelter-tents about the pavilion of an 
 emperor : and as for their indwellers, who seemed, an 
 hour before, such prodigies of culture and excellence, 
 these, too, shrunk away till they became puny dwarfs, 
 creeping in and out the low tent doors, and strutting 
 about with ridiculous pomp at the discovery of some 
 cast-off feather of knowledge.
 
 THE LIBRARY BY MOONLIGHT. 23 
 
 Then what a brightness hovered about this abode of 
 books ! No dark shadows yawned here and there, re- 
 pulsive from their somberness, or frightful from their 
 mystery, or, at best, a mar to the prevailing brightnes's. 
 And yet it was not a dazzling splendor. One did not 
 shrink blinded from the sight. There was no exceed- 
 ing brightness to hide defect, or to repulse lesser lights, 
 or to depict all with self-satisfied ostentation. This 
 mellow glory ! how fit a mantle seemed it, to be hung 
 nightly about this hallowed edifice ! How in keeping 
 with the great spirits which had taken up their abode 
 within ! 
 
 And now they were at rest. Night had sent life's 
 half-reluctant toilers to their cups, their revels, their 
 lusts. To these silent workers it brought relaxation, 
 also ; but, like the etherealized spirits which they repre- 
 sented, they had no consuming passions to satiate. 
 With the twilight they had left their toil, to rest. Such 
 were the dwellers at the library, such their abode, and 
 such their work. How glorious it all seemed under 
 that harvest moon ! And had not hundreds of Yale 
 students entered the pathway to the self-same glory?
 
 QTorners of tl)e 
 
 WE are many in number and are confined to a nar- 
 row extent of country, but notwithstanding, there are 
 only too many unvisited parts of Yale College parts 
 which will repay a moderate degree of exploring, and 
 that in our own territory, without making dangerous 
 incursions into the lands of the outer barbarians the 
 Law, Medical and Art Schools. Were it not for fear of 
 giving offense, we might include our half-brother, the 
 S. S. S., with the rest. For all these places are to the 
 average Academic student as unknown as the gloomy 
 recesses of the subterranean cavern to which the gnome- 
 like Waite is supposed to flee from the frozen-out 
 furies of the steam-heated room. Our knowledge of 
 the Scientific School, outside of a few personal friends, 
 is confined to the fact that each year brings forth a 
 swarm of young men who do not come on the campus, 
 but remain with us for a season and never become 
 Sophomores. Our perception of the presence of the 
 Art School is called into being by a pair of Raphael- 
 like heads of hair, and an occasional lecture, attended 
 for the sake of the aesthetic snab. Of the rest we 
 would know nothing, were it not for the occasional in- 
 telligence that one who was formerly with us is with us 
 no more, but has departed to the Law or Medical sub- 
 urbs ; then we have the feeling they are with us indeed, 
 but not of us. Many indeed are the parts of the cam- 
 pus we never feel obliged to favor with our company.
 
 ODD CORNERS OF THE CAMPUS. 25 
 
 Even in Alumni Hall, to which the Jubilee serves as a 
 yearly introduction, a sort of New Year's day, when the 
 old hall receives all its friends and unbends a little 
 from its usual cold dignity and reserve, there are laby- 
 rinths to which not one in the thousand eager climbers 
 toward the Temple of Wisdom, ever penetrates. Like 
 an old feudal castle, it has secret passages, hidden 
 stairways and unsuspected rooms ready for all emer- 
 gencies. Often has the wily Sophomore sacrificed the 
 blade of his knife upon the Yale lock only to find him- 
 self conducted by a new route to his flunking room. 
 Then, too, from that mysterious room over the door, 
 often are heard the deep notes of an organ played at all 
 uncanny hours, in defiance of the powers that be. The 
 mystery is not indeed in regard to the identity of the 
 musician, but did you ever think who pumped the 
 organ ? When the sweet strains cease, there comes but 
 one veiled figure forth ; it cannot be possible that one 
 person runs it. There must be some chained captive 
 in the dungeons beneath, where they keep the masto- 
 don. Perhaps it is Waite. Men have frequently 
 searched the campus so thoroughly that there are but 
 few places still left for theory to assume as his abiding- 
 place. 
 
 Then there is the Observatory in the top of the 
 Athenaeum tower. There is also room for observation 
 here. Passing up those stairs where I used to throw 
 my Euclid, and later on, some other man's Chauvenet, 
 I pass on, up, above where I used to stop, and if you 
 follow the example of most explorers, you find a trap- 
 door by violently striking your head against it. Having 
 passed all obstacles you find yourself in a circular 
 room, and greatest pleasure of all, you have only to 
 turn a crank and you seem to be moving the universe.
 
 26 COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 Your dreams are more than realized the earth revolves 
 around you. But upon closer examination you will 
 discover that the upper part alone revolves and your 
 bubble breaks. As an entirely secondary thought, it 
 would be a good thing to take a look through the tele- 
 scope, merely because the certain disappointment you 
 will experience is only what you might expect from the 
 previous deception in regard to the room itself. The 
 matter stands exactly thus : if you put on a low power, 
 you see a large extent of nothing more than you can 
 see with your naked eye ; with a high power you can 
 see the same more plainly, at least that is what you are 
 told ; but if you are wise you wijl make no bets on the 
 subject. The only object really worth seeing with that 
 telescope is the City Hall clock ; it fills the whole field 
 of the telescope, and makes you feel as if you were 
 alone with Time. Going down stairs again is even more 
 exciting than going up, because it is so much simpler 
 to fall down stairs than up stairs. 
 
 Just back of Alumni Hall there is an underground 
 railway ; at least it sounds impressive to say so, but in 
 reality it is a little car on two iron rails, for carrying 
 coal to the telephone-like furnaces, whose vibrations 
 have been the cause of so many articles in the college 
 periodicals. In this living tomb below are immured 
 three or four men who are to blame for all the unearthly 
 racket of the steam-fiend. And yet they are allowed to 
 pass unmolested through the campus, and are even 
 looked up to and respected by those who have wan- 
 dered into their special kingdom. At least two more 
 places deserve to be thoroughly explored. One is that 
 half of the laboratory building which is only familiar to 
 us as an inexhaustible mine for ail sorts of philosophi- 
 cal apparatus. It seems sometimes like a sort of dark
 
 ODD CORNERS OF THE CAMPUS. 27 
 
 chamber, from which proceed the materialized spirits of 
 those vague conceptions of the apparatus in the Physics 
 with which we, at least those of us whose names ap- 
 pear but once in the Catalogue, enter into a recita- 
 tion. 
 
 One day, not long ago, an assistant was sent into this 
 dark cabinet with one end of a telephone, and he failed 
 to appear for three days. He probably traced his way 
 back in the manner of Theseus, by means of the wire. 
 The Cabinet building is almost entirely an unknown 
 territory, and in its cellar, or rather basement, there is a 
 sort of virgin forest. A single glance through its dusty 
 panes is enough to convince anyone of the truth of this 
 statement. Our only hope is that, now the Peabody 
 Museum is finished, the contents of these and other curi- 
 osity shops may be placed out in plain view, and Yale 
 College at last become aware of how much it is worth. 
 They probably possess untold millions in old iron and 
 wooden boxes ; enough at least to build a new Dormi- 
 tory.
 
 OClje College Sell. 
 
 " Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 Of the bells, b,ells, bells, bells, 
 Bells, bells, bells." 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 THE present College bell that swings over the Lyceum 
 has been in use now twelve years. How many prede- 
 cessors came before it, or where they have gone to, his- 
 tory saith not. It may be interesting to the readers of 
 the Lit. in these latter days, to hear how the Editor, 
 twelve years ago, welcomed the bell. 
 
 " We have one point yet to touch upon, which affords 
 us great pleasure. We refer to the new bell. What a 
 luxury ! Some good genius some good genius of 
 acoustics must be hovering over us. We thought when 
 the old bell was cracked, we. should 'ne'er look upon 
 its like again.' But we are wandering from our text ; 
 we ought to have said, we feared we should ne'er hear 
 ' its like again.' But never mind about that. Acoustics 
 and optics are not more than a term apart. And well 
 we might have entertained such fears, for a while, be- 
 cause the second bell was not acquainted with the first 
 principles of College duty. Why, the good-for-nothing 
 old tinnalntliim (at the same time, we don't wish to in- 
 sult the bell by calling it a ' door-bell,' or a ' cow-bell,') 
 couldn't ' even turn over.' What a Kararopo^ ! But 
 what should occur in the 'winter of our discontent,' but 
 a new bell arrival !" 
 
 With such execrable wit was the advent heralded. 
 The complete brass with which the Latin is robbed of 
 half its tin and the Greek spoiled of every accent, 
 would put the Editor of the present times to the blush.
 
 THE COLLEGE BELL. 2Q 
 
 What more distinct proof could we wish of the rise in 
 Yale scholarship within the last decade ! And then the 
 bold familiarity which pervades the whole passage, as 
 well as the disregard of all analysis of the organs of 
 sense-perception, bear equal evidence of the lament- 
 ably low state of the moral and mental sciences. That 
 old bell had a bad effect upon the College. And in- 
 deed it must have been a miserably poor one. In com- 
 parison with it, the present substitute is pronounced 
 lr a luxury," even though unable to turn over; and 
 when the grateful Editor beheld it with his ears, as he 
 seems to have done in his "wanderings," he acknowl- 
 edged the presence of at least two good genii-, hovering 
 o'er him up in the Lyceum dome. 
 
 When one first comes to New Haven, there is nothing 
 that confuses him so constantly as the number, variety 
 and continual ringing of bells. There are the bells of 
 all the churches round the city green, which ring on 
 every conceivable occasion whenever anything is to be 
 done or not done. There is the bell at the depot, which 
 rings every time a train is expected to come or go. 
 There are the numberless shirt factories and carriage 
 factories, each of which has its own particular bell, and 
 its own particular time for ringing it. All these bells 
 besides chime in the hours according to their own 
 peculiar chronology, so that noon is any time between 
 11:45 A.M. and 12:15 A. M. And to swell the harmony, 
 there is the College bell, which warns the student when in 
 the morning to turn over for his last nap ; when, an hour 
 afterward, to go to breakfast, and in three minutes 
 again, to come back to prayers ; which rings every half 
 hour for the time, and every half hour for a recitation ; 
 which proclaims the anniversary of every meal ; and 
 after the shades of night begin to fall, calls alike to
 
 3O COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 prayer-meetings or large society the revival of religion, 
 or the decay of eloquence. One would almost think 
 Mr. Poe was a Yale student, when he sang his " tintinna- 
 bulation," except that he makes no allusions to the bell 
 of Alma Mater, unless it be in those misanthropic ones, 
 which 
 
 " In that muffled monotone, 
 Feels a glory in so rolling, 
 On the human heart a stone." 
 
 I say it is hard for the new-comer to learn the pecu- 
 liar note of the College campana, on which alone he 
 must depend for punctuality at College exercises. Does 
 one object, "Why depend upon the bell alone? Are 
 watches and clocks impossible to the student?" My 
 friend, there be watches many and clocks many ; there 
 be those that go by springs and those that tick to the 
 swing of the pendulum ; there is time solar and sidereal. 
 But he that would carry College time, must swear 
 
 " By the moon, the inconstant moon, 
 That monthly changes," 
 
 not only, but also several times a day. It is hard at 
 first to distinguish the College bell, but the power is 
 acquired at last ; and before he ends his course, pro- 
 vided that end be not premature, the Senior knows by 
 heart, not only the moments when the ringing must 
 commence, but the proper succession of every stroke, 
 and even the number of times the tolling will be con- 
 tinued. He knows the worthy ringer tolls on the aver- 
 age 125 beats for the " last bell " before prayers ; that he 
 rings on the average 50 at 10:30 A. M.; 140 at 11:30; 40 
 for dinner and supper ; while for service on a Sunday, 
 he pulls till he is tired, and then, his cheeks all rosy
 
 THE COLLEGE BELL. 31 
 
 with the exercise, and his whole soul filled to overflow- 
 ing with the melody of the ringing, he hies away to the 
 Chapel choir to rid himself of this superfluous music. 
 
 At 11:25 A. M. the college campus is undisturbed, 
 save by some wandering footstep ; within five minutes 
 the old bell is pealing its loudest clangors, and troops 
 of votaries press from every quarter to the various out- 
 croppings of the " pierian spring." It is easy to recog- 
 nize the student, all ungowned as he is, among the 
 townspeople, by that classic air that always will sur- 
 round him that otium cum dignitate he wears like a 
 garment. But no less surely will you here distinguish 
 the various classmen from each other ; whether it be the 
 " grave and reverend," as he calmly strolls along, or the 
 Sophomore, for the time being awed by a presence 
 greater even than this, or the neophyte, with hurried 
 foot stumbling through the unused paths, while his 
 anxious eyes become inflamed over the Greek-fire of 
 Professor James Hadley, M.A. It is astonishing with 
 what suicidal haste these underclassmen rush to the 
 torture. The poet has manfully noted it : 
 
 " One more unfortunate 
 
 Sophomore wight, 
 Rashly importunate, 
 
 Gone to recite." 
 
 Yet you are right, gentlemen. Delay not. Procrasti- 
 nation is the thief of time, and punctuality a saver of 
 marks unto matriculation.
 
 DORMITORY LIFE.
 
 Hnber tljc 
 
 GROUPS under the elm-trees ! Groups under the elms 
 just after dinner, when everybody prefers a pipe and 
 a comfortable sprawl in the grass, to climbing up four 
 flights of stairs and translating Undine, or cramming 
 for Biennial ! Under the elms these hot days, where 
 so carelessly, so lazily and so deliciously cool we 
 lie, reading, joking, laughing, smoking, peeping out at 
 times from the thick shade, at the old iron pointers, 
 which spasmodically twitch along towards recitation time 
 and quickly drawing back our heads with the gratifying 
 assurance that we've a half hour yet before beginning 
 the old, old fight with books, the flesh and the devil ! 
 
 Under the elms five minutes before the clanging of 
 the remorseless old sentinel in Lyceum belfry ! What 
 a fluttering and sometimes cutting of leaves ! What a 
 racing through the whole lesson to catch some cue 
 which will enable colloquy men to save an inglorious 
 fizzle, and philosophicals to make a triumphant rush. 
 What varied expressions of countenance ! Here smil- 
 ing complacency, there scowls ; this man whistles, that 
 one swears ; here the serenity of indifference, there the 
 serenity of despair. Now the bell begins to ring. What 
 slow and toilsome ascent up the narrow stairs ! What 
 a sudden bolting into the recitation room as the last 
 stroke dies away, and the door closes with a slam be- 
 hind the last loiterer, and upon a division meekly ex- 
 pectant of the hour's worse contingencies.
 
 36 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 Under the elms in early evening ! Here groups of 
 men ring out our grand old Student songs, and all cares, 
 all study, everything but good fellowship forgotten, join 
 their hearts and voices to the richness of the harmony 
 which fills and dies upon the air. What magic there is 
 in those old songs, to be sure ! What an enchantress to 
 drive away despondency, loneliness, trouble, and " thou 
 child of the devil " the blues ! Here the enthusiasm, 
 the jollity, the earnestness and the friendship of our 
 College life find fitting expression, and after a good sing 
 our hearts feel lighter and our sleep is sweeter ; for in 
 the matchless eloquence of song, we have given utter- 
 ance to the common purposes, sympathies and hopes, 
 which make up the unity of our daily life. 
 
 Under the elms in the solemn hush of midnight ! No 
 enthusiasm of an hour, no fitful excitement now, but an 
 unbroken silence, while the clear stars and the pale 
 moon shed their mild radiance upon us. This the hour 
 for serious thought and searching self-inspection. This 
 the hour for struggling doubts and hopes. This the 
 hour to call up the follies of the past, and as they troop 
 in long procession by, to look, shudderingly it may be, 
 at what we were thankfully and yet sorrowfully for 
 what little of good we are and earnestly hopeful for a 
 better day, by and by, for us and for all men. 
 
 Under the Elms once more ! The last song has been 
 sung, and we stand with clasped hands now. A few 
 moments more, and the class, which for four long years 
 has trod the same weary round, and shared the common 
 pleasures and cares of student-life, goes out from this 
 old place out from its studies and associations out 
 from its speculations and castle buildings out into 
 action and the world.
 
 n tl)c feme. 
 
 ^Forsan et hac olfm meminisse juva.bit" 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 RETURNING from an after-supper walk the other 
 evening, I came upon the college fence in its best estate. 
 It was a pleasant evening, with a dry warmth such as 
 one rarely finds in New Haven weather ; the elms, with 
 their bewitching curves, were crowned with one mass of 
 greenery ; while through their shadows shone here and 
 there from out of college windows the glimmer of 
 lamps reminding one that the " literary exercises " had 
 their devotees, even on such an evening as this. On 
 the fence were groups of students ; and just in front of 
 one of these congregations a couple of little brown- 
 skinned vagabonds were singing " with the spirit " to 
 the tinkle of a harp and the squeal of a violin, in expec- 
 tation of a plenteous harvest of pennies. 
 
 I stopped at a sufficient distance to be clear of the 
 magnetism which always hovers about a crowd, and 
 wondered to myself how one could describe the fence. 
 To say that it was so many lengths long, so many rails 
 high, or stood in such and such a place, would be very 
 much like describing the college-chambers by giving 
 their length, breadth and height, the number of bed- 
 rooms each contained, together with the closets, shelves, 
 etc., but omitting all mention of the traditions and quaint 
 memorials with which each room is full ; the goodly 
 fellowships, the honest life-long friendships which dwell 
 therein ; the wit and wisdom, the songs and stories,
 
 38 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 which hover about these contracted dwelling-places ; 
 in short, by mentioning the mortar and brick, but leaving 
 out the mind and human nature. Disregarding, then, 
 the mere physicial data and looking simply at that part 
 of college life which may be summed up in the word 
 fence, I thought I had happened upon a phase of human 
 experience such as could be found nowhere outside of 
 college, and one well worthy of examination. 
 
 The fence is a regular part of the college curriculum. 
 Although it really ranks among the higher studies not 
 being taken up until the second year yet it has a cer- 
 tain influence upon a man from the time he first comes 
 here. I dare say no sub-freshman ever came to Yale 
 without asking some question of a man on the fence ; 
 and indeed it seems quite natural that this should be so, 
 for, as he beholds the rows of men sitting thereon, he at 
 once imagines that these are reliable persons whom the 
 Faculty have placed in this prominent position for the 
 purpose of giving such directions and information as 
 strangers may wish to get. He regards it at this time 
 with great complacency and not a little condescension. 
 The member of the " incoming class," however, finds 
 his position changed when he at last gets his white 
 paper and becomes de facto a member of college. Sud- 
 denly he discovers that the atmosphere of the fence is 
 unfavorable to his health. As he finds it necessary to 
 remain at a distance from it, its value increases. It be- 
 comes a divinity to him ; and from the safe retreat of 
 Hoadley's he worships it in devout admiration. The 
 passion grows. He gets to giving quite as much 
 thought to that coming white day when he can sit on the 
 fence with impunity, as to his rank as a scholar while 
 it is probably that his chances of ever sitting thereon 
 would be materially increased, if he thought less about
 
 ON THE FENCE. 39 
 
 it and more about his studies. Mayhap, if bold enough, 
 he watches for a rainy night, when passers-by are few 
 and upper-class men are elsewhere, and at the witching 
 hour of twelve seats himself in the long coveted. posi- 
 tion a second ^Eneas, in the Elysian plains without any 
 pater Anchises. 
 
 Sophomore year is the " open sesame " to this unique 
 chapter of delights ; and perhaps at this time there is 
 the most persistent sitting on the fence, just for the sake 
 of sitting there, of any time during the college course. 
 It possesses all the delights of newness and superiority. 
 The privilege of perching one's self on the topmost rail 
 has all the fascination for new-fledged sophomores that 
 swinging on the front gate has for children of a smaller 
 growth. This feeling, however, wears away. And yet, 
 during the entire second year, it seems to me that the 
 fence plays a prominent part in the life of college men. 
 Wherever the egg of class mischief may be laid, it is 
 pretty sure to be hatched somewhere near the fence. 
 The society songs are sung there ; and now and then a 
 bit of college politics comes in for spice withal, and this, 
 should chance permit, may be " arranged " at the fence. 
 Beside : the ineffable glory of watching the envious 
 freshmen is no mean addition to the pleasures of the 
 fence during sophomore year. 
 
 Junior year inducts a man into something more than 
 this vulgar pleasure. The third year, notwithstanding 
 its politics and its various displays of swallow-tails, is 
 a kind of an Indian Summer epoch. And the fence is no 
 exception. It is no longer a new thing, and a year's ex- 
 perience has taken away much of the fancied notion of 
 superiority. The roystering song which chronicled the 
 transition of freshmen into sophomores now gives way 
 to madrigals and mission-school hymns. The taste,
 
 40 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 too, has become somewhat more critical. No longer 
 does a nudge or a whispered (as though it were a second 
 Augustan age) 
 
 " O crus ! O brachia ! rt 
 
 mark the passing by of every woman. In short, juniors, 
 "though not clean past their youth, have yet some 
 smack of age in them, some relish of the saltness of 
 time." The change in location shows this. In sopho- 
 more year the fellows look toward the sun-rising ; in 
 junior year they face to the southward. It is a tropical 
 period. 
 
 Senior year, it appears to me, must open " fresh fields 
 and pastures new." The seniors have taken their last 
 hitch on the fence. The jollity of sophomores, the self- 
 satisfied pleasantness of juniors, is now succeeded by a 
 touch of sentiment. The future, which rarely troubles 
 the average college man, demands some consideration ; 
 and that is always a sobering thing to do. Perhaps, 
 however, the change which is inevitable is the more 
 thought-breeding. To kick a chair out of doors, how- 
 ever rickety and deceitful it may be, is not a pleasant 
 undertaking for the sensitive man. 
 
 " We cannot 
 
 Buy with gold the old associations." 
 
 And more especially is this true in the case of leaving 
 college. There is not one of us, probably, even among 
 those who have been here the briefest time, but has at 
 one time or another cursed Yale college and everything 
 connected with it ; and yet to leave this old mother after 
 a four years' attachment to her apron-strings is no 
 pleasant matter for the coldest and most selfish among 
 us. This approaching separation is the ghost that 
 haunts the senior section of the fence. The excitement
 
 ON THE FENCE. 4! 
 
 of pitching pennies, of spinning tops, of playing at leap- 
 frog, cannot exorcise the grim fellow from his perch. 
 The " silver sand of hope " has uncoiled to the very end, 
 so far as college is concerned ; to-morrow the good-bys 
 must be said, and this day's end brings us to-morrow. 
 At such a time the fence must seem like an old familiar 
 friend, always the same to us, whatever our mood may 
 be. And so, involuntarily, we come to it more softly, 
 we are lower-voiced and more confidential in our chats 
 about it, and we leave it more reverently than at any 
 previous stage of college life. 
 
 Again : if you ever noticed it, there is a certain fence 
 aristocracy in every class. One can tell the crSme de la 
 creme of this aristocracy by the assured way in which 
 they seat themselves thereon. They feel themselves 
 masters of the situation. Less constant habituh look 
 up to such persons with a great deal of reverence. 
 They rarely have as much assurance in the recitation- 
 room but that is because they lack their inspiration. 
 Could they but recite on the fence, a fizzle would be im- 
 probable and a flunk impossible. They are pleasant 
 fellows, always : no crabbedness can long hold sway over 
 such a kingdom ; and they are fellows of some talent, 
 else they would as surely be dethroned. They are often 
 lazy, and quite frequently subject to ill-health, especially 
 on Monday and Thursday mornings. They are never 
 close communion : give them only comfortable room, 
 and you may take all the rest. Altogether, the fence 
 frequenters are a most desirable element in college : 
 hearty good boys, generous to a fault, honest, full of 
 pluck, and ready to help you kill time any day in the 
 week. 
 
 I suppose the fence and its associations will be re- 
 membered a great while longer than the equation of the
 
 42 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 parabola. The latter may have done us more good 
 but what seems to be of little good is usually the most 
 pleasant. We all like to be pleased, and we remember 
 what pleases us. 
 
 Some day, after we have gone away from here, and 
 only the big book, in which we promised not to swear or 
 play cards, keeps our names in remembrance, a musty 
 immortality, at best ! a few of us, now and then, will 
 stray back, to look at the place where we were boys to- 
 gether. Gray-headed, and beaten, perhaps, in all that 
 we had once hoped for, we shall be ; but the fence will 
 not stand upon that. It is a constant friend. And 
 there, upon it, some summer's afternoon, while the but- 
 terflies go by, 
 
 " Playing in their Sunday dress," 
 
 and the elms droop above us as of yore, we shall live 
 over the past. The fence will be the magician, and we 
 shall see again the old faces, and shall hear the old 
 names, though they 
 
 " Have been carved for many a year 
 On the tomb."
 
 crm Hoofing. 
 
 THERE is a tradition commonly received through- 
 out Christendom, to the effect that a special Providence 
 watches over the interests of drunkards and children. 
 To which of these classes the student should be assigned 
 may be an open question, but all will support me, I am 
 sure, in the assertion that some benign influence of this 
 kind assisted in the arrangement of our college year. 
 See how the seasons themselves are contrived for our 
 convenience. First comes the fall term, a sort of initia- 
 tion to college work. A forced and short-lived excite- 
 ment about base ball, a very insignificant boating fever, 
 the ephemeral joys of the rush, the few abortive at- 
 tempts at a revival of the glorious old custom of hazing; 
 these all serve to call back our minds from the inde- 
 scribable luxuries and enjoyments of the long vacation. 
 On the other hand, the renewed activity of our tutors, 
 the warnings, marks and letters home, serve to show us 
 what is coming. By the end of the fall term, the hard- 
 working, sensible part of the college, my readers, in 
 other words, are strengthened, so to speak, to wade 
 through the necessary work of the curriculum. Then 
 two weeks to take a long breath ; a hasty plunge into 
 city gayeties, or a furious destruction of country pro- 
 visions, and we are irrevocably embarked in the winter 
 term ; and the mere writing of this sentence makes me 
 shudder. I seem to see our loved city of elms draped 
 in a modern version of Egyptian darkness a darkness
 
 44 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 which can very easily be felt, but which does not quite 
 succeed in hiding the Stygian streams of slush which 
 ooze down the sidewalks, the extensive lakes which 
 persistently cover the campus, and the unlucky devils 
 who flit about this chilly Hades, coming down occa- 
 sionally with very unspiritual emphasis in some pool of 
 especial depth. The picture is not pleasing, to be sure, 
 and one might think that the kind genius of the student 
 had in this case been transformed into a malevolent 
 demon. But look deeper. Did we not come to col- 
 lege to study, and is not this purgatorial term provided 
 on purpose that we may all square our accounts in this 
 particular ? The question answers itself, and with a 
 start of mingled apprehension and relief, as when one 
 awakens from a fearful dream, with faces careworn it is 
 true, but lit up with hope, we turn our backs on every- 
 thing unpleasant, and sail boldly out into the third term. 
 Now our good genius comes out strong, and the 
 lakes and rivers of darkness give place to greens filled 
 with beauty and streets filled with mud. Boating, ball, 
 amusement of every kind, awaits our nod. The very 
 shortness of the term enhances its value, while the 
 prospects of happiness to come removes the uncom- 
 fortable air of evanescence which clouds most of the 
 short-lived joys of this world. Philosophers, poets and 
 sages have exercised themselves from time immemorial 
 to give expression to their idea of happiness. If, as 
 Horace says, you are willing to turn away from these 
 standard physicians and trust the judgment of a poor 
 apprentice, I give it as my candid opinion that that man 
 is most to be envied who enters the summer term at 
 Yale with good health, a clear conscience, and with a 
 feeling that he has done his duty by the studies of the 
 past year. . But I am wandering from the subject with
 
 THIRD TERM LOAFING. 45 
 
 which I set out. I must not go into raptures over the 
 third term in general, but restrict myself to a consider- 
 ation of its loafing in particular. 
 
 This loafing, while I think of it, is a bad word ; it 
 does not express my meaning at all, but I can think of 
 no better and hope it will be rightly understood. With- 
 out questioning in the least the proverbial connection 
 between Satan and idle hands, I am an earnest advocate 
 of loafing in the sense in which I use the word. Do you 
 wish my reasons? I only ask you, if you have nothing 
 else to do, to stroll with me down to the fence. As we 
 stand here between these rows of trees and see the fel- 
 lows collecting on our corner, while the notes of the first 
 song are wafted toward us, I leave it to you if we do not 
 get an impression of heaven upon earth which it would 
 be hard to surpass. But this is not one of those earthly 
 paradises whose charms are only visible from a distance, 
 and our voices are soon doing their best to swell the 
 harmony, and quite a part of the evening has passed 
 before we saunter back to our rooms to read over the 
 morning lesson. 
 
 But what do we do meanwhile, and what enjoyment 
 is there in it, and why do our old graduates always 
 dwell on the memories of the fence and always collect 
 around it when their time comes at triennial ? Well, 
 really, not having the pen of a ready writer, I can- 
 not say ; but this I know, that there the whole class 
 meet on an equality ; that social and intellectual dis- 
 tinctions are disregarded ; that we poor fellows of a 
 retiring disposition, whose ordinary life and conversa- 
 tion are often, I fear, very commonplace, can enjoy the 
 jokes and familiar talk of you, the upper ten ; while 
 you, I think, take a genuine and generous pleasure in 
 giving us so much happiness. The jokes, the pleasant
 
 46 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 sayings, the feeling of pride and affection in our class 
 which seems to spring up anew in this assembling of 
 ourselves together, the total absence of anything like 
 exclusiveness or jealousy or bad feeling, the pleasant 
 odor of cigars so different from the suffocating smoke 
 of a close room, all the benign influences of nature com- 
 bined ; no wonder that old gentleman on the balcony of 
 the New Haven House looks down with envy and 
 wishes above all things else that he was a boy again 
 in college. But far ahead of all the rest is the singing. 
 When the college jubilee singers first made their ap- 
 pearance and set the whole world to wondering where 
 they found that rich melody so different from anything 
 our art had produced, we were all glad to believe that 
 this music and the capability for enjoying it had been 
 mercifully given them as a support and consolation in 
 the toil and suffering of their servitude. Now, if any 
 one doubts that our college singing was given in the 
 same way to cheer us in our study and keep us from 
 other less innocent forms of amusement, I will have 
 nothing more to do with the graceless infidel, except to 
 ask him what other explanation he can give for the 
 charm which our songs are universally acknowledged 
 to possess?
 
 I)eartl]3t0nes. 
 
 NESTLE ! The winds are growing brave and cold. 
 They rattle the shutters they shake the doors they 
 come slyly in at the window-pane which some vagrant 
 pebble hath shattered. There is a rushing sound of 
 might, too, among the old elms without, but there is no 
 melody. The leaves that used to rustle music have 
 fallen. The harp is unstrung. The days, when we sat 
 upon the grass, under the old trees in the College yard, 
 panting with heat and wondering what kind of a sen- 
 sation cold would be, are, for the present, gone. The 
 sunbeams are pale and chill. The mornings are no 
 longer cool, but cold. You shiver through Prayers and 
 Recitation. Great coats and mufflers stalk the streets 
 all day. The winds are whistling to the great fierce 
 dogs of winter. They are coming. We seem to hear 
 their baying, and the timid Summer-spirit, beautiful 
 and delicate, has been frighted away. Winter is surely 
 coming. Cheerful, old Winter with its rigors. Come 
 then and sit down by my fireside. It is but an humble 
 one. None of your great old-fashioned country fire- 
 places, where they pile the logs real veritable logs on 
 the great broad hearth, and the fire glows and roars 
 fiercely nor yet is it one of those cosy, city firesides, 
 where a comfortable but fastidious elegance seldom 
 warms itself into real ease ; but a student's grate, warm, 
 and burning so quietly as not to disturb the very even 
 tenor of our thoughts. It has charms you will not find
 
 48 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 elsewhere. Come and sit with me of an evening. Chill 
 and cheerless without, it shall be glowing within. The 
 old lounge shall be drawn up before the fire. That old 
 lounge who knows through how many academic gen- 
 erations it has been transmitted? It is old, and quaint, 
 and full of comfort. Then too, the family of chairs ! 
 The venerable, one-armed, squeaking rocking-chair a 
 heritage from your College grand-father, which full of 
 years and scars, seems, as it sits vacant by the grate, to 
 seek your patronage. Tick ! Tick ! says the clock upon 
 the shelf. Forth and back ever, in its arched journey 
 goes the pendulum. Do not look at it. It will spoil 
 the poetry. It is but a lean and little representative of 
 the chronometrical race. Genus, wooden species, 
 Jerome's. How utterly insignificant when compared 
 with your recollection of the old family clock at home 
 the heir-loom of a hundred years ! How grand and 
 majestic, its portly figure, as you remember it standing 
 in the hall, and looking most severely good-natured out 
 its great, honest, Dutch face down, upon the childish 
 sports of yore, ticking ever on at its endless task, and 
 hourly plying its great hammer, till the whole house 
 echoed with its clamor ! That is the clock for me ! 
 The guard over such jewels as hours and minutes 
 should have some stateliness, as well as form and com- 
 liness. It is a desecration of our ideas of propriety for 
 men to set up such wooden images of time to de- 
 prive this modern lar of all its dignity and durability. 
 But never mind ! It is cheaper. Wood costs less than 
 brass, so the age demand a change. It has it, as it has 
 everything else it needs. Tick ! Tick ! goes the clock 
 such as it is. The minute hand shall make many a cir- 
 cuit before we sleep to-night. Heap the anthracite up- 
 on the fire ! Let it crackle cheerily, and the grate glow.
 
 HEARTHSTONES. 49 
 
 Let the lamp be extinguished, and the dingy, indented 
 ceiling blush in the mellow hues of the fire. Oh ! there 
 is no light like the firelight. Then your pale-faced 
 student friend looks ruddy, and the smile of comfort 
 that plays upon his face has a strange beauty. Two 
 things it does which oil, or fluid, or gas cannot it 
 warms the body and the heart. 
 
 Bring out the cigars ! Shedden's best ! Let no un- 
 seemly look of repugnance come over face, manly or 
 fair. Give us sweet smiles and silvery voices to beguile 
 our solitary and idle hours, and we will be total ab- 
 stinence. It is a bad habit. We know it. We feel it. 
 Prof. S. says it is so, and we all believe. It is disgusting 
 it is a poison it is enervating both for the time and 
 permanently. It makes the strongest mind think less 
 clearly, and provokes day dreams. It does no man 
 good, and injures every votary. It is the very kin of 
 intemperance. All this and more we know. We agree 
 exactly, save in practice, and in the knowledge that it 
 has a charm a pleasure which cannot be guessed or 
 told. 
 
 There are few companionships like the weed. So 
 shall the smoke curl upward. So shall aerial wreaths 
 encircle me. So shall my firelight gild them. So shall 
 friendships be begotten and confidences provoked. 
 Touch not the practice with too unkindly hands. Is 
 there no beam in thine own censorious eye ? See to it 
 that this mote of thy brother's be not the lesser ! Smok- 
 ing is a. petit vice, and a pleasant one. It is the student's 
 solace. Within college a never failing source of comfort. 
 It dulls the edge of the mind, making the pleasures less 
 ecstatic, but ills more endurable. It makes hours glide 
 dreamily. The nauseous weed of the Tyro has a pleas- 
 ant savor to the adept. It has a charm of sluggishness
 
 5O DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 makes slaves of the strong, and is an inexorable mas- 
 ter. We will be slaves to-night ! The smoke wreaths 
 curl. We will talk of those never-failing subjects of 
 conversation among students the past and future. 
 What stores of confidential disclosures ! If you have 
 aught of your self to tell that will lessen my esteem, let 
 it be unspoken. But let nothing else be hidden. How 
 days of yore come back to my memory. Pleasant days 
 such as we will never see again. Boyhood glows, as it 
 never glowed before. The thousand little cares and sor- 
 rows are swallowed up in oblivion. School days, with 
 their queer ideas and adventures, swell the great train. 
 The red country school house the old schoolroom the 
 schoolmaster venerable tyrant that he was, with his 
 spectacles, his ferrule, his birch, his old sly manoeuvres, 
 to detect the guilty, his stentorian voice of reproof, his 
 strong arm of justice, the whistle of the descending rod, 
 the pain, the tears, the shame, his solemn, sorrowful 
 looks then his pleasant smile of approval, his little 
 partialities, the long discussions among the little boys 
 about sundry plans of retaliation when you are big, and 
 the spell of admiration which chains you to the side of 
 some great boy, who will flog the hated master if he 
 touches him. How earnestly you desire to add a cubit 
 to your own stature ! You would not wait then. But 
 somehow the time never comes with your great friend. 
 You yourself have grown in stature and in wisdom, and 
 your cherished plans of retribution have given place to 
 feelings of gratitude. So the honest old schoolmaster 
 goes unpunished. Oh ! how time writes wrinkles on 
 the brows, and changes on the hearts of men ! Then 
 you call to mind a thousand little frolics and adven- 
 tures which were fraught with thrilling interest in those 
 days, and are yet pleasant to remember. The early
 
 HEARTHSTONES. 51 
 
 fruit which was pilfered. There was the rude raft 
 which went to pieces with you, in the middle of the 
 pool, making infinite merriment. There was a great 
 snake, seen in the pasture, which made you run screech- 
 ing and shuddering away, while your companion, a 
 fearless little fellow, stayed behind to defend his sister, 
 and despatch the reptile. You admired that boy, and 
 envied his nerves. You dreamed of the monster long 
 after, and woke a dozen times just as it was about to 
 encircle you in its slimy folds. You hate and fear the 
 whole race, from the tiniest to the huge hissing monster 
 that gives you a spasmodic shock from which you do 
 not soon recover. How carefully you trod the old 
 familiar paths near the spot for a long time afterward, 
 always carrying a stick, and avoiding the tall grass and 
 bushes, starting at every rustling sound, and terrified at 
 your own foot-falls ! 
 
 But there were dark days. Clouds crept over the 
 spirit of your joyousness. There is no place, save the 
 fire-side, where death brings such darkness as in the 
 school-room. Take a man from the pulpit, the bar, the 
 change, the plough, any sphere of active life, his circle 
 of friends is larger, the public loss is greater. But the 
 world grows old in bereavements, the feelings have 
 grown callous, and there are no tears in every eye, no 
 bitter grief and gloom in every heart, as at school. You 
 remember a bright, fair, little girl, who had been your 
 playmate before either could remember a schoolmate 
 always your best friend. That was a Platonic love 
 for her, but none the less a love. Her seat is vacant 
 once again. There is inquiry. She is ill. Worse. 
 Still, you hope. The old bell from the church wakes 
 you at sunrise with its solemn tolling. You count 
 anxiously the slow strokes. It is her age. You creep
 
 52 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 sorrowfully down stairs. Mother says, Bessy is dead. 
 Tears tell nothing of the bitterness of your sorrow. 
 
 Then' there was the boy with the jetty black hair and 
 great lustrous black eyes, with rosy cheeks and dim- 
 ples, who sat next you, and knew all your secrets. He 
 was lame, and timid as you were, you have fought many 
 a battle in his defense. You would have died for him. 
 His was a sweet character, and, with his beauty and 
 goodness, he came next your heart. He was a brother. 
 One Sabbath there came a sudden stroke of illness 
 upon him. The next morning you went sadly alone to 
 school. A great, good-natured girl bent over the next 
 form and asked after your sick brother. You felt a 
 choking sensation, and did not answer. The question 
 came again. It was too much. You laid your head on 
 the desk and sobbed aloud. Then the kind-hearted 
 teacher came and laid his hand upon your head. He 
 did not ask you why you wept. He did not chide. A 
 great hot tear-drop fell burning on your hand. Oh ! 
 how kindly you felt towards him for that token of com- 
 mon love and common sorrow ! How grateful you felt 
 when he told you to lay aside your books and go home ! 
 You went across the fields by an unfrequented way, 
 and were glad no one met you, or saw you weep, for 
 you boyishly thought such irrepressible outbursts of 
 grief unmanly. But that was not the saddest. Months 
 after your brother slept, and did not wake. The toll of 
 the bell the kind attempts to console the mournful 
 solemnities, were all unheeded. You were completely 
 absorbed with grief. When the earth rattled upon the 
 coffin, and you turned away from that hallowed spot, no 
 wonder a spell of utter loneliness and woe came over 
 you. Many summers have made his grave green, 
 but you love not his memory less. Often his image
 
 HEARTHSTONES. 53 
 
 mingles in your dreams, and when some old scene has 
 been reenacted, he seems to float, on golden pinions, 
 away from your vision. Is it all a dream ? 
 
 But the fire in the grate is expiring. The clock tells 
 the early hours. Your companion has been silent and 
 you have not told half you would. Good Night ! is ex- 
 changed, but not until you have appointed another time 
 to resume your chat.
 
 l)e Steam SDeuil. 
 
 Crack. Rrr rrr rrr. Bang. 
 
 I HAVE ridden on a street car when it has jumped the 
 track, and with all the uneasy movements of camel-rid- 
 ing, has hurried from one large cobble stone to another ; 
 I have stood on the street corner while the buzzing and 
 palpitating and revolving snow-sweeper has swept past, 
 leaving the cracks of the whip and snorts of the horses 
 and the rattle of the machinery and the expostulations 
 and ejaculations of the dozen or more men on the top 
 of this infernal machine, all these noises, mixed with 
 the smoke from the flanks of the horses, and the steam 
 that rises from the action of the rock-salt upon the 
 snow, for lazy bystanders to think about. 
 
 I was awake at the very first moment of the year 1876, 
 and lasted through that most extraordinary proclama- 
 tion of the greatness and glory and freedom of the 
 great American Eagle by every steamboat, steam-car 
 and steam-whistle of every description, and by every 
 cannon-mouth and gun-barrel and pistol within hearing. 
 
 The sound that sprang out at me from the steam reg- 
 ister of a certain Durfee room as I entered late on a 
 certain night, was different from all these. It began 
 with a sharp report. Then there ran along for some 
 little time some such a racket as the old-fashioned 
 night-habilitated New England burgher raised when he 
 sprang the rattle from his bedroom window to warn 
 his good neighbors that his castle was threatened with 
 thieves. This was a sort of basis for all the other
 
 THE STEAM DEVIL. 55 
 
 remarkable effects. It was demoniacal ; a gurgle and a 
 death rattle, and an explosion at once. 
 
 There, my dear editor, you have unwittingly become 
 the witness of a very grievous trial of mine. There's a 
 sprite or an imp, or an ill-natured mangy spirit of some 
 sort in those pipes that is worrying my flesh away. It 
 sits in there and clatters all day. It snarls at me until 
 my bedtime, and I leave it spitting and spluttering and 
 snapping its fingers when I betake myself to bed. In 
 the morning it hurries 'round through the pipes into 
 my bedroom, and croaks and halloes, snorts and 
 sneezes until it succeeds in filling the air with such un- 
 pleasant phantasms that desperation seizes me, and I 
 rise to hurry away from it. 
 
 Well, my dear Aristocrat, roll that arm chair over 
 there ; run me that table, so ; there, a couple of books 
 the light is just right as it is. Now, with my feet 
 propped and my arms bolstered and my chair dropped 
 back, just as I like it to the last notch I will keep 
 guard and interview your imp or devil or whatever he 
 may be. I will, so far as my experience and spirit may 
 aid me, bid the thing stand and explain. 
 
 Eleven o'clock. Say, my dear fellow, open that door. 
 You know I'm not a coward, but and besides I want 
 to see the little devil when he comes up there from un- 
 derneath in the morning. 
 
 Goodnight. Eh? Oh, you didn't say anything, and 
 you wish I'd keep still. Don't be ungrateful. Oh, yes ; 
 I'll forgive you. Goodnight. 
 
 What abominable poor company these registers are, 
 at night, anyway. Regular sphinxes. With nothing to 
 poke, with not a blaze, not even a column of blue 
 smoke to keep you company ; a bellows and a pair of 
 tongs would be royal in comparison with this.
 
 56 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 Hark ! why I can hear that little imp that I'm set to 
 watch, now. 
 
 He's away up on the fourth floor middle entry, and 
 it sounds as if there was a spiral staircase that ran 
 'round and 'round the inside of that two-inch steam 
 pipe ; and as if the poor little fellow was drunk ; and as 
 if he had slipped at the top, and was tumbling down 
 with his boots on. 
 
 Lack-a-day, the little fellow must have struck bottom 
 then, and from the rattle in his throat I should think 
 him pretty badly injured. 
 
 Hey ! Great Caesar ! the little fellow spoke to me. 
 Had hard luck up stairs ? They've all gone to bed, and 
 you came down here for company? 
 
 I wish I might pass you through a pipe full of this 
 tobacco, but between me and thee there's the thickness 
 of that iron pipe. 
 
 Where've they been ? Oh, you won't say. Fast set ? 
 I guess they are a pretty fast set. Good company, eh ? 
 Well, yes, I guess they are pretty good company. 
 
 It's strange that the men that get mellow the oftenest 
 seem to need the mellowing the least ; that not the 
 driest sticks drink up the most, that our funniest, wit- 
 tiest, best-natured men seem to be the special objects 
 of attack from the bottled devils, and that our men the 
 best spirited naturally seem to demand the most artificial 
 aids for their spirits. 
 
 Sad, you say? Yes, it is sad sometimes ; and yet the 
 ill effects of college drinking are oftener overesti- 
 mated in the judgment of sensible critics of our life 
 here, than underestimated. I have known let me see, 
 perhaps one, two yes, three instances, where the quar- 
 rel between a masculine-bodied but feminine-minded 
 fellow and the liquor demon speaking as the crusaders
 
 THE STEAM DEVIL. 57 
 
 speak has been carried on in earnest ; where, instead 
 of being good-naturedly made fun of, the man has been 
 clawed and hammered by his subtile antagonist in earn- 
 est ; the man getting more and more in a passion, with 
 his eyes blinded, his nerve and skill all gone, rushing 
 in on his antagonist, reckless of consequences. Such 
 quarrels are infrequent. They end only in the death of 
 the man. These things, as a general thing, you know, 
 are carried on in a different spirit ; like the old-fash- 
 ioned games, where a man got down on all fours for 
 the merriment of himself and company. Generally 
 but I'm preaching to you ; let's find a jollier subject. 
 
 Girl up there ? No. Oh, the fellow's engaged ? 
 What do I think of it ? 
 
 Well, it would be hard for me to tell you, old fellow, 
 on such short notice. What a stampede there has been ! 
 Have I never been in love? Yes. Has anybody ever 
 been' in love with me? I modestly think perhaps there 
 has. But it has always been a sort of cross-ruff; when 
 I held a hand she had none ; and when she had a hand- 
 ful I had nothing to catch a single trick of hers. 
 
 You don't believe in college engagements ? Nor I, 
 old fellow. The period of a man's engagement is a 
 trying one. "Amare et sapere -vix deo conceditur." Every 
 consideration is due a man at such a time. He'd be a 
 fool who'd expect any ; but, without exhibiting madness 
 of some sort, a man's bound to fail ; no place so unfav- 
 orable for passion of any sort as this. 
 
 If a man's lady-love had a strong head and didn't suc- 
 cumb to him but what nonsense. Am I susceptible? 
 Yes, very susceptible. In that lies my safety, as I 
 think. My ideal is a low-built woman, in this I differ 
 from Lord Byron, who says " he hates a dumpy 
 woman " with a clear eye, brown hair, quiet, that seems
 
 58 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 to move limpidly through the world, and whose self- 
 possession is proof against everything. She is a worthy 
 inspiration, and a lucky stroke or a success gained in 
 any way is worth double if it only reaches her ears. 
 
 A man might ramble a good while on the subject of 
 college women? Yes, that's true; it's a big subject. 
 Better not start one. Got all night ahead of us? Well, 
 that's true. 
 
 They'd make a long list, and would stretch all the way 
 from a man's sweetheart to his washerwoman. It would 
 include the pretty shop girl rich enough only to dress in 
 cottonades, who peeps at us promenaders, and the poor 
 demoralized jade that has gotten so wound up in the 
 bills of fare for breakfast and dinner as to lose all life 
 and animation, as well as the pretty skinned, bright- 
 eyed, jauntily-capped and well-shod beauties who come 
 up to see us graduate. They all interest us in one way 
 or another, so they are for the nonce, college women. 
 
 I wonder whether they pass from one* station to 
 the other? You think they do. But do I think it pos- 
 sible that the poor, tired-looking, prematurely old 
 woman that is so often seen on the street, who takes 
 the linen at seventy-five cents the dozen, was ever 
 bright and pretty? You know it sometimes happens; 
 not often, I hope. 
 
 Shop girls? Yes, a good many of them are bright. 
 
 If you could get out, you would go 'round and warn 
 them all ? My dear little fellow, it would be labor lost ; 
 and besides, it would make a cynic of you. 
 
 The light blue-eyed, brown-haired, spirited, innocent- 
 hearted bar-maid, or shop-girl, or janitor's daughter, 
 would be as hard to find as Captain Kidd's gold. It is 
 the first shock that a college man receives in this life of 
 surprises, blunders and failures.
 
 THE STEAM DEVIL. 59 
 
 Have I never met a bright-eyed, cleanly-built, neatly- 
 dressed little maiden on some one of our thoroughfares ? 
 Has she never looked half-vvistfully at me from the 
 corner of a bright eye? Have I never offered assistance 
 to such a one when " in extremis " from the roughness 
 of the winds, or from the unmanageableness of a shawl 
 when a corner wouldn't come 'round, or, having been 
 dragged 'round, would escape from the tiny grasp and 
 flap and flutter and furl and unfurl like a distress 
 signal ? 
 
 You're sending your questions at me pretty fast ; 
 but truthfully, I'll swear to answer them. Yes, then, to 
 them all ; but let me qualify it. Whether I risked 
 never so much or never so little to answer such a sig- 
 nal, I have always found the craft that flew it in no 
 danger. No demoralization aboard ; everything was 
 taut, not a spar gone, not a rope out of place, not a 
 seam sprung. It ran the danger, but knew it. It took 
 the risks, but charged for them. 
 
 I have always found a cool, calculating head in 
 charge. The signal is a snare. The trepidation and 
 embarrassment assumed. Take my advice you don't 
 like the way I talk. 
 
 Hullo! I've been asleep? and talking aloud? 
 Where's the heat gone ? Why, the register's cold. 
 That little fellow wasn't bad company, by any means. 
 He had the happy faculty of drawing a man out. 
 
 Two o'clock ? Impossible. Get in bed with you ? 
 Thank you, my dear Aristocrat, I will. Anything to 
 avoid dragging across that snow, under that cold moon, 
 at such an hour.
 
 Do you know the perfection of all cheerlessness here 
 in College? Perhaps you will be troubled to make a 
 judicious selection from the great bundle of similarities. 
 If it is not a real rainy day I am mistaken. 
 
 Think of a rainy morning ! The bell half through 
 ringing before you wake from a dream of pleasant hours, 
 or smiles, at home. The incessant dash of many drops 
 against the window-panes ; a damp, cold chill pervading 
 the atmosphere. Dampness is on every thing. Even 
 the water seems to leave an uncommonly humid sensa- 
 tion, as you dash it hastily upon your face to arrive at a 
 state of tolerable wakefulness. 
 
 Then there is a peculiarly uncomfortable damp feel- 
 ing in one's clothing, even to the old overcoat which- 
 has hung out of the reach of moisture for a month or 
 two. So much for the pleasure of rising. Now for a 
 plunge. The bell is in the second stage of a real funeral 
 toll. The short, leaden sound, comes heavily through 
 the rain in upon your ears. The quick vibrations which 
 it emits, seem only to shake the rain-drops down more 
 rapidly. You do not pause to locate your umbrella in 
 the proper direction. You have no time to pick your 
 steps daintily up the street and quietly saunter into 
 Chapel. No ! One vigorous plunge. A deluge of 
 rain at once removes all recollection of any moist feel- 
 ing, and imparts a decided impression that you are wet. 
 Long strides Chapelward. You are going on from wet
 
 RAINY DAYS. 6l 
 
 to wetter. No matter for that. What is a cold, a cough, 
 the hectic flush, perhaps a fever, perhaps tears, and 
 mourning, to an absent mark, when you have already 
 seven, eleven, or nineteen. One may bring your friends 
 in haste, anxiety, kindness, may be sorrow, to your bed- 
 side. The other will be sure to cloud their smiles and 
 will bring a stern rebuke from those whom you may de- 
 sire to please. Well, haste has brought you to the 
 Chapel. Bustle in quickly or you are late ! Oh ! the 
 comfort of sitting down to drip on a nice, soft, board 
 seat. But you all know that, Prayers fall like the rain- 
 drops upon the cold earth, unfelt into many hearts. 
 God grant that with a warm sun they may yet germinate 
 many virtues. 
 
 You dodge from Chapel to the recitation-room. The 
 spice of variety is there. The room is a little colder 
 than usual perhaps a trifle damper. What six-penny 
 rushes what complacent fizzles what unmitigated 
 flunks are reserved for rainy mornings ! The Tutor 
 tries to be brisk. The students don't care. The room 
 is cheerless. Hearts are cheerless. Faces seem to have 
 vowed an eternal enmity to smiles. It is a rainy morn- 
 ing. The last " sufficient " the next lesson the request 
 for some luckless fellow to remain the final bow are the 
 only circumstances which seem to elicit anything like a 
 manifestation of joy. Beat a retreat to your room before 
 breakfast. Cold, uninviting, damp as ever. The rain 
 patters a little harder. The wind has freshened a trifle. 
 It may be colder. There is no cheerfulness at the break- 
 fast table. Cold coffee cold buckwheats a general 
 coldness. The man who can keep up an equilibrum of 
 spirits on a rainy morning has indeed a good disposition. 
 Now for the day's toil. There is no real vigorous study 
 to-day. A good fire does not warm up your spirits.
 
 62 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 There is no exercising out of doors. A glance into the 
 street is quite sufficient to quench any such unnatural 
 desire. The gutters are in their glory a perfect holiday 
 for them. People go by shrouded under overcoats and 
 umbrellas, and with their thick boots they splash heavily 
 and ill-natured along. One poor hack, shut up closely, 
 with its black form glistening in the rain, a wet driver 
 and a span of disconsolate-looking horses, creeps slowly 
 through the street. So in alternate trying and failing to 
 study, and gazing vacantly into the rain without, the day 
 passes. You cannot smile if you would. There is no- 
 body to return a pleasant look. The countenances of 
 your best friends are cheerless as the sky above, and 
 their smiles are like to-day's sunbeams latent in the 
 thick cloud that sweeps unceasingly along and inces- 
 santly drops its moist treasures around you. 
 
 Oh ! the delight of Evening Prayers, on a rainy day- 
 There are as many umbrellas as there are individuals, 
 and what drippings ! How pleasant to the touch a cold, 
 wet umbrella ! Anacondas are toys to them. There is 
 a clamminess about them which reminds one of some- 
 thing indescribably wet and terribly uncomfortable to 
 the touch. Then how good natured everybody is. Did 
 you ever have a beaver new nearly new or old even 
 crushed beneath the weight of its superincumbent re- 
 sponsibilities, and do you know the particular gracious- 
 ness with which all owners are wont to regard the 
 operation ? Perhaps you do perhaps not. I own a 
 beaver which was ten times a victim to the stupidity of 
 my neighbor in Chapel. I cured him of his habit by 
 victimizing his poor, innocent chapeau on the eleventh 
 occasion. Each one of these accidents occurred on 
 rainy evenings. 
 
 Now comes the best part of a rainy day its exit. A
 
 RAINY DAYS. 63 
 
 smoking cup of Hyson superinduces a state of semi- 
 cheerfulness, in which the truth that rainy days do not 
 (or at least not usually) last always, is vividly and hope- 
 fully impressed upon the mind. A lesson is droned 
 through early. A nice, generous fellow, who knows 
 your rainy humor, comes in to waste a good Havanna 
 and an hour with you. That man would be a martyr, 
 only he wants the opportunity to consummate the 
 natural promptings of his heart. The evening wears 
 away. Your friend takes his leave. The storm is 
 lulling. The wind has an empty, fitful sound, as if 
 wasting strength. The rain patters more gently. Old 
 Morpheus comes sailing down upon you on his great 
 linen pinions, and his very jolly bolster-like phiz stares 
 you in the face. You sleep to dream pleasantly, and 
 wake to the joy of a fresh, clear, cloudless sky, and 
 genial sunbeams, or to the unexpressed and inexpressi- 
 ble misery of a second rainy day in College.
 
 & Nijgtjt in " <S>nr ntrji. 11 
 
 A MEMBER of this entry is different from other men. 
 Even the bricks which compose this venerable building 
 in which we live, have lost the bright red which bricks 
 ought to have, and it is said that their vitality has been 
 exhausted in imparting a portion of their spirit to those 
 who may come within their influence. I recall to mind 
 one young man, once pure and upright in all his ways, 
 the smoke of whose cigar now daily-rolls through his 
 coal closet into my room, and whose spare quarters van- 
 ish like my wood when I leave any here during vacation. 
 
 And there are also traditionary tales of brave deeds 
 performed by those who have gone before us, which 
 greatly arouse the spirit of the " man in this entry." He 
 lives on the very spot of their occurrence. They are re- 
 lated to him by the gentleman who makes beds. They 
 become inwrought into his very nature, and he goes and 
 does likewise. 
 
 Such is the general influence of a home in this college. 
 But circumstances cannot cause all natures to conform 
 to the same mould, and there are differences observable 
 even among us. There is a moral and there is an im- 
 moral portion, and in this respect there is an analogy to 
 other communities. Though there is no approach to the 
 extremes either of good or evil, yet the line of separation 
 between the two parties is distinctly drawn. 
 
 The moral portion occasionally spend an evening in a 
 quiet game of whist. To this there cannot possibly be
 
 A NIGHT IN "OUR ENTRY." 65 
 
 any objection, when it is considered how pure are their 
 motives, and how blessed is the end attained. The 
 cards are by this means kept out of the hands of those 
 in whom correct moral principles are not sufficiently 
 established ; and the only refreshment used is molasses 
 candy. There is also a slight difference in the custom- 
 ary beverages of the two. This, however, I consider 
 of little account, as I have tasted both frequently, and 
 find both extremely good. With these general remarks, 
 by way of introduction, I will attempt to describe what 
 this entry does after dark. 
 
 It is Saturday night. Tea is over, and all have re- 
 turned to their respective rooms. Outside, perchance, 
 the rain is falling cheerlessly and heavily on the drip- 
 stones, but within the ruddy glow and genial warmth of 
 a coal fire dissipate all uncomfortable feelings. A quiet 
 sensation of comfort and satisfaction gradually arises. 
 Neighbors are called in, lemons, hot water, &c., are pro- 
 cured, and a glass of hot lemonade increases the inward 
 comfort and satisfaction. We desire to do good to others, 
 and the plaintive notes of " Cocachelunk " lull to sleep 
 those whose Sabbath and whose time of retiring to rest 
 begin simultaneously with the going down of the sun. 
 Later in the evening I take a walk through the entry, 
 preparatory to a quiet sleep. I find much to engage 
 the attention and gratify the senses, and therefore my 
 absence is somewhat protracted. I enter one room 
 and discover that my visit is very opportune. A coal- 
 scuttle filled with oysters stands on the hearth. The 
 occupant, unencumbered by a coat, lays them one by 
 one gently on the coals. Soon he withdraws them from 
 their resting-place, closes his eyes, and after a few pre- 
 liminaries, nothing remains behind but the shells. 
 
 I stand for a short time outside the door, but the 
 
 3
 
 66 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 darkness and cold of the entry are not congenial to my 
 feelings, and I call on another of my friends. He is 
 evidently enjoying himself. A warm fire and an easy 
 chair make him comfortable, while the smoke, issuing 
 lazily from the bowl of his meerschaum, gives a pleasant 
 turn to his thoughts. This scene of happiness overcomes 
 my good resolutions, and I take a pipe. The red light 
 of the fire, reflected from the ceiling, harmonizes well 
 with the quiet satisfaction which I think would accom- 
 pany our occupation if the weed were not so strong. I 
 engage in interesting conversation till he falls asleep, 
 which he does in a few minutes. 
 
 Overpowered at length by weariness and warm lem- 
 onade, I go to bed. But my slumbers are short, for a 
 new scene is introduced, the object of which is to make 
 a noise ; and a noise is made. 
 
 A party have been searching in a neighboring cellar, 
 and have discovered a large collection of bottles, all 
 empty. They heave a sigh over this evidence of deprav- 
 ity of past generations, and immediately think that these 
 will furnish a new source of amusement to the sleepers 
 and themselves. They come up from the cellar, regretting 
 that the lock was accidentally broken in their efforts to 
 open the door. They are moral men and would gladly 
 do these things in a moral way ; but their system of 
 ethics has not yet taught them how to enter a cellar 
 when the door is locked, without impairing in some de- 
 gree the security of the fastening. 
 
 Regretting their inability to restore things to their 
 pristine condition, they return to the entry and engage 
 in the pleasing employment of throwing some of the 
 thinnest glass-ware against my door. I am somewhat 
 concerned lest they should injure the paint, and think
 
 A NIGHT IN "OUR ENTRY." 67 
 
 that I will remonstrate with them, but finally conclude 
 that it will be the safer course to remain where I am. 
 
 The noise at length ceases. I step out to look. A 
 piece of glass enters my foot, and I am prevented from 
 attending Sabbath morning prayers. The person who 
 rooms over my head, and who has been sitting on the 
 side of his bed and drumming with his boot-heels for a 
 good half hour, at length becomes quiet. The clock 
 strikes twelve, and "Our Entry" is still.
 
 Enber tl)e (Katies. 
 
 " In tattered old slippers that toast at the bars, 
 And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars, 
 
 Away from the world and its toils and its cares, 
 I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs." 
 
 THACKERAY'S BALLADS. 
 
 AMONG the conditions necessary to the thorough en- 
 joyment of college life I reckon a " den " in the fourth 
 story, and an open stove. He who glories in the posses- 
 sion of only one of them, has but approximated to the 
 true style of living while that man who hauls up at 
 Commencement day, without a practical acquaintance 
 with either, at some point during the previous four 
 years, should rather be pitied and frowned upon by the 
 conservative portion of the community, than he, who, 
 visiting Rome, neglects to see St. Peter's. Perhaps my 
 opinion is so warped by my own experience as to lead 
 me to set an undue estimate upon the advantages arising 
 therefrom. But I never pass the door of a room on 
 the first story without a shudder, as I recollect the 
 gloomy hours of a long winter spent in hugging a mis- 
 erable, ricketty, cylinder stove, on the lower floor of 
 North Middle. The winds howl through the entry, and 
 the windows keep up a continuous rattling as though the 
 old hulk of a building was in the last agony of an ague ; 
 while, ever and anon, the huge old entry door would slam 
 with the belching noise of cannon. In the lulls between 
 the rolling reverberations which rang through the hall,
 
 UNDER THE EAVES. 69 
 
 my feelings were none the more mollified by the 
 loud laughter and noisy merriment which jolly denizens 
 of upper stories could afford to indulge in. As a con- 
 sciousness of the dismal nature of my quarters drove 
 me involuntarily nearer that antiquated apology for a 
 stove, I pictured in glowing colors the joyous, whole- 
 hearted jollity of an upper story room and registered 
 then and there a determination to take up my abode as 
 near the roof as possible, and at the first convenient op- 
 portunity. 
 
 When spring time came, too, and the kindly sun 
 warmed every thing into new life, for most localities ; 
 when vegetation unfolded everywhere and flooded the 
 land with new beauty ; when songs of birds and balmy 
 airs floated in at fourth story windows a loathsome 
 miasma hung about that lower floor, and a sickening 
 damp settled on my very soul. Then rheumatic pains 
 smote me hip and thigh, bad colds were rife in the land, 
 excuse papers in extensive demand, and whiskey 
 punches venial. Thrifty Nature never fails to follow up 
 her advantages, and when proper provision for any of her 
 favorites has once been secured, without further ado she 
 installs them in their new estate. On this principle I 
 soon found an extensive field for botanical research 
 opened before me. Multifarious fungi vegetated upon 
 inviting books and boots already prepared for their 
 accommodation and the mould epoch was upon me ; 
 a stifling dullness prevaded my very bones, and I 
 abandoned once and forever, all belief in the theory 
 which denies to cold the nature of a positive force Sir 
 Isaac Newton and the French Academy to the contrary, 
 notwithstanding. The man who has dwelt, as I have, 
 amid the pestilential damps which in spring-time " love 
 to linger" around North Middle, knows from experi-
 
 70 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 ence that the vampire which fastened upon him is some- 
 thing more than a negation. 
 
 In the first place, the consciousness of being top of 
 the heap, is a genuine satisfaction. And as you mount 
 to successive lofts, finally to emerge in that purer, 
 healthier atmosphere which circulates over the topmost, 
 suggestive of the clear-toned intellectual work which it 
 allows and fosters, like the "Autocrat's" Nautilus, 
 you feel that your heart, too, has risen into more 
 ethereal regions, and rid itself of some of the shackles 
 which clogged it below. A feeling of relief is habitual 
 to a dweller under the eaves when he gains his room 
 a sense as it were of having escaped from a close and 
 stifling smoke. It is, therefore, no wonder that so many 
 of those genial authors of the " Sketch Book " and " Ik 
 Marvel " school, who make their way to the heart, by a 
 mysterious, electric kind of sympathy, whose instincts 
 are so ready and pure, whose thoughts are as clear-ring- 
 ing and harmonious as the sounds of silver bells, should 
 be found under the eaves, away up and above the noise 
 and tumult and grovelling bickerings of more sublunary 
 regions. And the universality of the fact, that such 
 men never pitch their tents on a platform much lower 
 than the eaves, cannot be accounted an accident, nor 
 explained upon any such grounds as that the state of 
 authors' finances generally necessitates it. The reason 
 lies deeper, and can be found only in this feeling of re- 
 lief from restraint, escape from interferences. 
 
 Nobody but your friends and the printer to the Wood- 
 en Spoon Committee, ever come to the fourth story ; 
 and, provided you have settled your own dues to this 
 latter functionary, and do not rejoice in a chum who 
 never ventures down Chapel street in day-light, for fear 
 of encountering him you may rest assured that every
 
 UNDER THE EAVES. 71 
 
 tap at your door is a friend's tap. That abominable 
 practice of habitually keeping one's door locked, from 
 morning till night, and deliberately turning a deaf ear to 
 every knocker, therefore, does not obtain in the fourth 
 story. There is no temptation in the first place ; and, in 
 the second place, none of your one-horse men, who have 
 so little of a gentleman's and a classmate's feeling as to 
 be willing to sit still and hear a disappointed visitor go 
 away without an invitation to walk in, ever get so high 
 up in the world. 
 
 Such a situation imparts a sense of power in the con- 
 sciousness of your ability to indulge in noise to your 
 heart's content without the possibility of retaliation. 
 Everything, too, betokens a loftier grade of existence, 
 when you reach the fourth story. No Tutors room there. 
 And even the cigar-smoke, which floats in mazy clouds 
 through the entry, grows more fragrant, as you mount 
 the stairs, till the aromatic odors which greet the olfac- 
 tories on the topmost flight waft the imagination to that 
 great and glorious section of our country, where tobacco 
 is not all oak leaves, and which, during our Freshman 
 year, we characterize as the " sunny south." Dwellers 
 on the fourth story invariably smoke good tobacco. 
 
 Above all, when 
 
 " Long, long thro' the hours, and the night, and the chimes, 
 Here we talk of old books, of old friends, of old times ; 
 As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie, 
 This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me." 
 
 But 
 
 " When the candles burn low and the company's gone, 
 In the silence of night, as I sit here alone" 
 
 a peculiar charm invests the place ; a sense of down- 
 right comfort, of utter independence, of individuality,
 
 72 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 comes over me. The droning, soothing hum of voices, 
 underneath, is the only sound without ; every unpleas- 
 ant feeling, and all unrest, is lulled to sleep ; and the 
 monotonous ticking of the clock makes music for the 
 thoughts which come trooping rhythmically along to find 
 expression and embodiment in fireside lyrics. Student- 
 feeling, that mysterious, undefinable charm which per- 
 vades college life, and hangs a halo of golden memories 
 around the spring-time of our youth has then its max- 
 imum development, sways us perfectly. And every 
 man who can look with pleasure in after-life upon the 
 four years spent here, and has roomed in the fourth 
 story, must feel that such moments as these impart a 
 warmth and glow to the heart which can be got nowhere 
 else than in college, and not even here out of the fourth 
 story. Those who have neglected their last chance for 
 a college room, under the eaves, have made a mistake 
 which can never be remedied, an assertion, of the truth 
 of which they can be easily convinced, by a visit to the 
 home of warm hearts, and head-quarters of good times, 
 a den under the eaves. 
 
 " To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure, 
 But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure ; 
 And the view you behold on a sunshiny day 
 Is grand thro' the old trees over the way."
 
 anb 
 
 IT MAY not possess the slightest interest, indulgent 
 reader, for you to learn that I am a senior and have 
 moved into College. Yet I announce the fact as the 
 briefest way of acquainting you with my position, both 
 intellectually and bodily. 
 
 It serves to set forth one's surroundings and associ- 
 ates to be thus particular at the outset. The paltry 
 A. B. will proclaim your dignity after graduation. The 
 august alphabet of scholastic graduation will announce 
 you doctor of divinity, laws or physic, in short anything 
 you please ; but what abbreviation, what perfection of 
 symbology can shadow even faintly the position and 
 attainments of a senior? A graduate seems old, and 
 his cares are on the increase. He may put on a white 
 cravat, and with looks of mild expectation wait for a 
 call till his coat is rusty ; he may seek to pocket the 
 fee of some scapegrace whom his legal acumen has de- 
 livered from jail or the halter ; or he may take to bolus 
 and purgatives. At all events he must do something, 
 and it is serious business in any shape. But to have 
 reached the last year of a College course, is to have out- 
 grown the verdancy and follies of juvenility, without 
 encountering the responsibilities of mature age and 
 busy life. I may be deceived, but this seems just my 
 position now. In College too North College of 
 course. It matters not what entry. I hate sectionalism. 
 To room out of College is to be about half " towny."
 
 74 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 The real genuine student life is found in an entry well 
 packed with jolly fellows, with no landlady on the 
 lower floor and no squad of female Celts or Teutons 
 who march in a small caravan, night and morning, from 
 cellar to attic. The change is quite an era in my life. 
 It is a new thing to be a house-holder, buying carpets, 
 towels and brooms. My room is right pleasant with 
 its snug easy-chairs, and bracket lamp, and those 
 curtains, not turkey red after the fashion of the vulgar 
 but heavy woolen, with green, red and yellow stripes. 
 
 O, it's a gay room, and it's jolly to think it is my 
 room. Chum of course thinks the same thing. Some 
 little conveniences are wanting, to be sure : I miss the 
 matutinal visit of a certain Celtic maiden, whose skill 
 imparted rare smoothness to my sheets. It is rather 
 hard, after struggling with evil spirits through the day, 
 to sleep in a bed bedeviled by a college sweep. There 
 are some little annoyances too it is easy enough to 
 bear all the yelling and rowing of nights. In fact I can 
 join right lustily in making a noise myself ; but since 
 rooming in college, music has grown to be my special 
 abhorrence. The man above me has a melodeon, the 
 man under me has a fiddle. 
 
 The orphean notes of a flute warn me that my neigh- 
 bor across the hall is just beginning to learn the capa- 
 bilities of that instrument ; while lastly, the chap 
 through the partition rejoices in a piano of most extra- 
 ordinary properties, the most prominent of which is a 
 strong magnetic sympathy with the performer, whereby, 
 strangely enough, bad playing makes bad music. The 
 melodeon buzzes, the fiddle shrieks, the flute gasps and 
 the piano agonizes, not to mention frequent serenades 
 under my window by fellows who will persist in the 
 mistake of affirming with musical emphasis oft repeated, 
 that I'm "a jolly good fellow."
 
 WHO AND WHERE? 75 
 
 The man above me has a propensity to study with 
 united powers of head and feet, registering each newly 
 acquired idea by a stout thump of his foot ; I suppose 
 his head is like a patent omnibus, and nothing can go 
 into it without an entrance signal, for one day when he 
 was still, I noticed that he flunked in division. Be- 
 sides all this, my chum, who can't sing more than a 
 hen, has joined the class of amateur vocalists who prac- 
 tice in the chapel on Monday nights. 
 
 It is quite pathetic to hear his intonations of the scale, 
 or his trembling efforts at the unvarying base of some 
 exercise. He says he doesn't expect ever to reach any 
 professional excellence, but it is so pleasant for one's 
 friends and in society to be able to sing zuell, (how he 
 emphasizes that word) and then he starts off into an un- 
 certain rendering of " Belle Brandon," which he uncon- 
 sciously runs into " Bob Ridley O." He has voice 
 enough, but his ear is at fault. Our entry is of course 
 dedicated to the Muses. I've a serious notion of set- 
 ting up a bust of Apollo in our room, both as an orna- 
 ment, and in hopes that the god of music may take pity 
 on my chum and change him into a nightingale, or 
 enable him to appreciate the difference between singing 
 base, and a promiscuous meandering through the whole 
 gamut of grum gathered tones. But music is only one 
 of the amusements adopted here. There are others 
 well chosen to beguile both the passing hour and the 
 passing student. There has been a rage here for get- 
 ting minerals, stocking aquaria, keeping dogs and 
 other such pursuits ; but senior year has inaugurated a 
 new state of things. Numbers have conceived warlike 
 tastes, and task themselves with experiments in gun- 
 nery and observations on the laws of projectiles. 
 Some exhibit marks of decided genius in the dexterity
 
 76 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 with which they manage small putty-guns and pea- 
 blowers. I have noted that their aims seemed to be 
 low. One feels quite brave to stand fire before windows 
 bristling with pop-guns, squirt-guns and water-pitchers. 
 At first it seemed rather funny to me than otherwise, 
 but after getting bestuck with putty, pelted sorely with 
 beans, and twice drenched with water, I have set my 
 face "like a flint " against such procedure. 
 
 It destroys confidence in mankind and makes a man 
 the slave of fear. Who that has heard the warning cry 
 of " Heads out" but has shrunk from the possibility of 
 ducking or bombardment? I am reminded strongly of 
 the dangers and mishaps of Juvenal's time, and when I 
 walk under the walls of North College the force of his 
 words is complete : 
 
 " Adeo dot fata, quot ilia 
 Nocte patent vigiles, te praetereunte fenestrae," 
 
 and when water splashes about me and compels me to 
 an unsought ablution, I devoutly add 
 
 " Ergo optes, votumque feras miserable tecum 
 Ut sint contentae patulas defundere pelves."
 
 "toberc bo jion Koom?" 
 
 " Where the squirt-gun ever squirteth." 
 
 PRIZE POEM. 
 
 I do not room in college. If you do I pit}' you ; and 
 not without reason do I thus make you the object of 
 my pity. Does a college room remind you of home? 
 I like to have my room taken care of by a woman, no 
 matter whether she be a Celt, or of African extraction. 
 A man was never made to sweep. He handles the 
 broom awkwardly, raises a mighty dust, and finally 
 doesn't sweep out your room. Look in the corners, 
 under the chairs, lounges, and table. Does it look as 
 though the broom had been there recently? Has your 
 furniture ever been properly dusted by a man? A man 
 can't dust. With a coarse piece of canvas he rams and 
 jams your furniture, as if he were preparing for a prize- 
 fight. Man is a negative power in the varied formula 
 of house-keeping ; yet men take care of the rooms of 
 those who room in college. Did you ever sleep, with 
 any comfort, in a bed that was made by a man ? Ugh ! 
 The sheets are all in wrinkles. They persist in being 
 nearer the head of the bed than the blanket, and the 
 blanket agrees with the quilt to open a communication 
 with the atmosphere and the foot of the bed. Pleasant 
 to sleep in such a bed, isn't it? Yet you pay a good 
 deal for such pleasure. How much money and intellec- 
 tual labor did you spend in fitting up your room ? You 
 will never get half-price for that furniture when you 
 leave. That carpet looks gorgeously, but those rain-
 
 78 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 bow tints are perishable. The mat at the door will not 
 save it, for students will not always wipe their feet. 
 Spittoons will not save it, entreaties, yea, even tears, 
 will not preserve it from stains, and rents, and quick 
 decay. That furniture will soon be broken and cut, be- 
 cause students will know that you, and not a landlord, 
 own it. Yet, rooming in college is nice ! 
 
 My sweep never disturbs me while I am studying, or 
 wrapt in meditation. My room is taken care of while I 
 am at breakfast, and when I return everything looks 
 clean and comfortable ; my stove has been cleared 
 out, and the fire renewed ; my books arranged in order 
 in my secretary ; my gown and slippers placed where 
 they should be. Not a bit of dirt can I detect. In 
 such a room one can study. Who can foretell the ap- 
 proach of the college-sweep, or who can predict the 
 time of his departure ? When you would be studying, 
 then he is with you. He cometh in without knocking, 
 and if you are studying it makes no difference ; the 
 college-sweep waits for no man. Oh, horrid ! to be 
 choked and filled with dust, when one is studying. You 
 throw aside your books, and watch the ruthless invader 
 of your domestic happiness, and as you see him bring 
 confusion out of chaos, half sweep your room, half 
 make your bed, you think : Well, it's a glorious thing 
 to room in college ! When I study, I like to have some 
 essence of quiet pervading my atmosphere. Now there 
 can never be any noise in my house except when I 
 make it, or the Freshman who has the room next to me 
 weeps and wails for the lost pleasures of the parental 
 roof. He is easily quieted, however, by the mild sug- 
 gestion, on my part, that if the Sophs, should hear him, 
 they would smoke him out. Moreover, there is nobody 
 rooming above me to throw water upon me whenever I
 
 "WHERE DO YOU ROOM?" 79 
 
 put my head out of the window to view the face of 
 nature, or note the passer-by. No treacherous cry of 
 " Heads out," salutes mine ears. No " squirt-gun," 
 annihilating space, throws a volume of water into my 
 window, destroying the neatness of my attire. I rise in 
 the morning, and find that no one has amused himself 
 during the night by breaking my windows. I am not 
 bored, hour after hour, by loafers. I am not locked in 
 my room because I leave my key on the outside of the 
 door. I do not have to lend charcoal and kindling- 
 wood to my friends, who happen " to be out," and al- 
 ways fail to return what they borrowed. A box of 
 matches lasts me a week. I can make a noise in my 
 room without being disturbed by a tutor. A nigger 
 does not poke his wool into my room every day, and 
 interrogate me thus: " Eny appleths?" Ugh! No old 
 Jew disturbs my study hours by opening my door, and 
 saluting me thus: "Fine day? any old clothes, my 
 dear ?" No ragged thief comes to my door and asks 
 for half a dollar, " to kape himself and family of fif- 
 tain children from starvin." No little girl, with the ap- 
 pearance of Sappho on a drunk, besieges my door for a 
 " penny." No professor surprises me by an unexpected 
 call. No student, lost to all sense of honor, steals my 
 door-mat, or writes something " wery phunny " on my 
 door. 
 
 In fine, I do not room in college. I may lose much 
 of college life; but what I have lost is less than that 
 which I have gained. Not that I am not social ; I love to 
 be with men, see their varied characters, listen to the 
 good joke, and hear a hearty outburst of humor. But 
 there are times when we wish to be alone, when privacy 
 and silence are the most genial companions, and medi- 
 tation undisturbed brings a fund of enjoyment.
 
 8O DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 I not only room in town, but I room alone. I have 
 no chum. Those who room in college generally have 
 chums. I do not like a chum. I may be odd, but I 
 have never yet seen the domestic felicity of having a 
 chum. The desires, feelings, and sentiments of no two 
 men are alike. From this law of our nature arise jeal- 
 ousies, dissensions, and world-wide separations. There- 
 fore, you never find a chum who thinks as you do, who 
 acts as you act, or who conducts himself according to 
 your rule of conduct. If I wished to admire and re- 
 spect a man, I would never chum with him, for then I 
 should see his weak points, and, in the estimation of 
 character, man never fails to fully consider weak points. 
 There are various kinds of chums. There is the noisy 
 chum. He always bangs the door after him, bangs the 
 books, bangs the curtains, and, ten chances to one, com- 
 pletes the programme by banging you. He never 
 studies when you study, he either whistles, hums, 
 drums, or talks, just when you wish to have things 
 quiet. He even can't study without making a noise. 
 He drops his book frequently, turns over leaves as if 
 they were so many grind-stones, studies aloud, or, if 
 you request him to study to himself, sets up a con- 
 founded buzzing. I should perfectly despise a dirty, 
 careless chum, for such there are. He considers dirt 
 the unmistakable sign of genius. He never wipes his 
 feet on the mat, pulls oft" his boots and throws them 
 anywhere but in the closet. Scarcely ever brushes his 
 hair, or puts on purified linen. Never hangs up his 
 coat, shawl, or cap. He either puts his feet in a chair, 
 or on the table. He never puts his books in the secre- 
 tary, but piles them up on the table, or throws them on 
 the floor. If he fills the lamp, he is sure to tip it over ; 
 or, if he writes a letter, he overturns the inkstand. If
 
 "WHERE DO YOU ROOM?" 81 
 
 you remind him of his fault, he grins and says, "Thun- 
 der ! I don't care." The literary chum must be perfectly 
 unendurable. He has wisely concluded to study enough 
 to keep in college, and devote the rest of his time to 
 literature. His mind is too gigantic in its faculties and 
 capacities, to be trammelled by stud)'. If you are studi- 
 ous, he looks down upon you, and speaks of your con- 
 tracted notions of life, and its work. He is always 
 reading and troubling you with the few ideas he has col- 
 lected. He affects an acquaintance with all ancient 
 and modern authors, and to complete the monkeyism 
 of his literary attainments, corresponds with some 
 newspaper, and writes sage criticisms upon college life 
 being devoted to study. He calls Junior Exhibition 
 and Commencement shams, because none but scholars 
 speak on these occasions. He thinks literary men like 
 himself ought to be allowed to come upon the stage 
 and show forth the true intellectual culture of the 
 student. I only hope that men of this stamp, of 
 whom we have many in college, will grow wiser as they 
 advance in years. 
 
 What shall I say of the musical chum ? 
 
 I would never have an amateur musician for a chum. 
 The whistling of operatic airs, psalm-tunes, and negro 
 melodies is decidedly entertaining when you are trying 
 to master " Hamilton," or appreciate the easy flowing 
 style of " Guizot." Does your chum sing in the choir ? If 
 he does, murder him ; for often has he made the psalm- 
 tune to send forth a hideous discord. Your chum 
 plays on his flute, piano, melodeon, cornet, fiddle, and 
 horn, in study hours ; therefore I wish you would break 
 his instruments, for often has he made me utter many 
 things derogatory to his character as a musician and 
 gentleman.
 
 82 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 I will pass by the rowdy chum, with his nocturnal 
 inebriations and daily headaches, and the stingy chum, 
 who won't buy matches, and barely pays for his share 
 of things, and conclude my enumeration by considering 
 the character of the squirty chum. He devotes himself 
 almost exclusively to dress. The first duty in the 
 morning with him is to select a cravat and a beau-ideal 
 choker. His study-hours are devoted to the adornment 
 of his outer-self, and the hourly parade of Chapel 
 street. To be disturbed when one is studying by such 
 a sickly display of humanity, is distressing. The society 
 of such a youth gives one a moral fever and ague. He 
 interrupts your meditations with a discourse upon his 
 personal attractions, his popularity with the ladies. To 
 him the cultivation of whiskers is the progressive 
 movement of civilization, and the perfect set of a coat 
 the acme of human happiness. Deliver me from such a 
 nice young man. To save myself from the possibility of 
 getting one of these chums, I do not room in college. 
 Man has enough to do with the frailty of human nature, 
 without being shut up in the room with it. How de- 
 lightful to be sick when one rooms in college ! It is a 
 wonder that you ever recover, when once you are 
 stretched upon a " pallet of straw," in one of those 
 dark, dismal bed-rooms, where nothing is heard but the 
 majestic tread of the bed-bug, or the attenuated voice 
 of the cricket. Your meals are brought to you cold 
 in fit order for the digestion of a pirate. Notwithstand- 
 ing you are sick, there is as much noise as ever around 
 the buildings. And as you endeavor to get a little 
 sleep amid the universal racket, you wish you didn't 
 room in college. I may be sick, therefore I do not 
 room in college. 
 
 I am "contented with my rooms, neatly furnished,
 
 "WHERE DO YOU ROOM?" 83 
 
 always kept in order and cleanliness. Here I study, and 
 here I see my friends. When I wish quiet here I have 
 it, but when I desire to hear a bedlam of sounds, have 
 my head fired at by innumerable articles, my clothes 
 drenched by an omnipresent squirt-gun ; in fine, when I 
 wish to see "college-life," as it is called, I lock my 
 door and go over to the college buildings, and come 
 back with rapid pace.
 
 tjobbieo. 
 
 In number X, South Middle, rooms he whom every 
 one calls a dig. He will not receive you very en- 
 thusiastically, nor press you to sit down if you step in 
 to see him ; and while you stay he will keep casting 
 impatient and significant glances at his book. He is 
 working for stand, getting good out of his college 
 course ; he never slurs over a point, nor leaves a task 
 unperformed ; and when he meets you as he goes rush- 
 ing from recitation to his books, or from his books to 
 recitation, he casts at you a piteous glance of contempt 
 as he recalls with inward satisfaction the wretched fiz- 
 zles which you are in the habit of making, in contrast 
 with his own clean and faultless recitations. I doubt 
 if the subject of the dig will ever be fully exhausted, 
 and if all the theoretical contempt felt for him will ever 
 be heaped upon his unfortunate head, but particularly 
 there is one aspect to which I have never heard refer- 
 ence. I, for my part, am Epicurean enough to agree 
 with the extremest ideas of those who would refer 
 everything which we do to a standard of pleasure. One 
 man finds his chief delight in dissipating, another revels 
 in floating freely on the feathery foam of fashion ; an- 
 other makes muscle his god, and bows before him I 
 while a fourth reads with the greatest of pleasure the 
 beauties of the literature of all ages. These four classes 
 of men who work for pleasure, are the ones who find 
 most fault with " digs." Did it never occur to them
 
 HOBBIES. 85 
 
 that these poor individuals may feel as intense a satis- 
 faction in poring hour after hour over what is stupid 
 and repulsive to ordinary men, as they do in their 
 pleasures, which are, perhaps, more easily understood ? 
 Every man in college is in some sense a man of one 
 idea. Notwithstanding our boasted educational system, 
 there is little versatility of talent among us. Every- 
 body everywhere has his hobby, but nowhere is he more 
 apt to ride it to the exclusion of everything else, than at 
 college. Talk to any of us and see. Observe how far 
 beyond the ordinary exchange of civilities you can go 
 in fluent conversation with a college man unless either 
 he or you strike your one idea. Let the society man 
 run along, and in how short a time will he begin to re- 
 tail New Haven gossip ; to tell you about this party or 
 that, which he has attended ; to give you his opinion 
 about Miss Jones and Miss Brown, whom he considers 
 the handsomest young ladies in the city, but at the same 
 time, he thinks that although the features of the former 
 are faultless, she is somewhat lacking in animation and 
 vivacity ; while the other, though animated and viva- 
 cious enough, has her beauty somewhat marred by a 
 lisp, which is extremely disagreeable to him. Casually 
 remark to the heavy literary man by way of light con- 
 versation, that you have a composition to write on the 
 " Founding of Constantinople," and then, if you do not 
 want to have a long list of books, beginning with 
 Ruskin and continuing ad infinitum, together with this 
 gentleman's opinion hurled at you, you had better van- 
 ish at once. Ask a votary of art, ironically, if he had a 
 pleasant call on some ancient lady whom you heard he 
 had to go and see, and listen as he replies, " Oh, yes ; 
 she paints beautifully," and then makes a graceful 
 transition to some learned remarks on the Jarves col-
 
 86 DORMITORY LIFE. 
 
 lection. But above all, if you would see this idea 
 illustrated, take a walk with the man who is working 
 for class honors, and behold with what astonishing 
 celerity he will hang himself, at least in your estima- 
 tion, if you will only give him rope enough, as he un- 
 wittingly unravels all his hopes and all his expectations. 
 The good of a college course has often been said to 
 lie in the greatest degree in its social aspect. And its 
 social aspect in turn, finds its utmost perfection in 
 dormitory life. Here the pure gold and the dross are 
 quickly detected. Men who have lived at home or 
 have been otherwise isolated, may pass for pleasant 
 fellows to those who see them only long enough to bow 
 to them. But when you see a man every day, are in 
 his society constantly, hour after hour, all the lights and 
 shadows of his character are quickly revealed. I do 
 not form my estimate of what a man is worth by his 
 conduct at any one time, be he wonderfully brave or 
 wonderfully cowardly then. I take a sort of mean of 
 how he acts under all the different circumstances under 
 which I see him placed. Here you cannot shut your 
 mouth and look wise, and pass for a genius. Here no 
 allowances are made for your foibles and varying 
 moods. No one cares for you more than for any one 
 else ; and if you do not choose to make yourself agree- 
 able, there are plenty who do. What a bracing effect 
 on one's powers of conversation and one's ability to 
 carry himself carefully and agreeably, will the thought 
 of his position in popular esteem for three years, have 
 on any reflecting man !
 
 PEN PORTRAITS.
 
 You may perhaps remember that when Mrs. Feathery 
 Flake had assembled at a charming dinner a company 
 composed exclusively of illustrious savants in the hope 
 of an accompanying feast of reason and a display of 
 mental fireworks, she was greatly disappointed in the 
 event by reason of the intellectual inhospitality of the 
 guests, who found no level unroughened by acrid con- 
 tradictions. John Stuart Mill advised, " know something 
 of everything and everything of something." And I am 
 inclined to think that he who is regarded as the model 
 student is neglectful of the former section of the motto, 
 while I know that college life is relieved from a state of 
 awful grind by the presence of those who, as Elia says, 
 are not " entirely ignorant of anything." I am heartily 
 glad that our tables are not surrounded by pedantry. 
 However, I do not wish to sketch the " superficially 
 omniscient" character, but intend to introduce an old 
 though unclassified friend under a vague name which is 
 recognized more in English Universities than in our 
 own. 
 
 Old ! for what set does not know the president of the 
 eating-club senate? Vague ! yet appropriate, though I 
 would not have you confound it with the " man about 
 town " or " the lounger in society." Distant equally from 
 the dig and the prodigal, distinct from the popular and 
 not to be mentioned in the same breath with the unpop- 
 ular man, yet a definite type in the student world, he is
 
 Q2 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 conspicuous by a delightful unobtrusiveness, this man 
 about college, whose necktie betokens ease and whose 
 whole appearance denotes a quiet sociability. The pop- 
 ular man belongs to his class, chums with your enemy 
 and is everybody's friend, but the man about college 
 has a lesser orbit and is confined to his club and crowd. 
 Acquainted with the many he is intimate of a coterie. 
 
 You all know a man who never seems to have any- 
 thing to do, a heedless scholar, an habitue of the theatre, 
 and a retailer of small-talk, who, possessed of a pleas- 
 ing voice, leads the singing at the club or on the campus 
 when the night is song-inspiring and whom you cannot 
 censure if you try. Indeed, one to whom it is possible 
 to pay more compliments and less praise than to any 
 other in our midst. Why he comes to college is easily 
 explained. His father was college-bred ; it is the thing 
 to do, and he does not mind having a liberal education. 
 He shows a woeful lack of ambition and. is the despair 
 of indulgent professors, but he is the embodiment of 
 social sympathy and occupies the grassy slopes apart 
 from the cold, commanding summits and the wild though 
 attractive precipices of the collegiate steep. The man 
 pursuing his own interests has no time to think of 
 yours, and presents a cold front to your advances, nor 
 has the fast man the desire to enter into the serious side 
 of your life. Here then this man has his place in the 
 body collegiate. He is, fortunately, as liberal in his 
 ideas as in his studies ; can talk on as many subjects as 
 a reporter, and intelligently, on all ; does a number of 
 things with fair skill, excels in no games, although you 
 have a suspicion that he could if he tried, (luckily he 
 does not), and neither demands nor deserves success. 
 He is, in fine, simply the man about college. 
 
 I have limited him to a circle of friends because he is
 
 THE MAN ABOUT COLLEGE. 93 
 
 not what is known as a prominent man. He neither 
 aspires to the councils of legislation nor desires schol- 
 astic eminence and professional glory. But in sociabil- 
 ity he is the most attractive of his fellows. He is 
 something of a cheerful philosopher and his point of 
 view enables him to see a very comfortable side of life. 
 He has an attractive store of knowledge of a kind un- 
 known to other men, derived from observation and ex- 
 perience. Neither is his stock of conversation merely 
 laughing-gas, nor in his nature is there any part of the 
 mordant trinity of envy, jealousy and scurrility. He is, 
 too, an engaging listener, so that he both invites and 
 gives confidence. He is your best friend. To parody 
 Byron, he not only has 
 
 "The art of drawing people out, 
 Without his knowing what he is about," 
 
 but he also discourses of himself, while he lets you 
 parade your views of life and humanity, your secret as- 
 pirations and your petty cares, to your great relief. A 
 thousand times he hath borne me on his back out of the 
 slough of despond to this firmer shore, where I find 
 placid periods of contentment. When sad and sour, he 
 has led me from the current of my reflections into heart- 
 easing side streams. He is strung with fine sensibilities 
 and can both cheer and sympathize. O best of words ! 
 A sympathetic exchange of ideas is a necessity for the 
 undergraduate, however much some may try to conceal 
 the desire by an affected brusqueness. This is the very 
 poetry of our impressionable existence, and the man 
 about college is our opportunity. He knows the cool- 
 est walks and the fairest scenes, the most interesting 
 people and the queerest characters. He dabbles in 
 sailing, the amusement most suggestive for reflection, 
 and he persuades you to his haunts out of yourself. To
 
 94 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 him alone do you unbosom yourself, and with him you 
 are always satisfied, for selfishness is foreign to his na- 
 ture. Such, then, is his sphere of usefulness. Call him 
 idle if you will. I would not have him changed, and I 
 shudder to think what effect the monotonous routine 
 would have if his contrast did not distract our weary 
 minds. It is he who forms the basis of college friend- 
 ship and fellowship that seem so picturesque to the 
 outside world. His fun, wit and sympathy are abso- 
 lutely essential to the success of universities. When, 
 in the days to come, you look back on the days here, 
 this Yorick will first occur to your pleased recollection. 
 
 It was decidedly late the other night, for conversation 
 had been prolonged regardless of the chiming quar- 
 ters, when I bade my visitor " Schlafen Sie wohl !" 
 and asked him the old question " why don't you do 
 something ?" " Why, my dear fellow, he replied, I war- 
 rant you I take more pleasure in my life than you do 
 in yours. It never occurs to me to ask if life is worth 
 living. And for me my knowledge is better than an ex- 
 act acquaintance with the curriculum. I may be a roll- 
 ing stone, but in my rambling course, you must acknow- 
 ledge that with my polish I have also contrived to gather 
 a fair quantity of tenacious moss. Fame is a bauble 
 that shines with reflected light, and to me its intrinsic 
 value is not self-evident. I prefer business for support 
 and a few trusty friends for enjoyment. Good night !" 
 
 And I doubt not but that this careless fellow, whose 
 flattery is always flattering and whose criticism is frank, 
 earnest and good-natured, although distinguished in 
 neither letters nor science, will have one of the happiest 
 of homes. He is indeed more than a subject for de- 
 scriptive negation. Respect? No. Admiration? Im- 
 possible. Regard and affection? Need I make reply?
 
 l)e SDtm. 
 
 ALMOST every type of character which figures in a 
 student's life has been written of, has been extolled or 
 vilified, according to the impressions which it has made 
 on the author ; but, so far as I can determine, no great 
 space has ever been allotted to the dun ; and, though no 
 skillful wielder of the quill, yet from my experience in 
 the matter, which has been not less extensive than 
 varied, I flatter myself that a few words from me on this 
 subject will prove, at least, instructive. My experience 
 has, as I remarked, been varied. It commenced while 
 at a primary school, where the rage was collecting post- 
 age stamps. One day I sold one to my desk-mate I 
 remember it well, it was a red Costa Rica stamp, and 
 I was to give it to him for eight cents. He gave me a 
 ten cent bill and I gave him a cent in change and prom- 
 ised to bring the other the next day. I didn't bring it 
 and he dunned me until he left school. That was be- 
 ginning early, and duns have haunted me ever since. 
 Of duns there are several varieties : there is the meek but 
 persistent dun ; the cross and surly dun ; the sarcastic 
 dun, and the one who tells a sad story of the hard 
 times. This mournful dun is the hardest to manage 
 until one becomes callous. 
 
 All duns have, however, a great many points of re- 
 semblance ; and one is the way in which they come to 
 your room. You can, with a little experience, tell them 
 by their approach, and fortunate is it for the dunned
 
 96 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 that they necessarily betray themselves. A student, 
 coming to your room, will usually come up the stairs 
 on a run, either whistling or singing, and give a quick 
 rap at the door. One coming in this way it is always 
 quite safe to admit ; but when a man comes who walks 
 with a slow and measured step, and when at the top of the 
 stairs stops and looks at the number of the room, and 
 then knocks two or three times to such a one, if you 
 are wise, you will always sport the oak. Let him stand 
 there till he freezes, but keep dark inside. 
 
 Once I changed rooms temporarily with a man at the 
 other side of the building, and we sent away each 
 other's duns. This worked well until a common foe, 
 who knew us by sight, was sharp enough to catch me. 
 A landlady is a tough customer to manage ; she can 
 pounce on you at meal time, and you are defenceless ; 
 she will put you on short commons and starve you into 
 payment ; she will abuse you and often shed tears, and 
 finally drive you to desperation. Another mean dun is 
 the collector of base ball and boating subscriptions. 
 He is up to most of the wrinkles, and can get at you on 
 the campus. If he is an upper-class man and you are 
 below him, you have a hard road to travel, as a man of 
 known and tried cheek is usually put on the trail, who 
 will bluff you, show you your written promise to pay, 
 insult you, and use every means to bring you to terms. 
 Not answering to a knock don't work with him, as he'll 
 walk in, open the closet and bedroom, and if he don't 
 find you he'll sit down and read your novels for awhile 
 and wait. A friend of mine was kept under his bed for 
 an hour and had to cut recitation, while the persecutor 
 amused himself. I have often wondered whether a dun 
 has a soul or any feelings. I cannot state positively, but 
 my opinion is that he is devoid of both. I have known
 
 THE DUN. 97 
 
 sharp duns, patient and persistent duns, mean duns, un- 
 bluffable duns, and duns provocative of great profanity, 
 but I never knew one in which all these things were so 
 symmetrically combined, as in a creature employed by 
 a leading carpet-dealer in this city, and who last fall 
 made my life a continual game of hide and seek. This 
 man represented a wealthy firm to whom I was unfor- 
 tunate enough to owe fifteen dollars. The" first Monday 
 of last term he appeared bright and early and asked for 
 his money. I told him that I had none, and put him off 
 indefinitely. In a week he came again, and was dismissed 
 at once. At the end of seven days he was again there ; 
 this time he argued the matter. I blustered ; he was mild 
 and persistent, and my chum smiled and stroked his new- 
 born mustache. Finally, I got rid of him. After this his 
 visits became more and more frequent ; he would be at 
 the fence, at the door of the recitation-room, and always 
 with the same bland expression and paper collar. He 
 never lost his temper or showed any resentment at my 
 profanity ; only once he looked " not angry, only 
 grieved." How I longed for him to say one insult- 
 ing word for which I could hit him ! How I tried 
 to lead him into telling me I had lied to him ! It was 
 of no avail. There was not a word or act which I could 
 take up, but I got to dread and hate the man. I rarely 
 visited my room except in the evening and on Sundays. 
 Finally my spirit was broken, and I felt that I was his. 
 One morning I saw him coming up the street ; I stood 
 in another entry smoking with a crowd, and watched 
 him ascend to my room. I waited nearly an hour, and 
 supposed he had returned to h'is den on Chapel street ; 
 so with courage I went to my castle. Alas, I found the 
 enemy there, talking politics with my chum.' Frantic 
 with fright and chagrin, I shrieked, " Come at five this 
 
 4
 
 98 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 afternoon and I'll pay you !" At half-past four that 
 day, accompanied by a friend, I crept into Max's seques- 
 tered retreat, and stayed two hours. It was dark when 
 I came up Chapel street, and I knew the viper must 
 have gone to get some food. But what ! was it the beer 
 I had been drinking, or was it a reality ? A second glance 
 at the gaunt figure standing before my boarding-house, 
 convinced me that no time was to be lost. I flew as if 
 on wings. Two days later I surrendered at discretion, 
 and paid up. 
 
 This is a true story, and many I know will believe it. 
 When I paid the bill I congratulated the merchant on 
 having so fine a blood-hound. He told me with pride, 
 I thought, that that dun had driven three men into an 
 insane asylum, one to suicide, and made one seek re- 
 lief in drink. He said he had more like him, but this I 
 will not believe. I often see him flit like a ghost about 
 the campus, and I am told that he is a frequent visitor 
 at a certain old building on the row. My entry is 
 troubled with duns. On an average several good sized 
 squads of them come up there every morning. We 
 have a levee from nine till five daily ; the evenings 
 we have to ourselves, also Sundays. They all say times 
 are hard. We have a dilemma which we give them : 
 " Your employer is rich and does not need money ; 
 therefore he should not annoy me." "Ah, no !" is the 
 sad reply, "he has no money." "Then he can appre- 
 ciate my situation." Just try that with your duns. 
 Profanity is lost on them, and next to kicking them 
 down stairs, it's the most comforting thing one can say 
 to them.
 
 V!K Sweep. 
 
 THAT I have had opportunities enough for studying 
 character in college, I cannot deny, but that I have used 
 them at all as I ought, I cannot claim. In only one case 
 can I plead an exception, and even in that I deserve no 
 praise, as the facts of the case fairly thrust themselves 
 upon my notice, and the conclusion and idea, if I may 
 dignify them by such a name, would follow almost against 
 my will. There is nothing strange in this, however, for 
 the character of which I speak is so rich in its quaint 
 humor, and yet, at times, so full of simple, unobtrusive 
 pathos, that it could scarcely fail to strike the most care- 
 less observer, while there is in it no dishonesty, no con- 
 cealment or distrustful retirement which might make it 
 hard to read. 
 
 It is now nearly three months since for the first time I 
 heard old Jackson toiling with slow and heavy steps up 
 the seven flights of stairs that lead to my room. I remem- 
 ber that I almost blamed myself for their height and num- 
 ber, as I sat thinking of his stiff rheumatic joints, and 
 waiting with no little curiosity to see how he would go 
 to work to install himself in this new room. I expected 
 that he would be tired out and perhaps disgusted with 
 his ascent, but then, you see, I did not know the man. 
 Outside the door I heard him chuckling, as he stood for 
 a long time wiping his feet. Ah ! how I pitied my nice 
 clean mat, that it met with such usage at the very outset 
 of its career. But once inside he scarcely stopped to
 
 IOO PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 shut the door, in such a hurry was he to burst out into a 
 regular guffaw. His laughter was so contagious that, 
 though I knew not why he laughed, I joined him. At 
 last he managed to ejaculate, " Golly, this are high !" 
 and then, with as little apparent reason as he had for 
 beginning, he suddenly stopped and went to work. This 
 is all that I remember of that first day's doings, but 
 though he displayed no wit or smartness, and certainly 
 very little reverence or respect for my presence, I have 
 liked him from that time till now. Since then I have 
 found out that he does possess both wit and smartness, 
 but I scarcely like him better for my discovery. 
 
 Of course I, as every one else, had long known him for 
 a queer, good-humored old darkey, but had not thought 
 him much more peculiar than others of his class and age. 
 As his character came directly under my notice, however, 
 and his oddities were gradually brought to light, almost 
 the first thing that struck me, and the thing which above 
 all others made me set to work to find out more about 
 him, was his likeness to a class of persons whom I never 
 thought to have found outside of half a dozen Southern 
 States, the real old-fashioned household negro servants. 
 That one who had never been farther south than New 
 Jersey should greatly resemble a class so entirely sui 
 generis as this and so strictly confined as I thought, to a 
 small district, at once attracted my attention as peculiar. 
 His perfectly childish love of mischief and of laughter, 
 merely for laughter's sake and without any reference to 
 the thing which caused it, and the queer mixture of shy- 
 ness and simplicity which is so observable in him, accord 
 well with the traditional character I have mentioned, so 
 common in fiction, and so rare but real in life. He has, 
 too, just the proper amount of personal vanity, as I dis- 
 covered to my great amusement when he told me, in the
 
 THE SWEEP. IOI 
 
 most matter-of-fact way, that he had dyed his whiskers 
 the night of the Jubilee, and that the stuffwould not come 
 off; but most of all he has in perfection the oft-quoted 
 pride in " my gentlemen," and brags, in a manner worthy 
 of Gumbo himself, of their good looks, virtues and fine 
 rooms, with little remarks thrown in, now and then, by 
 way of parentheses, on the excellent care he takes of 
 them. 
 
 He sets full lordly value, too, upon his old black skin, 
 and has very little inclination to put it in unnecessary 
 danger. I wish that I could give you in his own words 
 his description of how he felt and how he acted when the 
 torchlight procession which he led was attacked in the 
 dark by an armed mob. But even if I had his words, his 
 voice and manner would be wanting, and the story half 
 untold. It was the shouts of laughter, laughter at him- 
 self, that accompanied every new recollection, and made 
 his old sides shake till I began to fear the consequences, 
 his animated gestures, the naivete with which he con- 
 fessed that he tried to run, but they caught him and 
 brought him back these things, as well as his quaint 
 language, are necessary to a true rendering of his tale. 
 The entire absence of any feeling of shame, and the 
 perfect honesty with which he disclaimed a desire to 
 stand still and be shot, take away from his action all 
 disgrace. 
 
 He has a faithful heart, withal, and a little kindness 
 on the part of any of his " gentlemen " is enough to win 
 and keep its affection and its service. He came to me 
 one morning, and in a most piteous voice, as if he were 
 asking a great favor for himself, requested me to excuse 
 him from spending quite his usual time upon my room, 
 as he was in a hurry to go to the other end of town to 
 get some medicine for one of them. And as I listened
 
 102 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 to his usually slow step descending the stairs with un- 
 wonted rapidity, and saw him hobble across the green, 
 I wondered how many would have done the service with 
 as good a will. Yet he had been with the man who sent 
 him only a short time. And when the invalid went home, 
 at first he would ask me regularly every day whether I 
 thought he was there yet and how soon he would be 
 back, though I as regularly denied all knowledge of the 
 matter. 
 
 So far I found his character to coincide with those 
 others " old in story," of which I have already spoken, 
 but from this point onward the difference in life and 
 education begin to tell, and the resemblance is almost 
 lost. Jackson is by nature lazy, but the necessity of 
 hard work has prevented him from indulging his weak- 
 ness until he has become strong stronger, perhaps, 
 than one who never has been weak and therefore never 
 has toiled and struggled to cure himself. But it is in 
 his perfect honesty of both word and deed that he differs 
 mainly from his Southern brethern, whose thefts, deceits 
 and lies are so well known. Nothing but freedom can 
 ever cure them ; that freedom can is proven in Jackson's 
 case. Knowing as he does how perfectly worthy of 
 trust he is, he is mortally offended if any one refuses to 
 give it him. Once when a tradesman, with whom he 
 had dealt for years, refused to give him a pair of rubber 
 boots on credit, though he knew that the old man's 
 rheumatism would be made worse by going out into the 
 wet without them, and was promised his pay in a few 
 days, Jackson's just indignation rose against him. He 
 gave me a detailed account of his grievances, and I was 
 surprised to find that he looked at the matter more with 
 shame than anger, and kept saying, " I didn't think he'd 
 do it. No ! I didn't." For this I judged that his show-
 
 THE SWEEP. IO3 
 
 ng no shame at having run from the Irishmen was not 
 the result of a lack of personal honor, but of " educated " 
 honor. He did not appear to know he had done any- 
 thing to be ashamed of. 
 
 One quality I have not yet been able to detect in Jack- 
 son, which I used to think was invariably to be found 
 under a black skin, I mean a love of beauty. Several 
 times I had noticed things which I thought indicated 
 such a deficiency, but so sure was I of my rule which 
 made the presence of the quality universal, that I waited 
 for further developments before forming any opinion. 
 It was the day after Thanksgiving that the incident oc- 
 curred which finally decided me. I have often thought 
 that under favorable circumstances the view from my 
 lofty window is one of considerable beauty. These cir- 
 cumstances are, a not too strong light, and something, 
 either leaves or snow, to cover and soften the outline of 
 the trees. Then, when the details of the picture are not 
 too apparent, its loveliness shines forth. Old North col- 
 lege reaching up right before me just to the level of my 
 eye, with the chapel spire behind it, one corner of Far- 
 nam on my left, and on the fight the whole of the hand- 
 some library building these, with their enveloping 
 rows of trees and a stray figure or two crossing the cam- 
 pus, make up of themselves a truly pleasing scene. 
 But take it after a heavy snow storm, when " Nature's 
 white mantle " lies thick and untrodden upon the 
 ground, and clings tenaciously to every limb and twig 
 and gable and chimney-top, when a few flakes still linger 
 in the air, as if doubtful whether to join their fellows 
 upon the earth or to return to their lofty home, and not a 
 human being is in sight save the laborer shoveling drifts 
 from off the path take it at such a time, and in its way 
 it cannot be surpassed. At such a time it was that I
 
 IO4 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 called Jackson to the window, determined to make him 
 praise the scene. He appeared to listen attentively to 
 my explanations, and then muttering. " Yes, sir ! yes, 
 sir ! it is a bad day," as if chilled by the very looks of 
 of it, crouched down by the heater and turned his face 
 inside the room. I, of course, was disgusted ; but I 
 soon forgave him, for it was that very day he had failed 
 of getting his rubber boots, and he would naturally think 
 only of the cold and wet. 
 
 Thanksgiving day I asked him whether he was going 
 to have a turkey for dinner, and his answer I shall not 
 soon forget. The old man is very fond of his children 
 and his invalid wife, and I could see that thoughts of 
 them and their cold, cheerless meal would rise in his 
 mind at my careless question. But he bravely fought 
 his feelings down and said, with a poor attempt at his 
 old hearty laugh, " No, sir ! aint got nothing." 
 
 But I hear him coming up the stairs. " How are you, 
 Jackson?"
 
 lje Bore. 
 
 ON one of those rainy days that were seemingly made 
 for reading, I occupied myself in looking over an 
 old edition of Shakespeare, the First Folio, 1623. I 
 was in a rather despondent mood and somewhat in- 
 clined to look on the dark side of everything, probably 
 owing to the overcast condition 'of the heavens at that 
 time. The melancholy Dane being in some degree con- 
 sonant with my feelings, I turned to Hamlet and read 
 until the following passage, taken from the second 
 scene of the second act arrested my attention : " What 
 a piece of worke is a man ! how Noble in Reason ? how 
 infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse 
 and admirable? in Action how like an Angel? in ap- 
 prehension, how like a god ? the beauty of the world, 
 the Paragon of Animals." The glorious panegyric at 
 first filled me with awe. Can it be that such beings are 
 daily around us ? There must be a mistake. Was the 
 sixteenth century closed and the seventeenth ushered 
 in by such divine creations? Is it possible that none of 
 those, who, to hold our attention, must hold us by a 
 button, were in existence. If they did flourish then, 
 how, in the name of all that is reasonable, was such a 
 eulogy on man ever written ? Perhaps, some one sug- 
 gests, he managed to escape them by means known only 
 to men of the loftiest genius. Such a supposition I 
 emphatically deny, as it implies lack of human sympa- 
 thy by withholding the talisman for such troubles ; this
 
 IO6 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 no one would charge upon him. I am thus forced to 
 conclude that bores were uncommon in what must have 
 been a Golden Age. 
 
 The rain patters down incessantly, and my eyes 
 wearied, leave the book, but the thought of bores hav- 
 ing been brought up, my mind clings tenaciously to the 
 subject. The long procession of my own particular 
 ones, in single file, marches by. The first who comes 
 to view is a sensible man, and at first glance one would 
 think he ought not to be numbered among such a dis- 
 reputable class. When I first knew him I thought he 
 was an interesting talker and had a wonderful amount 
 of useful knowledge at command. As time rolled on I 
 came to know him quite well ; my room was hardly 
 e.ver without him. In matters of reading he was always 
 ready to suggest the best books and give a synopsis of 
 them unless restrained by me. I never expressed an 
 opinion of even the slightest importance, without being 
 immediately challenged and required to support it with 
 strong authority. At night as I gently urged him to 
 leave, I was assailed with inexhaustible stores of learn- 
 ing and "you can't back up that about," &c. He is 
 well known to you, so we shall once be free from him 
 by crowding in the next behind. 
 
 This one is popularly known as a " sponge." Every- 
 thing I possess he takes for granted is at his disposal. 
 I thought when I lent him the first book it was a fine 
 stroke of policy, in fact, a sure step toward becoming a 
 popular man. I fancied he would spend all his spare 
 time reporting " what an obliging man X. is." During 
 the past three years he has been a constant borrower of 
 everything, from a white neck-tie to a pair of boots. 
 Money I did lend him, but gave up doing so after our 
 learned professor impressed upon my mind the words
 
 THE BORE. IO7 
 
 of Shakespeare, that the lender loses both money and 
 friend. 
 
 Number three asks for a moment's attention. I shall 
 always remember him with feelings of indignation. It 
 was when I was just recovering from a touch of sick- 
 ness. My condition seemed to him to warrant his 
 spending all his time with me. In vain did I feign an 
 inability to talk ; he was quite willing to excuse me and 
 easily filled up the blank. He seemed to fairly revel in 
 the knowledge that I was in his clutches and could not 
 escape. I am considered quite polite, and so did not 
 care to blast my reputation by entreating him to leave. 
 My frantic but vain efforts to get rid of him, and the 
 constant high tension of my nerves brought on a re- 
 lapse. I was compelled to go home. Some say that it 
 was wholly on account of my absence that I lost my 
 Philosophical. I have no doubt of it, and lay the entire 
 blame upon my friend. 
 
 Have you a confidant ? Well, he is number four. I 
 don't mean one of those men with whom we occasion- 
 ally sit down and have a pleasant talk over agreeable 
 reminiscences, but the one who forces upon us at the 
 most inconvenient times the history of himself and en- 
 tire family, his adventures and flirtations. I am not 
 interested in him ; how can I be in what he says ? His 
 flirtations sound as if they were fashioned to be told, 
 and hence are more insipid than the poorest of trashy 
 stories. I say yes when he looks at me inquiringly, 
 but hastily change to no if his countenance betokens 
 surprise. When he reaches the funny place I try to 
 twist my face into a grim smile, but his own hearty ap- 
 preciation of the joke so occupies him that he does not 
 notice me. I don't like to use hard words about such 
 a man, and so will resort to the polite form of a French
 
 IO8 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 writer, who said, " It is one of the vexatious mortifica- 
 tions of a studious man to have his thoughts disordered 
 by a tedious visit." 
 
 But here come two abreast. It is well ; they are 
 chums. Their room is directly over mine. I have 
 never been in it, but I know positively that it contains 
 two heavy rocking-chairs, one piano and one guitar. I 
 am rather nervous, and when I first moved into my 
 room, a constant tramp over my head nearly distracted 
 me. A succession of flunks followed. I mildly re- 
 monstrated, and was informed that it was the only way 
 one of them could prepare his recitations ; he had been 
 in the habit of doing it for a long time and could not 
 stop now. After a while I grew accustomed to the 
 monotonous tread, but ere long two nice old Shaker 
 rocking-chairs arrived from home, and the other man 
 varied the sweet sounds from above with these new 
 instruments of torture. 
 
 What ! Stopped raining. Yes, there comes the sun. 
 It sends warmth into me and softens the crust in which 
 I am enveloped. Have I not been a little too hard on 
 bores? I look around and see well-known bearers of 
 this name occupying places which can only be obtained 
 by popular men. Here is X. Every one knows he is 
 an inveterate lounger in other men's rooms ; ready to 
 give you assistance on anything ; explain any point ; 
 equally ready to use anything he sees ; whereas, there 
 is V, whom we all acknowledge is the more clever of 
 the two, who minds his own business and never bor- 
 rows anything, holding a position far inferior to X. 
 Indeed I am inclined to think that some bores are 
 much more respected than those who are really brighter, 
 but more reserved. But I am becoming too lenient 
 with my bete noire. Too much sunshine is streaming in 
 and I must close the blind.
 
 THE BORE. I0g 
 
 I have seen somewhere the rather paradoxical state- 
 ment that English society takes a placid enjoyment in 
 being bored. The rash author furthermore defies peo- 
 ple to account on any other theory for three-fourths of 
 the so-called recreations which are accepted as at once 
 useful and amusing by the British nation. I think the 
 same can be justly asserted by us in regard to some of 
 our pastimes, notably the dancing at the receptions 
 given by bang bang " Come in." Oh, dear ! here 
 comes the very man I have shown you in four or five 
 phases. Farewell, work ! Oh, !
 
 f)e Sponger. 
 
 THE man with a sponge is about again. He always 
 appears toward the close of the term, when we com- 
 mence to review ; and while other men depend upon 
 their own exertions in preparation for examination, he 
 runs around with his sponge and sops up a little here 
 and there, and, as he never squeezes it for another's 
 benefit, all that he gets is clear gain. Such absorptive 
 fellows as these spongers are ! and their sponges, gen- 
 uine " suckers," drink in everything from a Greek 
 grammar lesson to a transcendental equation. He is 
 quite a " frequent " fellow, too, this sponger of ours. 
 He rooms in your entry; he rooms in mine; and you 
 wouldn't have him move for anything, nor would I. 
 He has a quiet way of calling in just before recitation, 
 and getting posted up on those confounded metres, 
 wants to know what the Sapphic strope consists of, and 
 how many trochaic dipodies it takes to flank a dactyl 
 successfully. Then he borrows your notes to look over 
 a minute (you had left the notes until the last minute so 
 as to be fresh on them), and just as the bell begins to 
 ring he lays them down, and with an agonized look im- 
 plores your pardon, "humbles himself before you as he 
 would before his division officer," and swears that his 
 carelessness in monopolizing your notes at a critical 
 moment will cause him to " sit on the ragged edge of 
 remorse" during the entire recitation. He frequently 
 sits beside you in recitation. When an example is given
 
 THE SPONGER. Ill 
 
 out to be worked in class, he has unbounded confidence 
 in your ability to do it correctly. He shows this by 
 copying down your logarithms as fast as you look them 
 out, then nudges you with his elbow and wants to com- 
 pare answers. You are almost ashamed of yourself to 
 find that your answer corresponds with his, and are 
 sure that he suspects you of copying from his work. 
 
 If there is any one thing which I am more sensitive 
 about than another, it is my use of a translation. But 
 the sponger has no regard for my sensitiveness on this 
 point, and drops in at most unseemly hours. He 
 always pretends not to notice the pony sticking out 
 from under the lexicon, which " half reveals the deform- 
 ities it fain would hide," and soon goes out without be- 
 traying his knowledge of my weakness. But after a 
 time he comes back again, apologizes for even harbor- 
 ing the thought for a moment, but really " You haven't 
 a horse on the Greek, have you?" and "Can I take it 
 up to my room a few minutes?" You have to go after 
 it when you want to use it again. The sponger is the 
 laziest man in college and yet works harder than any of 
 us. Why, the amount of running around from room to 
 room which he does in a single day, would wear my 
 legs out. He walks a quarter of a mile and runs up and 
 down a dozen flights of stairs to copy the demonstration 
 of a problem, which he could work out himself in five 
 minutes. Verily, he rejoiceth more of one lesson 
 sponged from another, than over ninety and nine lessons 
 learned by individual effort. He detests a man who 
 studies. He stands afar off, and lifts up his voice and 
 "gives thanks that he is not as other men are, or even 
 as this poor dig," and then comes around and asks if 
 you won't drop a few ideas for him to absorb. Our 
 sponger is a Pharisee. He is likewise a tyrant. You
 
 112 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 yield to him day by da.y, and are angry at yourself in 
 vain for so doing. He appeals to your pride, flatters 
 you a little if you post him up well, and before you 
 know it you find yourself looking up fine points for his 
 benefit. He will get up a rivalry between two of us, 
 telling each how clear the other makes all his points, 
 and you work the harder to retain his patronage. He 
 is quick to learn, and turns everything to his own 
 advantage. Your plodding dullard never sponges, but 
 one of the craft listens almost impatiently to the words 
 of wisdom you are letting fall for him, and cries out, 
 " Fearful soft lesson, ain't it?" and you reply, dubiously, 
 " Yes, fearful," and wonder that you hadn't noticed it 
 before. 
 
 The sponger is a generous fellow, and very popular 
 among his kind. He goes to the theatre three times a 
 week, and frequently invites you to go with him. He 
 knows you never go to the theatre. He smokes good 
 cigars, and always offers you one. He knows you never 
 smoke. He oftentimes invites you up to his pleasant 
 room. He knows you are too busy to accept. And he 
 does it all with such a royal munificence that you can't 
 help admiring him. Your college sponger differs very 
 much from the sponger of the world. The latter is 
 usually a mean, parasitical scoundrel, who " dippeth 
 with you in the dish," and then betrays you with a kiss. 
 He sucks you dry, sells you out for " thirty pieces of 
 silver," and forgets to follow the example of his great 
 ancestor, who, after cutting up just such a trick, "went 
 and hanged himself." But our sponger is no such fel- 
 low. He is rich, handsome, and popular. If he hadn't 
 been so, we'd have kicked him out of doors before now. 
 His only faults are exceeding laziness and a monstrous 
 development of facial territory. And these are not
 
 THE SPONGER. 113 
 
 faults in him, but graces and accomplishments, that give 
 an additional charm to the possessor, and " we love him 
 still." So long, then, as he leans upon us for support, 
 and draws his sustenance from us, let us cherish him 
 with tender care. As you pass over to him the results 
 of your hard work, as you teach him metres and look 
 out logarithms for him, as you lend him text-book after 
 text-book, and go to the Educational Society library for 
 more, count it your duty and privilege so to do. He is 
 worth caring for. He is a good fellow. But there may 
 be too many of him.
 
 lje (Eroaker. 
 
 ADDISON has said, " Man is a creature made up of 
 different extremes, he has something in him very great 
 and very mean." I can find no one combining in his 
 character meaner traits than the croaker. His promi- 
 nent characteristic is an ambition to make others un- 
 happy. This is shown by a never-ceasing desire to 
 culminate every undertaking in a failure. He is always 
 at hand to put a damper on plans, by presenting disa- 
 greeable contingencies ; indeed, for him to refer to 
 pleasing probabilities is an impossibility equal to mak- 
 ing the tiger change his spots. 
 
 I sometimes see him in the garb of two other banes 
 of society the dogmatist and the sceptic. His state- 
 ments are always made with emphasis and a great ap- 
 pearance of accuracy. It is, in his own estimation, a 
 self-evident fact that things will turn out as he says. If 
 I present all the arguments experience has taught me 
 on some subject, he will answer me with a sceptical 
 sneer, disgusting to any fair-minded man. He is a 
 veritable Jerry Cruncher. That eccentric individual 
 was ever predicting ruin for himself and family. He 
 was quite certain that the bread and butter was being 
 prayed off his table, good luck thrust ruthlessly from 
 his doors, all through the continual " flopping " of the 
 good Mrs. C. He couldn't understand the " whys and 
 wherefores," and so it must be wrong. 
 
 They are the " I told you so " men. No matter what
 
 THK CROAKER. 115 
 
 may have happened they are at our elbows with their in- 
 fernal cry. If in one case out of ten (I draw it mild) 
 there was the slightest semblance to truth in what they 
 said, we could endure them ; but there is never the 
 least trace. They remind me of a little boy I saw at the 
 race last summer. He was wearing crimson. I asked 
 what he would do in case Yale won. " Oh ! I have lots 
 of blue in my pocket and will change 'em then." So 
 with this group of croakers ; they are bound to have 
 their say, be the termination successful or adverse. I 
 am inclined to think that rather than have such a nuis- 
 ance about, I would prefer to pass the life of Tantalus, 
 with five hundred South American Cormorants always 
 plucking at my liver. Indeed, I can't imagine any 
 picture of Hades as complete without seeing there some 
 poor sinner doomed to be forever followed by one of 
 these creatures. 
 
 Croakers are the men who are eternally hesitating from 
 some imaginary evil. They will whip a horse if he 
 starts at the sound of a steam-whistle, but never think 
 that most of their own fears are really fanciful. I see 
 every day some specimen of this class. He wanders 
 around the campus, picking up morsels, and then drops 
 into my room. I am forced to listen to the recital of a 
 long list of disheartening rumors about the crew or the 
 nine, and the gloomy prediction he always finishes with. 
 It is well enough to pay a due regard to sensible remarks 
 and be prepared for " breakers ahead." Their advice 
 is always of the flimsiest kind. Their hypotheses are 
 about as probable, their logic not nearly so good, as 
 what we see in the query of the venerable dame, 
 
 " If all the world were water, 
 And all the water were ink. 
 What should we do for bread and cheese ? 
 What should we do for drink ?"
 
 Il6 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 Again, there are those whom our Medics would say 
 were troubled with melancholia. They ever look upon 
 life as through a glass, darkly. Dickens furnishes 
 us an excellent example in Mrs. Grummidge. Like 
 her, they have no reason to be miserable. He has ad- 
 mirably portrayed this class when he places her in the 
 warm corner, gives to her the most comfortable chair in 
 the room, and then makes her complain. Her benefac- 
 tor, Mr. Peggotty, must continually hear her lament, "A 
 lone, lorn creetur and everything goes contrairy."
 
 She l)um. 
 
 You who have observed married life and bachelor 
 existence can tell the truth, that man is happier when 
 alone. How, then, can man hope to live with man, if he 
 cannot live with woman? You who have both had 
 chums and lived alone, can appreciate the meaning of 
 these remarks. Chums are not what they seem to be. 
 They appear all friendship, but they are generally dis- 
 contented and unhappy with one another. It seems a 
 beautiful picture, two young men living together in a 
 union so close. But marriages seem like Utopian bliss, 
 and yet divorces are not infrequent. And so with col- 
 lege chums ; they are tolerable fellows, and yet they 
 separate at the end of the year. Why ? Because you 
 had an ideal chum. He was a man of gentle disposi- 
 tion. You thought, he will fetch water for me, buy 
 me tobacco, and make the fires for me. He will study 
 as hard as I do, but no harder. He will sing when I do, 
 but at no other times. He will be grave when I am 
 grave, and will rejoice and be merry when I rejoice and 
 am merry. You thought, we will be like 
 
 " The two little -brothers of Ongar, 
 Who, wishing to grow wiser and stronger, 
 Each morn left their bed 
 Quite early, and read ; 
 Then walked in the fresh air of Ongar." 
 
 In other words, you thought that with such a man for 
 a chum you would descend the path of college life con-
 
 Il8 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 tented. And so you would, if such a docile, obedient 
 good-natured man could be found. But, my dear sir, 
 the man you chose as most nearly reaching your ideal, 
 selected you for the very same reason, then came a 
 clash, quarrels, insults ; you vowed you would do with 
 your half of the room as you pleased, and asked such 
 an absurd question as, " I'd like to know who pays for 
 half this room?" And as there are no possible answers 
 to such questions, you left the room, unable to give any 
 more of these pleasant little home-thrusts. 
 
 Now, this description is a real one, while the life of 
 the Ongars is ideal. First, a chum is bound to rebel 
 when you try to shift some little' disagreeable job on 
 him. It is of a matter of importance who wins this 
 first battle. For the man who is conqueror has com- 
 mand in the room that day forth. 
 
 Now, no matter whether you are the conquered or the 
 conqueror, you may be able to live with your chum. 
 That is, you can tolerate him, endure him. For at times 
 you like him and again you dislike him. In the 
 morning, you think you can laugh over his conduct of 
 last night when he threw himself in a maudlin condi- 
 tion on your bed, and vowed he would kiss his old 
 chum good night, and then proposed emptying the ket- 
 tles of water over you. In the morning you laugh. It 
 seems such a capital joke. Oh, yes, you laugh heartily. 
 'Tis true he kept you awake with his noisy companions, 
 then in the morning you laugh. Q, such splendid fun ! 
 You say he only comes in that way once a week ? Good 
 gracious, I would like your chum to be my chum. He 
 must make you laugh so. 
 
 But when your chum has the " blues " and sits oppo- 
 site you in his-easy chair for days, then is the time for 
 true mutual fondness to show itself. Ask him a ques-
 
 THE CHUM. Ilg 
 
 tion, he answers you in such a gentlemanly tone. Sug- 
 gest that it is his turn to buy tobacco and he will do so, 
 of course. It is so pleasant to have this dumb figure in 
 your room, never moving, but continually looking 
 severe, putting a check on all smiles, all attempts at 
 gayety. There are but few chums, one or the other of 
 whom has not had an attack of melancholia. Its fatal 
 presence has been imposed on many a good-natured 
 fellow. If the chum would only go into his bedroom 
 and lock himself there, and commit suicide, it wouldn't 
 be such a bad thing after all. 
 
 Now such chums as these are we ourselves. There 
 is no exaggerated disparity between two chums, gener- 
 ally. They do not hate one another, nor have they over- 
 much respect for each other. Ask a man how he likes 
 his chum. Does he not raise his eyebrows, shrug his 
 shoulders, look on the ground as he says, with an evi- 
 dent desire to change the subject, " Pretty well." If 
 instead he went off into glowing admiration, I would 
 suspect that man of hypocrisy. Now the man who says 
 " pretty well," tells the truth. His answer most college 
 men would give. For I believe this to be the universal 
 experience, and to imply no exaggeration. It is not the 
 absence of virtues but the presence of faults in his char- 
 acter that you dislike. There is a great need of charity 
 among us, for selfishness occupies too much room. 
 
 The proof of the truthfulness of this description is 
 conclusive. A man seldom rooms with his best friend. 
 This is not so because one has objections to living with 
 the man he likes most, but rather because that person 
 whom he once liked before others, has lost his charm, 
 since he has come to live with him. There is a great 
 deal of force in the old saying, " Familiarity breeds 
 contempt," and it offers a most complete explanation
 
 120 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 of the differences which occur in chum life. For in 
 those cases where two men have lived together as great 
 friends, you may observe the absence of affected jocos- 
 ity toward one another. And you may notice in its 
 stead a certain formality, a gentlemanly decorum. A 
 respect for his character and talents is what makes a 
 man call his chum his best friend. 
 
 And, now ye few who have pleasant chums, respect 
 them, if you hope to keep them as your own best 
 friends. But ye large crowds, to whom chums have 
 hitherto been a source of sorrow, and ye who have 
 made life miserable to your chums, do ye rise, rise, 
 strike hands and vow hereafter more charity and less 
 selfishness. Then will chums become true friends ; 
 then will life be more endurable, and we will feel less 
 like crying out " ' vanitas vanitatum ! ' Which of us is 
 happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or 
 having it is satisfied ?"
 
 Successful C 
 
 THIS subject presented itself neither as material for 
 an original comedy, nor as the basis for an extraordinary 
 attempt at a refreshingly easy prose article, but as a topic 
 of vital interest and most intimately connected with the 
 daily life of the majority of those of us who avoid Yale 
 Commons. The term successful is to be obviously ap- 
 plied not to the degree of satisfaction felt by her board- 
 ers, nor yet to her general popularity. The successful 
 boarding-house matron must retain her boarders. She 
 must make money by contracting the bill-of-fare. She 
 is no inflationist, unless it be in her conversational pow- 
 ers. The problem stretched out before her practical 
 mind is to find this line of demarcation, this dew-point 
 between the demands of economy and the good-nature 
 of her patrons, or, simply, to keep them at the slightest 
 possible expenditure. I have known honest landladies ; 
 I never knew one who questioned her own honesty ; but 
 surely it is a question of degree with many and that 
 degree depends upon the meekness and the simplicity 
 of the boarders. Her eyes will beam complacently over 
 a group of white-faced Freshmen seated around her 
 pine boards, and if sufficiently fresh, she reduces the 
 viands to a mathematical nicety and extracts the where- 
 withal from their purse with pious resignation. She 
 mentally deplores her own poverty which necessitates 
 such diligent robbing of the innocents, and succeeds in
 
 122 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 forgetting that couplet so affectingly rendered by " The 
 Beauty of the Blondes :" 
 
 " He who takes what isn't his'n, 
 Will one of these days be cast in pris'n." 
 
 The successful landlady has a power sui generis. In 
 the first place, she is of the tender sex. What bitter 
 irony lies within those words. About as tender as her 
 poultry, truly. Armed with the skirts, her familiarity 
 must be endured, her facetiousness stomached and her 
 bills paid according to a foolish code of honor and gal- 
 lantry. Thus our handsome heroine, conscious of her 
 feminine dignity, sails into the room full of bread-and- 
 molasses-eaters and exclaims, "Well, gentlemen, every- 
 thing is agreeable, I hope. Is the molasses good ?" She 
 accompanies her interrogation with a smile and nod 
 that command a sullen assent. Home-training still 
 makes itself slightly felt, and Edward though ready 
 enough to fire a potato-skin at the engraving of General 
 Putnam on the other side of the room, hesitates to 
 abuse the supper to the proprietress' face. 
 
 Edward, you err ! Listen to me, who like yourself 
 entered college mild, harmless and fresh. A stranger 
 was I and she took me in. One memorable day I 
 lingered^ over the burnt, black bread-pudding with 
 wicked thoughts in my heart. It seemed to be the 
 hour of emancipation, and I mumbled aloud mourn- 
 fully, then savagely, imagining myself alone. She 
 heard it. As she entered the room I can recollect how 
 she looked her figure erect, her eyes glittering devil- 
 ishly and her lips compressed. "Mr. Y ," it 
 
 came, "did I hear you complaining of the pudding? 
 Is there any fault to be found with the board ? Speak 
 it out right in my presence, but don't you dare to
 
 THE SUCCESSFUL LANDLADY. 12$ 
 
 grumble behind my back." In reply to her inquiries 
 my lips formed " Y-e-s," but manliness failed me. I 
 was bluffed. I stammered "No, O Lord, NO!" and 
 the day was lost. 
 
 Edward, to " bless them that persecute you," is with- 
 out doubt the proper thing, and peculiar advantages are 
 afforded at some boarding-houses for the exercise of 
 this virtue. A more thorough drill in the persecution 
 line and a higher order of temptations to retaliate are 
 not to be found in the State, but I sincerely doubt if 
 that joyous beatitude can ever be applicable to life in a 
 New Haven boarding-house. As you value health and 
 happiness, Edward, cultivate cheek with discretion. 
 Only bring this type of landlady to bay, and she is 
 yours, and once having gained a dignified victory, op- 
 pression will be comparatively unknown. 
 
 I next would treat briefly of the emotional land- 
 lady, a much more difficult creature to manage. At the 
 sound of distant murmurs, she floats languidly in, head 
 at one side, silent reproach in her manners and general 
 appearance, abject. " Good evening, all. I am quite 
 glad to provide everything for you within my limited 
 means, but believe me, I am losing a dollar a week 
 upon every one of you and really cannot keep the 
 New Haven House at these prices." We all feel con- 
 vinced of her inaccuracy, but are reluctant to make the 
 personal application. The result is a few blank stares 
 and the silence is broken again by " Good evening, all," 
 as she backs gracefully out. Edward, pay your bill 
 that night and seek another boarding-house. That 
 woman is more to be dreaded than the other, for you 
 cannot approach her. She closes every avenue of at- 
 tack and leaves retreat alone possible. 
 
 The treatment of the successful landlady must, then,
 
 124 PEN PORTRAITS. 
 
 be regulated to suit the particular case. In the one in- 
 stance courage suffices to obtain the proper result in 
 the other I suggest retreat. As a class they are about 
 as pleasant beings to deal with as the average army- 
 worm.
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
 
 Singing. 
 
 " The man that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils." 
 
 Merchant of Venice, Act v, See. i. 
 
 THE Hindoos regard the arts in general as direct 
 revelations from heaven, but music, say they, the grand- 
 est and best art, is communicated to mortals by Brahma 
 himself. It may be that our Christian readers do not 
 fully sympathize with such expressions of gratitude for 
 the divine gift of song. A few of them, possibly, find 
 that midnight serenades ill accord either with investiga- 
 tion into the "harmony of the spheres," or with noctur- 
 nal refreshment. Many of them, doubtless, the so-called 
 aristocrats, are located too near the much frequented 
 Calliope, whose dismal sounds, issuing at stated inter- 
 vals, smite rudely upon the ears of the sensitive, dis- 
 turb quiet meditation, and produce distraction in the 
 brain of the laborious student. As for myself, among 
 the many advantages of old South, I am happily unable 
 to appreciate in the least these discordant inflictions 
 upon my proud brethren. And it is very far from my 
 purpose in the present article to venture an opinion upon 
 the manner in which they, or our patient instructors, or 
 the uncomplaining fellow-townsmen might describe the 
 art of music as practiced by the great body of under- 
 graduates. , 
 
 College singing occupies a much more prominent 
 5
 
 130 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 place in the daily life at Yale than one might infer from 
 a perusal of the college catalogue, or an examination of 
 the prescribed text-books. Indeed, to such an extent is 
 this true, that from the earliest attempts of Freshman 
 year within the secret walls of Delta Kappa, to the sad 
 Parting Hymn of Commencement week, it is hardly 
 possible, in term time, to escape, for many consecutive 
 hours, the echo of some college song. Every place in 
 doors or out, within the limits of Hamilton Park and the 
 depot, every hour by day or by night, is liable to be con- 
 secrated to this muse Terpsichore. Then, too, the singers 
 are as various as the opportunities. Does any one im- 
 agine that they are selected from a particular stamp of 
 men, or can be distinguished by certain general charac- 
 teristics? It is a great mistake. The marking-books of 
 the Faculty indicate nothing as to the relative merit in 
 this department. The accurate scholar may or may not 
 be a successful candidate for the Glee Club. The voice 
 of the athlete is by no means uniformly most powerful. 
 The company of the popular man is not always courted 
 by his fellow musicians, nor is the loafer the only one 
 who finds time for this occupation not included in the 
 curriculum. In fact, every class furnishes a share, and 
 every individual who can appreciate a difference be- 
 tween "Bingo" and "Old Hundred," expects to take 
 an active part. So general is participation and so ex- 
 pressive is spontaneous music of the moods and feelings, 
 that we may regard college singers as a pretty reliable 
 barometer of the prevailing sentiment. Think a moment 
 how frequently this emotional language is employed. 
 How often in the business-meetings held in the Presi- 
 dent's lecture-room, are pauses in the regular proceed- 
 ings filled up, to the relief of all, with familiar songs ! 
 On the march to Alumni Hall in tortuous file, "With
 
 SINGING. 131 
 
 many a winding bout, of little learning long drawn out," 
 with what heart-rending tones do we assure the fac- 
 ulty that " Examinations are a bore " tones equalled in 
 earnestness only by the triumphant carols, with which 
 news of a boating or ball victory is received by patriotic 
 collegians ! In certain cases, and that too without much 
 provocation, the cars even may be the scene of many a 
 boisterous chorus. The medical course could not be 
 initiated without strains of " Saw my leg off short," and 
 Pres. Grant and his suit, at their visit to our college, 
 must tread the classic soil to the tune of " Rig-a-jig-jig." 
 There is one spot, however, both familiar and inter- 
 esting, which I now approach with feelings of modest 
 and respectful hesitation. Like the jackknffe in the 
 story, renewed in the course of every year in every part, 
 but like the changing body of man, always preserving 
 its identity, I feel justified in calling this spot the old 
 college fence ancient, mutilated, and dilapidated, but 
 rich in tender associations. I do not refer, of course, 
 to the entire railing which surrounds the campus, but to 
 the venerable and traditional corner, having the big 
 trees in the rear, and flanked on either side by South 
 College and the Green ; in front, Chapel street and the 
 noonday sun, and just opposite, Hoadley's and the New 
 Haven House ; the portion, in short, which has been 
 recognized from all time as the rendezvous of the three 
 upper classes in their idler moments ; with its comfort- 
 able curved bars devoted to the trespassings of the pen- 
 knife, and its class sections carefully drawn and rigor- 
 ously observed by common consent. O Carolina / 
 Mttsce ! where shall I find words to describe the mus- 
 ical scenes in which it has silently figured ? What 
 antiquated sage can measure the burden of song, from 
 the flighty warble to the plaintive tones of " Teacher,
 
 132 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 Teacher," which it has sustained songs subdued and 
 pathetic; songs promiscuous and uproarious? Many 
 associations cluster round the college fence, of conver- 
 sations and discussions, of stories and jokes, of LIT. 
 readings and cigars ; but none, perhaps, will be more 
 lasting or more delightful to many concerned than rec- 
 collections of impromptu musicals in the moonlight 
 evenings, when we chanted " Stars of the summer 
 night " to the deserted thoroughfare, and when the 
 strains, softened and sweetened by the open air, the 
 rustling branches and chirping insects, seemed to be 
 wafted far away into the shadows through the green 
 corridor of elms. At such times, perhaps even the 
 least sentimental, if favored with congenial companions, 
 and blessed with a musical voice and a sensitive soul, 
 has found the discords and vexations of the day gradu- 
 ally supplemented by a quiet complacency, a sort of 
 peaceful satisfaction with life in general, a closer inti- 
 macy with his associates, a deeper attachment for col- 
 lege, and an impulse toward sturdier and more hopeful 
 effort in the future. It may be that he has been filled 
 with those "noble hints" and "great conceptions" of 
 which Addison speaks in the Spectator ; and not impos- 
 sibly has gained a better appreciation of that law of har- 
 mony which is exemplified by Nature both in her minu- 
 test and most stupendous phenomena, and which ought 
 always to be the regulating principle in human con- 
 duct. 
 
 It is curious to see what confusion is produced in the 
 camp of student songsters by the appearance of any un- 
 congenial element, in the shape of an unconsciously 
 obtrusive individual generally the possessor of a mer- 
 ciless tuning-fork or, worse yet, by the introduction 
 into the ranks, of an habitual grumbler. How speedily
 
 SINGINC. 133 
 
 tlie fountains of song are dried up, and how completely, 
 it would gratify many an indignant soul to bear witness. 
 I myself am prompted by feelings, which it might seem 
 must long ago have been stifled, to compare certain 
 Sunday evening gatherings of an agreeable character, 
 held at the Freshman headquarters, on York street, in 
 times gone by, with certain other gatherings that I 
 know about, assembled for a similar purpose, in which 
 suggestions and criticisms were as numerous as the in- 
 dividuals, and the tuning-fork was in frequent requisi- 
 tion. Is it necessary to say that the comparison would 
 be quite unfavorable to the latter? 
 
 I infer, then, that singing, when it comes sponta- 
 neously from the heart and is melodiously expressed, 
 does much to cultivate the heart, to banish misanthropy, 
 to stir the imagination, which among scholars, to say 
 the least, sometimes grows a little dull, and to furnish 
 fuel, so to speak, for more laborious exertions. These 
 sentiments are not the product of mere fancy, nor of 
 morbid sentimentality. They agree not only with the 
 observed effects of compositions by the great masters, 
 out also with the history of national ballads, from the 
 rhapsodies of the old Ionian bards to the popular glees 
 of the present times ; and, in fact, with the influence of 
 harmonious sounds everywhere. You have noticed how 
 the boy whistles in the dark to keep up his courage. 
 The housewife, you know, is apt to lighten her toil 
 with a merry ditty. The soldier is dependent upon the 
 martial music of drum and fife to brace his nerves for 
 action ; and it is said that when the men in camp are look- 
 ing discouraged and despondent the transforming power 
 of a spirited air is almost incredible. Perhaps, in the 
 same way, among students, thrown together very much, 
 as they are, and entertaining many emotions in common,
 
 134 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 the effects of self-made music, under favorable circum- 
 stances, may be just as striking ; and though I cannot, 
 even after Junior lectures, explain the philosophical 
 connection between regular tidal waves in the atmos- 
 phere, and sensations and impulses in the heart, never- 
 theless the fact, which the truthful " poet of the domestic 
 affections " delicately expresses, cannot be questioned : 
 
 " There is in souls a sympathy with sounds ; 
 And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased 
 With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave ; 
 Some chord in unison with what we hear 
 Is touched within us, and the heart replies." 
 
 But in consequence of the exciting nature of the topic, 
 I had quite forgotten my subject proper, namely, the 
 prominence of singing in our life at Yale ; and have 
 wandered very far from the immediate object of my de- 
 scription, the college fence ; so far, in good sooth, that 
 I will not attempt to return. In my digression, how- 
 ever, I have had the company of the Freshmen ; for 
 they, you know, are debarred the privileges of that 
 favored resort and may not taste its musical joys. A 
 few of this class may be seen gathering mysteriously, at 
 midnight, under the closed shutters of Grove Hall, with 
 intent to rouse the fair inmates of that cloister with 
 " Nut brown maiden " and " Sweet dreams, ladies," and 
 satisfied with the most modest sign of recognition from 
 beyond the barriers. Then having themselves retired to 
 their " little beds " in an exhausted state, we may im- 
 agine them breathing vociferously in slumber, and 
 keeping time, as far as possible, with the mournful 
 measure of " Home, sweet home," discoursed upon a 
 cracked violin by some solitary fanatic in the adjoining 
 room. 
 
 Verily it doth appear, after my survey, that students,
 
 SINGING. 135 
 
 if only assembled in sufficient numbers, would boldly 
 start up " The Pope, he leads a merry life," within the 
 very pale of the Vatican, nay, under the awe-inspiring 
 dome of St. Peter's itself. While, if no " peelers " were 
 in sight, we may safely conjecture that the " Dearest 
 maiden " would be summoned to the " Waltz " before the 
 very monument of Newton himself, whose ashes repose 
 quietly beneath his statue in an ancient chapel of West- 
 minister Abbey.
 
 Sowing. 
 
 I DON'T mean the bow from that pretty girl, on her 
 way home from Miss Nott's, to obtain which I always 
 walk a block out of the way to my eating-club. My 
 emotions on that occasion are too sacred to be inserted 
 among trivial articles on the manners and customs of 
 the Yale students. It is rather to the greetings within 
 the microcosm we inhabit, than to their counterparts 
 in the outer world, that I wish to call attention. 
 
 What a wonderful difference it does make in what 
 class a man is, as regards the way you salute him. Here, 
 now, as I am walking across the campus, wondering 
 how I can ever fill the required number of pages, comes 
 a Senior. We wait till we are at the regulation distance. 
 Then he, by right of superiority, gives the signal by 
 moving his chin through an angel of three degrees, to 
 which I respond by an inclination five degrees lower ; 
 while " Good morning, Mr. Stylites," " Good morning, 
 Mr. Pomposus," is exchanged between us. A short 
 distance farther on, I meet a Sophomore, and the same 
 ceremony is reenacted, except that I, in my turn, give 
 the command. Each time, however, the facial muscles 
 of both parties remain perfectly rigid ; although I con- 
 fess that on looking back, I have not infrequently dis- 
 covered some of those impudent under-class men grin- 
 ning at my ceremonious salutation. 
 
 It does seem rather ridiculous, sometimes. Here is 
 this man, superior to me in height, certainly, in brains
 
 BOWING. 137 
 
 probably, and at all events, in the Harvard criterion, good 
 clothes ; yet I patronize him, and he submits to it, for 
 no other earthly reason than because I happened to 
 enter college a year before he did. The meekness of a 
 Freshman before a diminutive Sophomore can be easily 
 explained by the fact that in the person of the man be- 
 fore him he dreads the power of his whole class, while 
 he knows that his own is as yet incapable of united 
 action. But why this authority should exist over him 
 unchallenged during his whole course, is to me a mys- 
 tery. 
 
 A singular illustration of this distinction between the 
 classes, may be found on the ground floor of the north 
 entry of North Middle, where my humble apartment is 
 situated. It so happens that there are representatives 
 from all the classes there. We are constantly meeting, 
 exchanging letters, parcels, etc., which have been 
 wrongly delivered, and one would naturally suppose 
 that four young men of about the same age, living in 
 such close proximity, would see something of each 
 other, form a defensive alliance against the Faculty and 
 bores, and establish a communism of text-books, and 
 that drug to minister to a mind diseased, Lone Jack. 
 Far from it. We seem utterly to ignore each other's 
 existence. The Senior cuts me ; I, the Sophomore ; he, 
 in his turn, the Freshman. How the latter avenges 
 himself, except by snubbing the Troy Laundry boy (in 
 which, if he is successful, he deserves the thanks of the 
 entire community), is to me a problem. 
 
 "So, naturalists observe a flea 
 Has other fleas that on him prey ; 
 And these have smaller still to bite 'em, 
 And so proceed, ad infinituni." 
 
 It is not exactly snobbishness. It is merely the
 
 138 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 effects of the wall of ice which separates the classes. 
 I never knew but one man who was able to surmount 
 the obstacle. But then he was Pilarious, whose sunny 
 disposition melts all stiffness. No one ever saw any 
 coolness about him except when the rest of the nine 
 were flurried, and his absence was considered by all 
 classes alike the only drawback to the otherwise unex- 
 ceptionable " Promenade." It is true that Bucca waives 
 all ceremony and calls us by our pet names before he 
 has been introduced to us. But, for some reason or 
 other, his efforts do not seem to be very successful. 
 
 It is singular how a man, whom, were he in another 
 college and you met him for a week during the vaca- 
 tion, you would probably consider yourself quite inti- 
 mate with, and call by his first name, during a three 
 years' acquaintance with you at Yale, where formality 
 is popularly supposed to be laid aside, always calls you 
 " Mister." If you meet a member of another class out- 
 side of New Haven, in a railroad train, for instance, I 
 know nothing more interesting than to shake hands 
 across the bloody chasm and join with him in picking 
 to pieces the characters of your respective classmates ; 
 but within the college walls you have nothing more in 
 common. One remarkable instance of this armed 
 neutrality existing between the classes was brought out 
 last term by the elective system ; when it was singular 
 to observe members from two classes reciting together 
 in history, how they instinctively divided into two hos- 
 tile camps, whence the} 7 mutually glared defiance at 
 each other. 
 
 " Quot homines, toi satiifationcs," Cicero said, or at any 
 rate ought to have said, even if he did not. There is 
 the popular man, who has a smile for every one, be- 
 cause he is brimful of good nature, and the would-be
 
 BOWING. 139 
 
 popular man, who does the same thing from motives of 
 interest. It is not very difficult to distinguish gentry 
 of this latter sort, even if they are all smiles. Then 
 there is my friend, Jack Vane. There is no privilege 
 which I enjoy more than a walk down Chapel street 
 with him. In the first place, it is an unfailing sign that 
 I am high in popular esteem, otherwise he would never 
 commit himself in that manner. Moreover, I can al- 
 ways ascertain, by the way in which he greets a man, 
 his relative position in the public favor. I have not 
 enjoyed that pleasure for some time, but hope to gain it 
 ere long, when I shall feel thoroughly posted. Peter is 
 still more discriminating, and reserves his smiles for 
 but a very select few, wherein, let us hope, he is not 
 mistaken. 
 
 The most striking example of the effect of being 
 careful about one's bows, may be found in the follow- 
 ing tale, which is not merely, as they say in Sunday 
 school books, founded on, but is literally, fact. The 
 innocent Lippus was beloved by all who knew him. 
 Though far from being wise as a serpent, he was cer- 
 tainly as harmless as a dove. He had but one fault ; 
 and that was not his own. He was very short sighted 
 and utterly incapable of recognizing anyone whom he 
 met. Hinc ilia lachrimcE ! I was formerly quite inti- 
 mate with him, and many a time have we trod the 
 beaten path to Traeger's together. Then had I ample 
 opportunities to observe the embarrassments in which 
 he was constantly entangled. "Cursed snob," the 
 under-class man would mutter, as he passed him by un- 
 noticed. " Conceited jackanapes," the upper-class man 
 would growl, as his greeting would be likewise unre- 
 turned. While the proud Tutor, not receiving the two 
 fingers to the brim of Lippus' hat, which was his due,
 
 I4O MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 would mentally resolve to give him an opportunity to 
 spend his vacations in profitable study. Meanwhile, he 
 pursued the even tenor of his way, all unconscious of 
 the fact that he was committing the unpardonable sin. 
 Occasionally he would try to rectify his mistakes, and 
 startle some person he had never seen before by giving 
 him an exceedingly gracious bow. But once did I see 
 his patience give way. That was when, after bowing 
 and smiling vigorously to some one whom he thought 
 looked familiar, he turned to me and asked, " Who was 
 that fellow? Thank heaven, I recognized him, any- 
 way !" Whereupon, discovering by my answer that it 
 was that man whom he had always hated since he stole 
 his hat in Freshman year, I regret to be obliged to state 
 that he uttered a succession of imprecations to blot out 
 which the Recording Angel must have exhausted a 
 stock of tears only equal to that possessed by a teeth- 
 ing baby. All his efforts were in vain, however. His 
 desperate attempts at recognition were considered in- 
 solent stares. The results of his blindness were 
 deemed impudent cuts. A merciless retribution over- 
 took him in the flower of his youth, 
 
 " A cruel fate did him befall ; 
 He fell, struck down by the ruthless black-ball," 
 
 in the language of the poet. Of course, after that event, 
 a proper sense of self-respect prevented me from any 
 longer associating with him ; for which I was sorry, as 
 I had always liked his society, especially when he paid 
 for the beer, as he did quite often.
 
 Sleeping. 
 
 COULD a sprite possessing a rapidity of locomotion 
 equal to that of Shakespeare's Puck, but endowed with 
 the sounder moral attributes of one of good Hans An- 
 dersen's creations, visit our rooms one of these cold 
 wintry mornings, and note down in full our thoughts 
 and actions as we are preparing for our daily combat 
 with the god Somnus, what a strange and diversified 
 conglomeration would his record be. It would contain 
 not a little that was interesting and worthy erf specula- 
 tion. Here and there a ripple of humor might break 
 over its quiet surface. But for the most part it would 
 be a tale of lamentation and of woe. Whatever may be 
 the opinions of the outside world on this question, I 
 am sure that we here at college long for and pray for 
 the abolition of early rising, with a remarkable unanim- 
 ity. Possibly it is the only point on which we could 
 agree, but on it we are really united. We would 
 look upon the everlasting demolition of that terrible 
 bell, which rules so impartially and relentlessly alike 
 dull and bright, rich and poor, much as humanity might 
 upon an absolution from death. And it would enable 
 us to lead, as that might humanity, a new, and, let us 
 hope, a better life. 
 
 There is something fearfully galling and humiliating 
 to a man of spirit, to be tied to the knell of that chapel 
 clock as firmly as an infant to the apron-strings of his 
 nurse ; to reflect that in precisely so many minutes after
 
 142 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 he has broken the mystic spell and performed his ablu- 
 tions, whether the day be bright or dark, whether he be 
 in good spirits or poor, he will have to rise on his pins 
 and recite like a machine to a heartless pedagogue. 
 But if he is not sensitive enough to be put on the 
 wrong track mentally, he will be sure to be physically. 
 Take the case I have supposed. The innocent victim 
 of a collegiate education having brushed away sleep 
 from his bewildered eyes, may be called upon to gaze 
 at the frost-work on his window-panes. His feelings 
 may best be compared to those of a beggar in a poor- 
 house garret. To be sure, frost-work upon the window- 
 panes has been likened to " frozen dreams," "silvery 
 mountains," and many other pretty things ; but it is hard 
 to foster much sentiment now, for sentiment is an ex- 
 otic in a frigid zone. But supposing our friend has 
 been very wise, and has spent a large portion of his 
 patrimony in blankets and bed-spreads of all kinds, and 
 has practiced until he can play the drama of " Every 
 man his own Chrysalis " to perfection, and above all 
 has not forgotten to turn on the "much-gurgling" 
 steam-heater before retiring what then ? 
 
 It does seem as if the machinations of Waite and 
 those steam-heaters were so simply devilish, that some 
 day they must perish by being engulfed in their own 
 iniquity. So far our grievances are the same, but what 
 a vast difference there is in the way in which they are 
 enlarged or eliminated by persons of different temper- 
 aments. I hear that you, young Jones, have secured a 
 " philosophical," and are studying for the valedictory. 
 You must be careful not to lose your reputation for 
 being a good-fellow. I am glad to know that you were 
 out playing cards till one last night, and were the mer- 
 riest of the group. Before you retired you whispered
 
 SLEEPING. 143 
 
 in the ear of your dearest friend, the alarm-clock, to 
 wake you at half-past five. At the first intimation of its 
 ghostly rattle you start bolt up-right in bed, rub your 
 overstrained eyes, and with confused thoughts about 
 college honors, the valedictory, and a glorious career 
 in Congress, rush to the sponge-bath and a couple of 
 hours' hard work over the psychology. At nine you are 
 making a " dead rush " out of a torn-out leaf, to give 
 you an air of abandon. A few years later you will be a 
 goggle-eyed, mildewed clergyman up among the hills, 
 glad to come back once a year for the sake of the free 
 alumni dinner. Smith, you need not smile thus sar- 
 castically. You are a victim of the same heartless 
 egoism in another direction. Not feeling like studying 
 last night, you did not prepare the morning lesson. 
 That did not trouble your conscience in the least. On 
 the contrary, you enjoyed a refreshing sleep, and came 
 to consciousness calmly and pleasantly. Your mind 
 was not rudely disturbed by visions of an unprepared 
 task. You think to educate your aesthetical tastes 
 by watching with half-closed eyes the slow progress 
 of the first sunbeam across the opposite wall. You 
 fancy it will lend a tithe of its glory to your whole day. 
 It is nice to be a student. But you are old enough now 
 to be a man. " Skinning" is not manly, and you mean 
 soon to give up that pernicious habit. Meanwhile you 
 muffle yourself up a little closer in the bed-clothes, and 
 speculate upon the absurd but delightful luxury of a 
 whole existence in bed, like " an oyster in its shell, con- 
 tent with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily 
 conscious of nothing but delicious warmth," such as 
 you now feel. Ah ! what a heaven-sent gift to the lazy 
 man is our new quarter-hour clock. It metes out to 
 him, as it were, so nicely and so daintily the portions of
 
 144 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 his bliss. No opium-eater's scales could be more hon- 
 est or sensitive. The quarter-hours are such inexpen- 
 sive and acceptable little gifts to present one's self 
 with ; and then there is the delightful speculation and 
 uncertainty as to whether they will be followed in the 
 end, as by an omnipresent and watchful guardian, by 
 the full, deep tones of the larger bell. 
 
 What shall I say to you, my poor, dilapidated bum- 
 mer, Robinson? Were I a Hogarth, or a Steele, or an 
 Addison, I might gloat over and publish to the whole 
 town, your moral degradation and loss of self-respect. 
 I would go back to the time it seems a long way off 
 now when you were an awkward, bashful Freshman, 
 but not afraid to say you despised and would have no 
 part in drunkenness and vice. I would ask you 
 whether you adopted the course which you have since 
 pursued from inclination, or simply because you were 
 weakly led into it by others ? Ah ! but I forget the case 
 is changed. You are an upper-class man now, and have 
 a right to that sort of thing. There is nothing wrong 
 in it ; only it is a trifle annoying to feel that your de- 
 testable bed has made your head and limbs ache so ; 
 to find that you need to go to a city hydrant for a suffi- 
 cient supply of drinking-water, and that you are obliged 
 to put on your hat with a shoe-horn. Then your break- 
 fast is a trifle slim. Your landlady has such a disgust- 
 ing habit of putting things on the table half-cooked and 
 in helter-skelter order. And the fellows will stare at 
 you and insist that you were full last night. They 
 are an ill-bred set after all, if they have called them- 
 selves your friends. You will not have anything to do 
 with them after this. But above all, you are solemnly 
 convinced that not another glass of liquor shall ever 
 pass your lips. It is a noble resolution, and one which
 
 SLEEPIXI;. 14; 
 
 it would pay any man to keep, but it does not seem, in 
 the present instance, to inspire you with any great en- 
 thusiasm. In fact you sit there in rather a cataleptic 
 and melancholy state, until the tinkling of that irre- 
 pressible bell calls you to chapel, whither hastens also 
 the high-stand Jones, and behind him the lazy Smith ; 
 for all have thrown off the somnolent state, and daily 
 life at Yale has begun.
 
 (Class-room manners. 
 
 " MANY men of many minds " says the proverb, 
 "many men of many manners" says J.; and many stu- 
 dents have manners as distinctly their own as are their 
 faces. And despite the dangers of being attacked for 
 writing on one of " the old, hackneyed subjects of col- 
 lege life and relations," I shall endeavor to sketch for 
 the reader a few of these individual manners. 
 
 There is the cool, cheeky man, who never loses his 
 self-possession while reciting, and who fears not to say 
 anything so long as it is plausible. He corrects the 
 blunders of the instructor to his face, and, if the latter 
 be at all timid, " bluffs " him. He will render a passage 
 full of abusive epithets with all the force that a ranting 
 actor on the stage could give, and by taking things in 
 the most literal way possible will often set the division 
 in a roar. 
 
 His counterpart is the man who, apparently or really, 
 never dares to utter a sentence quickly or continuously, 
 but would render the first sentence in Caesar somewhat 
 "thusly:" "All ah all Gaul ah that is all all 
 Gaul is ah is divided vided ah into er there 
 er ah into three parts." 
 
 It is extremely wearisome sometimes to be compelled 
 to listen to some of these "er"ing brethren. One feels 
 as though it would be a relief to take hold of such an 
 one and shake a sentence out of him. 
 
 In agreeable contrast to the slow and sure reciters 
 is the Jack-in-the-box.
 
 CLASS-ROOM MANNERS. 147 
 
 A specimen is occasionally found of one who fully 
 offsets Jack's mechanical promptness by doing a great 
 deal before he gets ready to recite, and by saying a great 
 deal before he opens his mouth. It is an amusing study 
 to watch such an one when called upon to recite. He 
 never hears his name the first time, and when, by dint 
 of a second summons from the instructor, and sundry 
 whisperings and pokings from those around, he compre- 
 hends that something is wanted of him, he carries on an 
 animated monologue by means of the expressions of his 
 face. First, a look of blank astonishment says, " Is it 
 possible that you want me to recite?" Then an air of 
 perplexity says, " Is it me or somebody else ?" " What's 
 the question and what's the answer?" Then as he rises 
 half way a gleam of hope conjectures " Maybe he made 
 a mistake in calling me." As no facts strengthen this 
 supposition, an imploring glance begs " Please call 
 some one else." Then a reproachful look as he fairly 
 gains his feet ; " How could you call me?" Then a re- 
 signed, martyr-like look drives remorse to the instruc- 
 tor's heart, as it plainly utters, "Very well ; I'll forgive 
 you ; but if I flunk, it won't be my fault." 
 
 Every class, every division, has its unfortunate man, 
 who always knows a lesson perfectly, but never tinder- 
 stands exactly what the instructor means by his ques- 
 tions. So he asks, " Do you mean this ?" and " Do you 
 want that I should give that ?" and " Such and such is 
 so and so ;" all of which is wholly unconnected with 
 the question asked. At last the unfortunate man sits 
 down, leaving the impression on the rest of the division 
 that he has flunked. Flunked ! By no means ! Didn't 
 he know the lesson perfectly? But for fear a similar 
 erroneous impression may have entered the mind (and 
 book) of the instructor, Infelix lingers after recitation
 
 148 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 and elaborately explains that he knew this, but under- 
 stood that the instructor wanted this or the other, which 
 was not explained in the text-book, etc., till in sheer 
 self-defence the teacher exclaims " Well, I suppose the 
 long and short of it is that you want me to allow you to 
 make up the lesson." Infelix scorns the imputation, 
 and, with all his dignity aroused by being so misunder- 
 stood, witheringly replies " No, sir ! I only want you to 
 understand that I knew the lesson ; I don't care what 
 mark you give me ;" and, turning grandly on his heel, 
 strides out into the free air of heaven.
 
 " WHAT shall we eat, and what shall we drink," are 
 questions which concern college students perhaps as 
 deeply as the rest of mankind. However large their 
 consumption of mental pabulum, and however copious 
 their draughts at the wells of knowledge, they differ not 
 from other men in requiring some more substantial sup- 
 plies. It is of an institution founded to meet these de- 
 mands that I propose to write. The college club is 
 eminently an organization sui generis. Composed of a 
 number of classmates, who board entirely by them- 
 selves, free from the watchful eye of the New Haven 
 landlady, it furnishes, I sometimes think, the most 
 favorable opportunity to be obtained for the observation 
 of student character. And I hold that no man can con- 
 sider his college experience complete, who has not 
 been at one time or another in his course a member of 
 one of these institutions. 
 
 The average daily life of a club furnishes much to 
 interest a careful observer. If such is not your regular 
 . habit, gentle reader, I advise you to go to breakfast 
 some morning early enough to watch the different mem- 
 bers, as they come to partake of the matutinal meal. 
 First enters the punctual man with lesson prepared the 
 night before, ready to give his undistracted attention to 
 the duties of the table. Soon after strolls in another, 
 whose acquaintance with the lesson is so limited that his 
 time during the meal is divided between plate and
 
 150 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 book. As time passes on, you will notice that the sal- 
 utations of the new-comers to their comrades grow 
 briefer and more concise, and that the conversation, 
 which may at first have been quite animated, gradually 
 dies away until it hardly extends beyond requests for 
 the various services of the table. At length, when the 
 din of knife and fork is at its height, and the bell is just 
 commencing to ring out its notes, in bursts the man 
 who has "slept over," and has just time enough for a 
 cup of coffee and a swallow or two of food. And as 
 the manner of their coming is peculiar, so will their 
 manner of answering the prayer-bell attract attention. 
 As soon as the first warning notes are heard, you will 
 see one or two picking up hat and books, and prepar- 
 ing to answer its summons. To the majority, however, 
 the first bell is but a signal for renewed devotion to the 
 work before them. Even when the second bell is 
 heard, a few valiant spirits retain their seats, whom 
 long experience has taught the exact number of sec- 
 onds required for the passage from club-room to chapel. 
 At length, however, the very last rushes from the table, 
 and the room, a few minutes before full of noise and 
 confusion, relapses into profound quiet. Such is break- 
 fast at a large club. Each meal has its distinguishing 
 characteristics, but I will only allude to the different 
 phases which conversation takes at each. Breakfast, 
 as preceding recitation, is chiefly occupied with ques-- 
 tions as to the lesson, the different degrees of prepara- 
 tion upon it, and the chances of being up. Dinner and 
 tea each follow a recitation, and the talk naturally turns 
 upon its results. "Rushes," "fizzles," "flunks," "good 
 luck," " bad luck," are expressions which you will hear 
 on every side. 
 
 So passes a day in the club when the college world is
 
 THE CLUB. 151 
 
 at peace. But would you become fully acquainted with 
 the institution, you must be present when the ordinary 
 dull round of events has been interrupted. Perhaps as 
 good an occasion as any for this purpose is the evening 
 meal, immediately after a rush in which all the mem- 
 bers of the club participated. Each ready with some tale 
 of personal daring and gallantry and all alike desirous to 
 make known their part in the "victory" which is in- 
 variably gained, a greater "confusion of tongues" can 
 hardly be imagined. Somewhat similar is the condi- 
 tion of the club after a good game of base-ball, or a 
 successful boat-race. Excitement does not now run so 
 high, but even on such an occasion one can hardly re- 
 frain from a desire to match twenty collegians against 
 an equal number of the ancient denizens of Babel, with 
 entire confidence that the verdict would be in favor of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 But while there is much of interest in the outward 
 life of the club, the thoughtful observer will prize the 
 opportunity it affords for the study of character. The 
 average college club contains some specimens of the 
 genus homo which merit attention. Happy that club, if 
 such there be, which does not contain the bore. How- 
 ever unlike the outside world in other respects, college 
 resembles it in being afflicted with this pest. The col- 
 lege bore is par excellence a traveled man. No tale of 
 most thrilling adventure can you tell, but he has wit- 
 nessed or experienced its parallel. Indeed, you may 
 consider yourself fortunate, if you are even allowed to 
 tell your story uninterrupted by his busy tongue. As 
 for any college occurrence in which you were the chief 
 actor and he a remote spectator, you may well despair 
 of ever having an opportunity to give your version of 
 the story. If in your innocence you should once be so
 
 152 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 bold as to interrupt him, in order to correct some glar- 
 ing error in his account, a few sentences from him by 
 way of reproof will convince you that you really have 
 very little knowledge of what you said or did. Grad- 
 ually, if you are docile, you will come to hear with the 
 utmost composure the worst misrepresentations of your 
 conduct and actions, rather than brave his indignant 
 censure. 
 
 Another character, which you will usually find, is the 
 college gossip. He is the man who is always the first 
 to make known all changes in the regular courses 
 of events, who keeps an accurate record of the health 
 and movements of all our instructors, and is the first 
 to announce the sickness or absence from town of 
 any of them, who can give a complete list of the prizes 
 and honors taken by every prominent man in every 
 class, together with the societies to which he has be- 
 longed, and who in short has any amount of small talk 
 about almost anybody or thing you may mention. Al- 
 though sometimes his conversation is so puerile as to 
 become disagreeable, you have only to contrast him with 
 the bore and you will no longer complain. A club also 
 contains a number of men not so prominent for any par- 
 ticular type of character. There is, however, generally 
 some man who is known as the joker of the club, whose 
 time is fully occupied in most excruciating attempts at 
 wit and humor ; some man who is always behind the 
 times, and occasionally breaks in with some startling 
 news which every one else had known a week before ; 
 and some man who is less renowned for his conversa- 
 tional powers, than for the sublime equanimity with 
 which he disposes of whatever eatables are set before 
 him. 
 
 It is the fashion with some to disparage clubs as
 
 THE CLUB. 153 
 
 nurseries of slang, rudeness and ill-breeding. I will 
 not deny that there is some ground for the criticism. 
 I have sometimes seen a club when delayed a few 
 minutes beyond the usual hour, which a passer-by 
 might from the tumult have mistaken for a pack of bar- 
 barians. I have known men who elsewhere pass for 
 gentlemen, whose conduct at the table would go far to 
 disabuse one of that opinion of them. And it cannot be 
 denied that conversation is sometimes indulged in, 
 which few would care to repeat in the home-circle. But 
 these things are the exception rather than the rule. 
 They are the faults which seem inseparable from even 
 the best of institutions. On the other hand, there is a 
 heartiness and good-fellowship, the absence of which 
 is not compensated for by the stiffest formality, secured 
 by the most angular and cross-grained landlady. Taken 
 all in all, the club is an important element in the social 
 life, which is so pleasant and valuable a feature of the 
 course at Yale, and I hope that it may long live and 
 thrive.
 
 Slang. 
 
 IT is a melancholy fact that all men are, by the influ- 
 ences of civilization, being gradually reduced to one 
 level. This equalizing process is abstracting all indi- 
 viduality from life, and will eventually convert it to one 
 grand plain, which can possess none of the elements of 
 picturesque beauty, unless its monotony be mitigated 
 by the relieving effects of mountain and valley. The 
 romance of Knight-errantry, for instance, has gone by 
 the board ; the spotted red handkerchief is no longer 
 swung over the shoulder of the fortune-seeker : life is 
 becoming altogether too substantial. Modern novelists 
 tacitly acknowledge the fact by selecting a less material 
 age than the present for the scene of a story in which 
 romance is to abound. Since, then, all interest in life is 
 born of oddity, we ought to cling tenaciously to any 
 custom which savors of the time in which there was 
 some life. Such a custom is the use of slang. 
 
 The enlightenment of modern times would drive the 
 use of slang to the wall and characterize it as fit for the 
 low and ignorant only. This is hard luck on us here 
 in college where 
 
 " The slang the gang is using 
 Is heard on every lip." 
 
 But slang always stands as an exponent of the amount 
 of vitality in any community. The Baconian method of 
 reasoning can be adduced to prove it. A foreigner in 
 our land is always contrasting with the comparative
 
 SLANG. 155 
 
 hum-drum of the old world, American stir and energy ; 
 and slang is peculiarly an American habit. We are 
 called a fast as well as slangy nation. Slang increases 
 in prevalence toward the Pacific, where life has its 
 greatest reality, and is almost entirely wanting in the 
 stagnation of a New England village. Could maps be 
 constructed "designed to illustrate," by means of 
 shaded zones, this social phenomenon, the pale gray 
 tint at Boston would deepen during its western pro- 
 gress and reach a perfect blackness around the mining- 
 camps of California and Nevada. The shading, too, 
 would be gradual, save in the region of our colleges 
 where Cimmerian darkness would prevail. 
 
 Since, then, slang is the direct outgrowth of a vigorous 
 state of existence, it is not illegitimate. It arises from 
 a necessity for it and its peculiar fitness to meet that 
 necessity. Its prevalence proves that it is more than a 
 useless habit. All circles and professions have their 
 peculiar forms of slang. There are the cant expres- 
 sions of the bar, trade, the army ; the church even calls 
 its profession " the cloth," and everyone is familiar with 
 prayer slang. A college student without slang is, to 
 use a simile of Charles Dudley Warner, like an English- 
 man without side-whiskers. 
 
 Those who militate against slang argue that it is used 
 where ability is wanting to convey an idea intelligibly ; 
 that by using it the person addressed is called upon to 
 supply from his own imagination what the user is incap- 
 able of communicating. If this is true, ignorance must 
 be the parent of it, and here is another reflection against 
 us college students. I think, however, without undue 
 conceit, that no fair-minded person can in our case 
 connect slang with ignorance. Neither is it careless- 
 ness nor laziness. We use slang advisedly, because it
 
 156 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 is a good thing in more ways than one. It is a tie that 
 binds us together. It is like a provincial dialect which 
 here makes us feel our community of interest, and when 
 our ticket-of-leave in the shape of a sheep-skin shall 
 have caused us to encounter the cold mercies of the 
 world, one word of campus cant dropped in our hear- 
 ing will stir our souls even as that of the homesick 
 Highlander is, by the bag-pipes of his native land. 
 
 It is, too, an absolute necessity in order to save a 
 Johnsonian verbosity. A college statistician has com- 
 puted that the word "flunk " is used on an average five 
 times a day by every undergraduate. If to convey the 
 same idea contained in this expressive little word we 
 were obliged to spin it out into " a failure to acquit 
 ourselves creditably in recitation," a simple mathemat- 
 ical calculation will serve to show the enormous waste 
 of time and words. College slang is picturesque, and 
 very often affords a means for the practical application 
 of the aesthetics of every day life. Call a match a 
 match, and the thing is commonplace enough ; but call 
 it a "hell-stick," and this graphic way of putting it 
 vividly paints the blue sulphurous flame, the suffocat- 
 ing fumes and the disgusting odor of the brimstone 
 lake, the place of torment for the man who refuses to 
 use the more toned and less inoffensive " snapper" in- 
 stead of the aforesaid relic of barbarism. College slang 
 is euphemistic ; there is a balm for a headache caused 
 by last night's debauch to have it said you were 
 "slightly cheered" or "slewed" or "boiled." It is 
 forcible ; when we hear the command " skip " we know 
 that argument is unnecessary but " prance " we must. 
 
 There are men, usually one in every class, who per- 
 form the duties of slang autocrats. The}' determine the 
 value of new expressions and import the best to take
 
 fr 
 
 SLANG. 157 
 
 the place of old, worn-out ones. They are continually 
 gasping after something new in their line, like a sworn- 
 off smoker after a ring of tobacco-smoke. One kind of 
 college slang is however independent of their favor. It 
 is that which has been incorporated into the most legit- 
 imate talk about college and has the flavor of age to 
 recommend it to conservatism. Such slang our fathers 
 have used and our sons will use. We can meet the lat- 
 ter in after years on their native heath, as it were, and 
 talk this time-honored slang about "rushes," and 
 " cuts," and " flunks " without calling down upon our 
 parental heads a slang expression of the Young Amer- 
 ica of ancient Greece, " smelling of Chronos."
 
 UMjist. 
 
 IT \vas the last day of the fall term, and I was pack- 
 ing my trunk for the journey home. Shirts and trous- 
 ers, tooth-brushes, slippers and unmentionables lay 
 scattered around in pleasing confusion ; and occupying 
 the place of honor were two or three text-books, show- 
 ing that vacation was not to be wholly given up to a 
 round of dissipation. There was a Barker's Chemistry, 
 with formulas long enough to fill up eternity ; a Porter's 
 Human Intellect, if such a barbarous book can be 
 called human ; two or three paper-covered novels, be- 
 neath whose French words was concealed an amount of 
 indecency, the mere mention of which in honest Anglo- 
 Saxon would have set one's ears tingling with shame ; 
 and last, but not least, an elegantly bound copy of 
 Pole's Whist. All these books had their different asso- 
 ciations, more or less pleasant. The Intellect and 
 Chemistry gently reminded of flunking, skinning, and 
 conditions ; the novels, of an acquaintance with French, 
 gained at the expense of the moral na-ture ; but the Pole 
 the infernal Pole called up such an accumulation of 
 woes, that by an ungovernable impulse it was hurled 
 across the room, breaking, in its mad career, the $3.75 
 lamp-shade, and overturning the inkstand upon a newly 
 covered table. Perhaps it was a silly thing to do. Per- 
 haps paying for the damage was not a very satisfac- 
 tory way of relieving one's feelings. But unless I am 
 very much mistaken, there are many in college who
 
 WHIST. 159 
 
 would have done the same thing under the same cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 It was out of sheer desperation that I first attempted 
 to learn the mysteries of whist. I must premise that I 
 am of a social nature, and am accustomed to drop 
 around in my friends' rooms for a quiet talk and smoke. 
 Many is the pleasant evening I had enjoyed in the days 
 long gone by (ere whist had become the one absorbing 
 object of life), lounging before an open fire in South, my 
 favorite J^narwood^ emitting clouds of smoke, discussing 
 the latest injustice of the Faculty, or the chances of 
 crew or nine during the coming season. All this, how- 
 ever, was at an end. The demon whist had taken pos- 
 session of the class, and all else was banished from his 
 presence. In the place of a jolly crowd hidden in 
 clouds of smoke, each adding his mite to the general 
 fund of innocent gossip and fun, four men are seated 
 about a small table, their funereal countenances drawn 
 down to a preternatural length, oblivious of everything 
 but the progress of the game. Not a sound breaks the 
 unnatural stillness, except now and then when the 
 players stop to discuss a doubtful point, or predict how 
 " many tricks we might have made had you only played 
 so and so." And this not in one room, or two rooms, 
 but in every room where, in days of yore, I was wont to 
 pass the pleasantest evenings and smoke the very best 
 mixtures possible. It may be easily surmised that I 
 and those of a similar mind did not yield to the infatu- 
 ation without a strugle. It was very dreary to enter a 
 room and sit still for an hour, bored by your own 
 thoughts, yet unable to open your mouth, the monotony 
 occasionally broken by a jargon more unintelligible 
 than the talk of a Sandwich Islander. But all this we 
 did endure in the hope of the dawn of a better day,
 
 l6o MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 but only to experience bitter disappointment. At last, 
 some of us plunged madly into that vortex of dissipa- 
 tion, New Haven society, in the vain hope of finding 
 some relief. But even in this, again, we were doomed 
 to disappointment. If Pole was the demon of the col- 
 lege world, Pole was ten-fold the god of New Haven 
 society. The " voluptuous waltz "had been torn from 
 its pedestal, and in its place had been set up that ortho- 
 dox deity, Whist. One who did not play was, of course, 
 debarred from enjoying these social pleasures. The 
 numerous whist parties which filled up the gaps be- 
 tween the great parties of the season, left him out in the 
 cold. And even when by chance there did happen to 
 be something which he cared to attend, the conversa- 
 tion all turned upon how well this one played, and how 
 poorly that one ; what bad luck Mr. A. and myself had 
 last night, but what good fortune Mr. B. and myself 
 enjoyed the night before. In truth, wherever the poor 
 unfortunate turned, before or behind, on the right or 
 the left, there was nothing to be seen or heard but 
 whist ! whist ! ! WHIST ! ! ! 
 
 Goaded, at length, to desperation, I attempted in an 
 evil hour, to learn the mysteries of whist. Of the first 
 few games I can speak with pride and elation. Of 
 course, I had a beginner's luck, and held all the desira- 
 ble cards in the pack. However carelessly I might 
 play, and however many mistakes I might make, still 
 victory perched upon the banner of partner and self. I 
 was, indeed, often informed how many more tricks I 
 might have taken, had I only led from clubs instead of 
 hearts, or brought in my long suit at a particular mo- 
 ment, visible to the eye of a scientific player. But, 
 under cover of extraordinary success, I could afford to 
 disregard all such little innuendos. But alas ! a change
 
 WHIST. l6l 
 
 came over the spirit of my dreams. Fortune basely de- 
 serted me. The luck which once was mine, was mine 
 no longer. And then how aggravating it was to see 
 even my good cards rendered useless by the science of 
 my adversaries. Perhaps my partner was, by some 
 rare chance, a really good player, and then how pleas- 
 ant to listen to his curses, not loud but deep, when in a 
 fit of abstraction I trumped his trick or failed to 
 answer his signal for trumps. Perhaps (and this was 
 more frequently the case) my partner's knowledge was 
 even less than my own, and then what a prey we were 
 to the skill of our adversaries ; what objects of unlim- 
 ited game to all spectators ! I had often heard of the 
 hard, relentless march of science, sparing neither friend 
 nor foe in its onward advance. I never before realized 
 the truth which lay hidden beneath those words. They 
 are now, however, words full of awful meaning. Some- 
 times, in my desperation, I even ventured to offend 
 against the demon of whist by attempting to smoke and 
 play at the same time. I thought, in my ignorance, 
 that the soothing influence of man's best friend, tobac- 
 co, would assist me in bearing my defeat. But the 
 demon always revenged himself upon me. At one 
 time, in my absorption in the game, I entirely forgot my 
 cigar, and was only reminded of it by the unexpected 
 fall of a cloud of white ashes all over a new diagonal 
 coat ; at another, I, from a similar cause, dropped a 
 cigarette, severely burning myself. My pipe I invaria- 
 bly allowed to go out, and then, in serene unconscious- 
 ness, by a more than usually energetic pull, I drew 
 into my mouth a dose of nicotine large enough, on any 
 competent medical authority, to kill a healthy giant. 
 
 After two or three months of this sort of thing, I be- 
 came entirely sick of even the name whist. And yet, 
 6
 
 l62 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 when not playing, I occupied an almost solitary posi- 
 tion among my classmates, since that seemed to be 
 universally acknowledged, as has been already said, 
 the only amusement worthy of attention. I was told that 
 my dislike'tcTtthe game was due to slight knowledge 
 and short experience, and I was advised to learn the 
 modern scientific game. With this in view, I purchased 
 the elegantly bound copy of Pole already mentioned, 
 and made an entirely fresh start. I read with great at- 
 tention the entire book through twice, including the 
 preface ; as it was impressed that nothing on any ac- 
 count, was to be omitted. I also, by dint of severe ap- 
 plication, continued through a series of weeks, learned 
 by heart those numerous specific rules which take up 
 so large a portion of this invaluable treatise. Now, I 
 thought, I am armed cap-a-pie, and can venture again 
 upon the field. But this time I did not meet with suc- 
 cess even at first. My career was a mortifying failure 
 throughout. I have not I blush to own it, but truth 
 compels me either a good memory or a logical faculty. 
 As a result, I invariably played according to rule, but 
 unfortunately always the wrong rule at the wrong time. 
 I never could tell how to vary my playing according to 
 the special requirements of a particular case. My 
 stupidity was now made more apparent than before, as 
 my mistakes could not be attributed, by even a partial 
 judge, to ignorance of the rules. I had always a genius 
 for blunders, and now this genius shone forth resplen- 
 dent. I at this time accepted a few invitations to make 
 up a hand at one of those numerous whist-parties. But 
 it must be confessed that I was insufferably bored, and 
 perhaps, also, succeeded in making a complete ass of 
 myself. I could extract no enjoyment from a two hours' 
 silent tfae-a-t&te with a pretty young lady, especially when
 
 WHIST. 163 
 
 I was continually disgracing myself by constant blun- 
 ders, and continually trapping her into even worse 
 ones. 
 
 Slowly and sadly it has dawned upon me that nature 
 never intended me for a whist player. I hate the 
 game ; nay, the very sight of a pack of cards sets me wild. 
 That, to me, most expensive edition of Pole, has long 
 ago been consigned to the flames. I look back upon 
 that Christmas vacation as one of the happiest periods 
 of my life. For three entire weeks I was buried in a 
 part of the country where even the mention of cards 
 was thought a deadly sin. 
 
 I know not what may be the developments of the 
 future. From the present indications I should judge 
 it not improbable that a knowledge of Pole will be one 
 of the requirements for admission to Yale in the year 
 1900. If this be the case, no son of mine shall ever join 
 the annual procession to Alumni Hall.
 
 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS.
 
 Reflections on a reat Bugbear. 
 
 I WIPE my pen, pick up my blotting-paper, hand in 
 a dozen pages or so of copper-plate manuscript, put 
 on my hat, and, standing on Alumni steps, realize or 
 attempt to realize that another year has gone, that 
 another annual is shelved. I say attempt to realize, for 
 it takes a mind of more than ordinary calibre to grasp 
 the full length, breadth and depth of those three words, 
 " annual is over." It has been looming up before us 
 for ten months ; first term, 'tis true, it was only a mist ; 
 but by winter it had settled down into a fog ; while the 
 hot weather finds it a dense, impenetrable cloud. 
 
 Last week I said to myself, " this time next Tues- 
 day annual will be over :" and yesterday I thought 
 ' this time to-morrow annual will be over,' and last night 
 I dreamed that every question in Philosophy was " ex- 
 plain the gyrometer," and that I was busy flunking them 
 all, when with a start I woke up, and, after feeling 
 the bed-post to make sure that it was only a dream, 
 turned over with a sigh of relief, murmuring " this time 
 to-morrow annual will be over." 
 
 Yes. The Rubicon is passed, and I stand on the 
 steps and feel the cool breeze blowing over from ' Di- 
 vinity,' fanning my flushed face, and remember with 
 quiet satisfaction that flourish at the bottom of the 
 twelfth page, dwelling with pleasure on the ' P. S.' in- 
 serted in the left-hand corner : 
 
 "Prof. Cramhard. I have been obliged to omit the 
 ngth question for want of time."
 
 168 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 I smile internally, and pat myself metaphorically on 
 the back, and think, ' pretty smart thing that,' and am 
 immensely disgusted at finding out afterwards that one 
 hundred and twenty-three out of one hundred and 
 twenty-five fellows have done exactly the same thing. 
 
 I glance over the printed paper in my hand, and as 
 my eye runs over a score or two of questions a great 
 ' 4 ' seems to be photographed on them all ; but I stop 
 at No. 47 and reflect. I believe I had a pretty general 
 idea of that poser, though there were some points not 
 altogether clear, and after all, I put down so much that 
 Cramhard will have to get a double-action telescope to 
 pick out what I didn't know. Well, I'll call it 3:50 
 any how ; he ought to take it for granted that I knew 
 that much." 
 
 I am alone outside the hall, thoroughly at peace with 
 myself and the world in general ; but I don't for- 
 get the inquisition in full blast on the other side of 
 those oak doors. Will I ever forget the look of an- 
 guish on poor Sam Crook's face, when he telegraphed 
 over, " I have got the wrong skinning-paper." Poor 
 Sam ! he hadn't a leg to stand on in English literature 
 and logic. He learned short-hand just on purpose to 
 bridge this difficulty. He had worked steadily for two 
 days and nights and had Shaw and Atwater almost ver- 
 batim on a manuscript edition of 16 feet by i* inches, 
 but somehow got his papers mixed and brought in an 
 abridged ' Loomis's Astronomy,' by mistake. This was 
 even worse than Tom Evans' faux fas last sophomore 
 annual. Tom wrote the 'Analytics ' entire on his shirt- 
 cufls, but put them on with the writing inside. This he 
 discovered only when in the hall, and was then too 
 much scared to change them, flunking dead of course. 
 Tom was always ready to swear that he put those cuffs
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT BUGBEAR. 169 
 
 on right, and could only account for his misfortune on 
 the wild hypothesis that the ink had soaked through to 
 the inner side. 
 
 The faces inside bending over those cork ink-stands 
 may be divided into three classes, each sharply defined 
 and to be recognized at a glance. First, the man who 
 is doing well. You can tell him by his fingers at once ; 
 the first two, with the thumb, being well bedaubed with 
 ink. He has glanced over the paper ; feels sure that he 
 can strike every nail square on the head, and then with 
 the rapidity of a phonographer turns off page after page. 
 Of two evils I believe I would prefer the lot of Tantalus 
 rather than sit, stuck myself, and watch this man mak- 
 ing one continued spurt from alpha to omega. Every 
 individual hair seems to indicate a desire to stand on 
 end and cheer ; his eyes sparkle, and the corners of his 
 mouth twitch with nervous excitement ; in fact, every 
 feature, muscle and ligament seems to be playing on 
 the surface of an invisible chuckle, and each to be say- 
 ing in his own way, " soft thing." 
 
 To the second class belongs the man who is doing 
 only fairly. He has looked over the list and feels that he 
 has a general idea of most of the questions, can write 
 something on each and perhaps come very near the 
 mark on two or three. He has recognized the fact, too, 
 that quantity must be put in the balance against qual- 
 ity, and that good penmanship will not injure his case. 
 This task of writing a good deal and of doing it in 
 good style, gives class No. 2 little or no time for star- 
 gazing. 
 
 But by all odds the man most thoroughly interesting 
 to an outside observer, and most wretchedly miserable 
 to himself, is the man who is in a hopeless and desper- 
 ate condition oi flunk. On ordinary occasions, this gen-
 
 170 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 tleman is one of the gayest of the gay ; but the settled 
 gloom on his countenance now, the suicidal look in his 
 eyes, the drooping languor of his legs and the general 
 appearance of goneness mark an eclipse in the sunshine 
 of his joys, an eclipse total and annual, though not, 
 thank fortune, perpetual ; for this little trouble will soon 
 roll away from the disc of his happiness and before 
 long he will be shining again on his friends, just as 
 though yearly overhaulings were myths. 
 
 This third class may, I think, be subdivided into 
 two. Of one of these is the man who feels that the 
 waters are about his eyes and ears, but still hopes on, 
 and looks out for straws. He is nervous and uneasy 
 while keeping a close watch on the four guardians of 
 scholastic virtue. He attempts at unobserved intervals 
 to establish communication with his neighbors, or goes 
 up to the water-cooler, hoping to meet a sympathizing 
 and posted friend there, with the possibility of getting 
 a glimpse at something valuable on the way back, or, as 
 a dernier resort, he assails, with fulsome smile, the 
 tutor's rostrum, thinking that perhaps he may glean a 
 grain of information by asking an explanation of some 
 question. 
 
 Flunkist No. 2 is a conscientious young man. He 
 belongs perhaps, to a Mission Sunday School, or may 
 have been a prominent church-deacon, and, of course, 
 has no skinning-papers. He crammed up some odd 
 places and came in hoping to get two or three of them ; 
 but alas ! not one familiar resting-spot meets his anx- 
 ious eyes, and for two and a half hours we have a pict- 
 ure of despair to be found nowhere outside of Dante's 
 " Inferno." If Whittier had passed through the course 
 here, his idea of sadness would have been materially
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT BUGBEAR. I?! 
 
 changed, and his renowned couplet would perhaps read 
 somewhat thus : 
 
 " Of all sad words, except dead drunk, 
 " The saddest are the words dead flunk." 
 
 But why should I stand on Alumni steps contemplat- 
 ing horrors? School's closed, let's be off; and I am 
 just about to move down the path when the door is 
 hastily opened, and out rushes a frantic youth. I rec- 
 ognize a fellow divisioner and greet him with " Ah, 
 Bill, how did you get through?" " Magnificently ! never 
 did better in my life ! dead rush !" I receive this state- 
 ment cum a considerable grano, for William has never 
 been found guilty of even approximating to a perfect 
 recitation. And here let me offer incidentally this 
 piece of advice to the uninitiated. Don't believe a man 
 who, within five minutes of getting out, says he has 
 made a dead rush ; the chances are twenty-five to one 
 that he will take two for his mark before an hour has 
 passed. 
 
 I move on, and the first shadow shows that the 
 chapel is near by. O ghosts of broken slumbers ! O 
 ghosts of unfinished breakfasts ! O ghosts of empty 
 stomachs ! requiescatis in pace. For two whole months 
 the echoing footsteps of no belated pilgrims will be 
 heard along the aisles of this lofty edifice. For two 
 whole months thy downy cushions will be unpressed. 
 Late-rising students no longer bend reverentially over 
 half-conned lessons. Freshmen shake not with the 
 "pons asinorum " before them. No ghastly monitor 
 puts on a sickly smile when he sees a four-seated pew 
 with only three in it. The choir in the dark recess 
 sings no longer its unearthly but harmonious strains. 
 Fair woman from above no more looks down on frail 
 and sleeping below
 
 172 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 I had got thus far, musing sweetly, when an ebb 
 tide of liberated co-laborers seized me with " I say, 
 Jack, what answer did you get for the i6th?" Another 
 calls out, "Is the I4th ablative of cause or means?" 
 While still another voice is heard, high over all, crying 
 out " I say, Jack, is regerent sentiment of another or 
 essential-part?" I have no wax with me, so I put 
 my fingers in my ears, put on a soft non-committal 
 smile, nod wildly yes and wait till these syrens float 
 away. Experience taught me this dodge. When I 
 was young I used sometimes to differ from my ques- 
 tioners and always had the pleasure of being informed 
 that I was most assuredly in the wrong. Another good 
 expedient is to rush from Alumni hall directly to 
 your room and lock yourself up for about fifteen min- 
 utes. This you will generally find long enough to do 
 the business. Some fellows, however, will keep up the 
 cross-questioning for an hour or more. Of this class 
 was John Z. who used to bore the club so much with 
 his questions that they decided on giving him a lesson. 
 One, day, after a mathematical examination, John rush- 
 ing into dinner, crying out " I say, fellows, is the fourth 
 R cos X or R sine X ?" Everyone instantly stopped 
 
 talking. Amid a death-like stillness Dick B arose 
 
 and said : " Let me inform you, Mr. Z., that the exami- 
 nation in Trigonometry closed at twelve precisely, and 
 that it is now quarter past one roast beef, Mary, rare, 
 if you please." 
 
 I drift on lazily and am soon behind the Lyceum. 
 O how cool this breeze feels, when I think of those 
 hot summer afternoons in_Prex/s lecture room, and I 
 say to myself, what a wonderful creature man is, re- 
 membering how I could snooze delightfully through 
 all those Greek lectures and at the end be able to tell
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT BUGBEAR. 173 
 
 all about Platea and Epidamnus and the twenty-nine 
 causes that made Themistocles such a remarkable his- 
 torian. 
 
 I don't remember doing much in the Morpheus line, 
 however, in the room directly overhead. In fact, the 
 division needed all its eyes and ears to keep posted 
 on what was coming. Well, that's all over now. ' Why 
 so ?' ' More accurately.' ' And the name is ?' are to us only 
 echoes past. The transit was correctly adjusted, and 
 we have passed over the meridian. May the compound 
 of 'nodes,' ' evection,' 'dips,' 'meridians,' 'librations,' 
 etc., etc., go to the right spot and find a resting-place 
 there. 
 
 I go up stairs to my room ; there lies a book on the 
 table open at that tough place over which I spent an 
 hour and a half and which of course we didn't have. 
 I swear I never will cram again ; I shut the book and 
 put it away ; I give my sweep a dollar, I tell Fine Day 
 that I have some old clothes, I go over to the fence and 
 shake hands with everybody, and then I go to dinner.
 
 THE pile of examination-papers is nearly exhausted. 
 To-morrow the bottom of the chest that has guarded 
 them so carefully will be reached ; the last manuscript 
 will be handed in, and Alumni Hall will be cleared for 
 more joyous scenes. Day by day for the past two weeks 
 we have pumped our heads full, only to enter that hall 
 and have them pumped empty again, and now the 
 respite comes just in time, for the pump has given 
 signs of failing, and the reservoir is leaking badly. 
 
 In respect to these examinations I find there is every- 
 thing in getting used to them. The first time I ap- 
 proached that hall it was with some such feeling as that 
 with which I used to walk up to my mother when I had 
 been in swimming contrary to orders. That great 
 yawning doorway at which I have since seen children 
 and ladies shudder, seemed to open its jaws for me. 
 How I wished that one of the stones from that gloomy 
 archway might fall on me. There is a good quotation 
 somewhere about calling on the mountains to fall on 
 us and the hills to crush us, which illustrates my feel- 
 ings, but which I cannot quite recall. Perhaps you re- 
 member it. Since that day, having grown in years and 
 discretion, I have grown bolder. After a few nervous 
 twitchings of the pump-handle, and a consciousness 
 that a new leak has burst out in your reservoir, you 
 leave your room and join your classmates before that 
 yawning door, as the hour for examination approaches.
 
 EXAMINATIONS. 175 
 
 You are not much encouraged by the subdued air 
 which pervades the crowd, think the assembly is a little 
 too funereal in its aspect and try to crack a joke 
 a laudable enterprise, but fruitless. You have un- 
 doubtedly noticed that the man who opens the door to 
 admit you, always stations himself in the doorway, and 
 looks pensive and sad but it is only done for a scare. 
 The inside of the hall appears at first sight as if orna- 
 mented with a view to holding therein a congress of 
 nations. As you gaze around upon the "Arms of the 
 States of the American Union " and the portraits of the 
 great men who have gone before you, you feel as Napo- 
 leon's soldiers felt in the presence of the Egyptian 
 pyramids " that centuries are looking down upon 
 you." There is nothing lacking to inspire you, and 
 with the arms of your state above your head, and the 
 legs of a rickety chair beneath you, you boldly determine 
 to rush or flunk. 
 
 How still everything is ! The guards who are ap- 
 pointed over you are as silent as the grave as they 
 distribute the bills-of-fare for this feast of reason and 
 flow of sweat. And now there is a thundering at the 
 door by some foolish fellow who has waited to fill his 
 lamp and " crib " a few points on his cuffs. The guards 
 stand unmoved at the four sides of the room, grave and 
 gloomy ; silence again reigns, and naught is heard but 
 the scratching of pens and a few suppressed sighs. If 
 you sit on a back seat and don't want to devote yourself 
 too hard to your paper, you find yourself splendidly 
 situated to exercise your judgment in what constitutes 
 a boating man. Such an assortment of backs was never 
 seen in one collection before in all degrees of curva- 
 ture from the start to the finish of a stroke. You long 
 for a sight of a tutor's back, but they all stand or sit
 
 176 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 with backs firmly planted against the wall, and nothing 
 visible but eyes. 
 
 And now you are wondering what that cross made 
 with chalk upon the floor under your table is, thinking 
 that the cross you are bearing now is heavy enough 
 without an additional one, and reading the names of 
 others who have sat at the same table and left their 
 autographs there ; when suddenly you find that in a 
 few minutes the two hours and a quarter will be up 
 and you are bound to be out among the first. Now 
 you go to work in earnest, every once in a while jump- 
 ing up to gaze at the only friendly face in the room, 
 that of the clock. There is one question you cannot 
 answer, and you know your right hand neighbor can, so 
 you gently ask him to confide. But he isn't confid- 
 ing as much as he was when he wanted to borrow your 
 " Harper" to cram up on, and only scowls and spoils 
 his boating back by humping it. The man on your left 
 knows you have an answer which he cannot get, and 
 asks you for it. You were well brought up and learned 
 the golden rule long ago, and so you only scowl and 
 hump your back. Then you take your " Rules for Ex- 
 amination " out of your pocket and significantly point out 
 to him rule 10 : " All communication between students 
 during examination is strictly forbidden," and indicate 
 by words and winks that you'll tell him all about that 
 question when you get outside, for which he gratefully 
 curses you. The two hours and a quarter are passed at 
 last, and one of the gloomy guards rises, and in sepul- 
 chral tones proclaims : " Those who have completed 
 their work may hand it in and be excused. The next 
 examination will take place on Tuesday morning at 9 
 o'clock on the Greek of the first two terms," and his 
 voice sounded so much like that of a judge passing
 
 EXAMINATIONS. 177 
 
 sentence of death that you almost expected him to say, 
 " and be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, 
 dead ! " 
 
 You hand in your papers and depart, and the first 
 comforting news you hear after coming out is that the 
 University nine has been awfully whipped. You are 
 glad .now that annuals kept you from witnessing the 
 game. Of course you " rushed," or if you didn't, you 
 don't tell anybody about it, and are glad to have es- 
 caped. And now the last man is out, you have com- 
 pared answers and found out your mistakes, have shown 
 your left hand neighbor what the proper answer to his 
 question is ; and now the gloomy man, with a pile of 
 manuscripts under his arm, is closing that gloomy door, 
 and soon that archway will be frowning down upon 
 passers-by. Soon it will smile for a brief week on 
 those whom it has terrified in days gone by, and then 
 will frown again on the "candidates for admission, four 
 abreast."
 
 SUgebra. 
 
 COMPLAINT is sometimes made that in the teaching 
 given at Yale the aesthetic side of studies is neglected : 
 e. g. that in the reading of Greek and Latin texts, the 
 structure of the language is attended to and the thoughts 
 of the authors disregarded. The complaint seems to me 
 partly just and in this article I will sketch out a plan by 
 which the study of Algebra, for example, might be made 
 not only to sharpen the reason but to train the critical 
 faculties and elevate the human soul. Professor Pack- 
 ard once told his class that the curriculum had made no 
 provision for the culture of imagination. How much 
 might be done in that way, even in pure mathematics, by 
 a proper mode of treatment, will be seen perhaps from 
 the following outlines of a cours. 
 
 A late ingenious writer has tried to show that the false 
 science of alchemy was only a covert way of expressing 
 by means of a symbolism, truths in moral and political 
 philosophy which it would have been unsafe in the Mid- 
 dle Ages to maintain openly. An analytical study of 
 Algebra will develop the fact that underlying its artifi- 
 cial symbolism, its alphabetical triflings, its obscure, and 
 too many meaningless formulae, there lies a life-drama 
 of dark and stormy passions a tale of fate, of crime, of 
 temptation and fall. It will be remembered that the 
 science is of oriental, of Arabian origin. The oriental 
 mind takes pleasure in mystic and figurative methods of 
 expression and it may well be, that this method has been
 
 ANALYTICAL ALGEBRA. 179 
 
 taken of preserving under the forms of a language whose 
 true import is revealed to a few choice spirits in every 
 age, one of that body of legends almost coeval with the 
 race the folklore of the East. It is a tale of the triumph 
 of the strong over the weak ; the evil over the good ; the 
 tempter over the tempted ; the Mephistopheles over the 
 Faust. 
 
 It will be seen that among the different writers who 
 have treated the subject, under some minor differences 
 of style and statement, there is a general agreement as 
 to the relative position of the two central personages of 
 the drama the characters of A and B. What this rela- 
 tion exactly is, it is impossible to say. It is usually in- 
 dicated numerically. Sometimes it is expressed in 
 terms of the mysterious and unknown quantity x which 
 the reader is always requested to find, but which if 
 found at all (which is rarely the case) resolves itself into 
 some number as baffling to the curiosity as the number 
 of the Beast in Revelations. What light does it shed on 
 x to discover that x=\% or that x= |/2na? Then, too, x 
 is usually variable, sometimes infinite, not seldom imag- 
 inary or absurd. It has indeed been directly asserted 
 that the relation of A to B was as/ to/': but what was 
 pi what was p'? The clue to this cipher is certainly 
 far from ascertained. 
 
 For these reasons it is advisable in the aesthetic study 
 of Algebra to neglect the long pages of statistics or 
 figurative matter which form the bulk of most treatises. 
 They shed no light on our researches. It is only in the 
 problems or what may be called the letter-press of the 
 work that I find any consistent and rational statements 
 about A and B. Even here the cautious and singularly 
 non-committal manner of the historian leaves much un- 
 told. Algebra may be called like Rhetoric "a science
 
 l8o CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 of hints and suggestions " or better a science of puz- 
 zles and riddles. The Sphinxy chronicler makes a 
 guarded statement and then suddenly asks a question 
 which often seems to have no connection at all with the 
 previous statement. Almost every sentence ends with 
 an interrogation-point. 
 
 From these materials, however, meagre as they are, 
 the following general results may be gained as to the 
 character and relations of A and B. B is the hero of 
 the drama. He seems to be a man of fine feeling, of a 
 generous and social, open and confiding nature, but of 
 a weak will and easily influenced. I find him with a 
 kind of humorous benevolence repeatedly distributing 
 coppers in geometrical progression to the poor. He 
 seems to be the careless and good-humored gentleman 
 referred to by Mr. Todhunter on page 208 of his Algebra. 
 "A gentleman sends a lad into the market to buy a 
 shilling's worth of oranges. The lad having eaten a 
 couple, the gentleman pays at the rate of a penny for 
 fifteen more than the market price," &c. His easy 
 credulity and recklessness seem to have led him into 
 extravagance and folly. I find him speculating in city 
 real estate, investing x dollars in rectangular lots con- 
 taining m square feet. He seems to have fallen in with 
 the sporting ring and to have run around islands on 
 a wagon always losing ; to have invested in lotteries 
 always drawing blanks : the chances of his drawing a 
 prize being usually, represented as n : m no doubt 
 ridiculously small. 
 
 On the other hand A the lago, the Mephistopheles, 
 the devil of the plot, is painted as a man of a secret, re- 
 served, and tortuous mind. Contrast the open-hearted, 
 unsuspecting frankness of B with the shuffling evasion 
 of A's answers to the simplest question. Thus A being
 
 ANALYTICAL ALGEBRA. l8l 
 
 asked by B how old he is replies, " tn times the cube of 
 C's age=j; of the square root of my own." Whenever 
 A and B are brought into contact, the former is repre- 
 sented as the superior in mental and bodily strength. 
 In these numerous and mysterious trips which they are 
 perpetually taking between two places distant x miles 
 from each other A always accomplishes the journey in 
 one w th of the time that B does. A always performs 
 with ease in the incredibly short period of n days that 
 piece of work which the indolent B requires fully m days 
 to complete. At an early period in their history A 
 seems to have laid B under some dreadful obligation or 
 to have discovered some terrible secret which places the 
 latter wholly in his power. The power thus obtained 
 he uses with remorseless cruelty. He persuades B to 
 invest his money in partnerships when B contributes m 
 dollars to A's n. He extorts hush-money from him in 
 sums of 500, looo, nay, even^ dollars ! With a fiendish 
 humor he pretends to regard these installments of black- 
 mail as loans loans of pure accommodation for t months 
 and at r per cent, interest of course never paid. 
 
 What the secret of this influence was I cannot say. 
 Was there a women in the case ? There is something in 
 the character of C a personage occasionally intro- 
 duced, which leads to the suspicion that she was a 
 woman. Thus on page 474 of Todhunter we are told 
 " It is 3 to i that A speaks truth, 6 to i that B does, and 
 i to 3 that C does. What is the probability that an 
 event took place which A asserts to have happened, and 
 which B and C deny?" Three conclusions seem to be 
 justified by this statement. 
 
 ist. The remarkable natural deceitfulness of C points 
 not doubtfully to her sex. 
 
 2d. B appears by this time to have become involved
 
 l82 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 in a train of prevarications made necessary perhaps by 
 his attempts to conceal the secret referred to, and to 
 have lost a portion of his natural truthfulness. 
 
 " O what a tangled web we weave 
 When first we practice to deceive." 
 
 But even so, his word is more to be trusted than the 
 organic duplicity of A. 
 
 3d. The above problem seems to have presented 
 itself to the mind of B while endeavoring to free himself 
 from the toils of A. He reflects whether his own words 
 coupled with that of C may outweigh (possibly in a 
 Court of Justice) the unsupported testimony of A. He 
 is tempted to cast off the thraldom and boldly deny the 
 " event " obscurely alluded to, which can be no other 
 than the terrible, possibly guilty, secret which A uses to 
 his destruction. 
 
 If any such plan of relief presents itself to his mind, 
 he is too weak to carry it out. He falls more and more 
 hopelessly into the toils and struggles less and less. 
 The malign influence of A becomes strongest as the 
 drama sweeps to its catastrophe. B invests with in- 
 creasing recklessness in the lots and lotteries. He 
 probably also takes to drink, for we read of " hogsheads, 
 one of wine and one of beer, for cubical contents as 
 ;, n, and exhausted respectively at the rate of x and y 
 quarts per diem." 
 
 Towards the close of his melancholy career, A gets 
 him into gambling. It is needless to say that he is no 
 match for the latter. The chapter on "probability" is 
 nothing more or less than an account of his losses at 
 cards and dice to the Hon. Ducease. Thus on page 
 468, problem 27, " two persons A, and B, engage in a 
 game in which A's skill is to B's as 3 to 2. Find the
 
 ANALYTICAL ALGEBRA. 183 
 
 chance of A's winning at least 3 games out of 5." Some- 
 times there seems to be a pool in which several engage, 
 possibly one D, a character who appears but seldom, 
 and seems to be a tool of A's was present among 
 others. On page 470 we have a description of one of 
 these friendly games. " In a bag are balls of m colors, 
 / being the first color, pi of the second color * * * 
 * * pm of the w th color. If the balls be drawn out 
 one by one, what is the chance that all the balls of the 
 first color will be drawn, &c.?" 
 
 The catastrophe of the drama is shrouded in impene- 
 trable night. What was the fate of A, of B, of C, of all 
 the rest of the alphabet, including old Izzard, " that gray 
 haired man of glee?" I cannot say: but enough has 
 been done towards resolving the enigma to show how 
 much would be accomplished by a critical study of 
 Algebra in its aesthetic relations, disregarding those 
 tables of meaningless signs and formulae which are 
 made the sole object of study under the present false, 
 disciplinary system. 
 
 "The limits of this introduction," as Mr. Buckle 
 would say, forbid me to do more than indicate how 
 valuable the same method of treatment would be if em- 
 ployed, for instance, on that graceful work of fiction, 
 " Arnold's Latin Prose Composition." Balbus, Caius, 
 and even Titus Manlinus, the nobilissimus juvenus, 
 would be no longer mere pegs to hang instructors upon, 
 but living, breathing souls like the generous, the gentle, 
 but alas the unhappy and fallen B.
 
 JJalbns. 
 
 POSSIBLY some few of my readers may have chanced, 
 while exploring the musty recesses of Hoadley's or 
 Richmond's, to discover a copy of a quaint old book 
 entitled "Arnold's Latin Prose Composition." If a 
 love of antiquarian research led them, as it did me, 
 to examine the contents of this venerable volume, they 
 found that, like a dictionary, it is mainly composed of 
 short paragraphs and sentences, very interesting in 
 themselves, but remarkably disconnected. 
 
 Passing over all discussion of the probable author- 
 ship, date and purpose of this book, and only noting 
 that internal evidence indicates that the various events 
 which it narrates took place not very far from the com- 
 mencement of the Christian era, I would ask your 
 attention to the sentences, some of which may be shown, 
 I think, by a judicious use of the critical and imagina- 
 tive powers, to contain many interesting allusions to 
 college life 2000 years ago. The sentences which I 
 have culled out for this purpose all seem to have been 
 extracted from the private journal of a collegian of that 
 period. In them appear four principal dramatis per- 
 sonae : I, the writer of the journal ; You, a most yousful 
 personage ; Balbus, whom, for want of a better, may be 
 called the hero : Caius, a rival of Balbus ; also, He, 
 Him, They, Them, Some, &c., "attendants, soldiers, 
 &c." 
 
 The early life of these collegians is wrapped in the
 
 BALBUS. 185 
 
 most profound obscurity. We may conjecture that they 
 were born early in life of poor, but dishonest parents ; 
 that they spent the days of their boyhood in driving the 
 hens to water, milking the dogs, and other rustic occu- 
 pations ; that they were " birched " at the common 
 schools, and "rebelled" at the academies; and that 
 they got blue-papers at the examination for entrance to 
 college ; but all this is mere conjecture, for we receive 
 no information concerning them until they are fairly in 
 college. Their relations to each other in college are 
 more or less clearly indicated by the sentences which I 
 shall quote, from which it seems probable that Balbus, 
 Caius and You were all in the same class, while I was in 
 the class above them ; that I was, at first, the special 
 patron of Balbus and You, though afterward taking up 
 Caius in place of Balbus ; that Balbus and Caius were 
 the leading men in the rival Freshman societies ; and 
 that You was, at first, the fast friend of Balbus, probably 
 his chum, but afterward became alienated from him. 
 Accepting as true these supposed relations of our ancient 
 collegians, we shall easily understand the various 
 glimpses of their college life afforded by the sentences, 
 which, by the way, it will be best to take up as nearly 
 as possible, though by no means arranged, in chrono- 
 logical order. 
 
 The average age of entering college was probably 
 about the same as now, for we find " It is certain that 
 Caius served his first campaign at the age of 18." Of 
 course this was the Freshman campaign ; hence, he 
 must have entered when about 17. An allusion to 
 initiation into Freshman societies is undoubtedly con- 
 tained in the question, " Was not Caius within a very 
 little of being killed ?" From this it seems that these 
 initiations were as cruel and barbarous then as now.
 
 1 86 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 Doubtless our friends were soon visited by certain very 
 polite upper-class men ; for we find it recorded, " They 
 said that Caius would give if he had anything," which 
 clearly proves that the fascinating and alluring sport of 
 getting subscriptions was in full blast then, and prob- 
 ably it ruined many a fine fellow, even as it does to- 
 day. 
 
 As " Caius was more brave than prudent," (i. e. he 
 was rash,) he incurred that dread penalty, a letter home, 
 early in Freshman year. We can imagine his division 
 officer thus addressing him : " Mr. Caius, I am deeply 
 grieved to inform you that you have received sixteen 
 marks, and that therefore the painful duty devolves 
 upon me of sending a letter home to your father." 
 Yalensians alone can imagine his wild anguish as he 
 heard these words and thought of bis father's grey 
 hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave ; they will 
 not wonder that, nerved by despair, he went to the 
 P. O. and, by putting an oyster fry and a bottle of 
 Falernian " where they would do the most good," got 
 possession of the blighting epistle before it started on 
 its dread mission. But, on reading it, the contents did 
 not appear so very dreadful, and the ingenuous youth 
 shrank from deceiving both his loved instructor and 
 his venerable sire. Hence the determination which I 
 records : " Caius is going to send a copy of the letter 
 to his father ;" doubtless keeping the original for 
 memorabil. 
 
 Freshmen seem to have been as conceited in their 
 ignorance then as now, for we find I endeavoring to 
 take his friends down a little, by assuring them, " Both 
 You and Balbus are ignorant of many things." But a 
 little later we read : " It cannot be denied that Balbus 
 seems wise to many persons ;" implying thereby that he
 
 BALBUS. 187 
 
 had acquired the art, not yet wholly lost, of taking a 
 good stand with a very small acquirement of knowledge. 
 He seems to have plunged at once into college politics, 
 and to have bent all his efforts therein to carrying out 
 the wishes of that extremely influential friend of his in 
 the class above him, I. And with success, for the lat- 
 ter asserts, " Balbus has deserved well of me," with the 
 logical conclusion, "It remains that I should assist 
 Balbus." Strange as it may seem to us, in those days 
 college politicians did not deem it necessary to keep 
 their word, for I says, " Both you and Balbus have ut- 
 tered many falsehoods ;" and, though declaring, " My 
 friend Balbus has more influence with me than any 
 other person," he asserts " I shall not easily believe 
 Balbus." But Balbus' willingness to toa no, to please 
 and accommodate, nearly got him into trouble in his 
 own class. Some questionable transaction perhaps in 
 the Freshman campaign so incensed his opponents, 
 that one of them, perhaps Caius himself, determined 
 to openly accuse him of treacherous conduct ; but 
 his faithful chum, You, intervened and, either by his 
 smoothness of tongue, or by assuring the would-be 
 accuser that his contemplated action would offend that 
 influential upper-class man, I, saved Balbus from the 
 threatened danger ; a service which I thus recognized : 
 " It was owing to you that he did not accuse Balbus of 
 treachery." 
 
 Thus far, everything was lovely between Balbus and 
 I, and I unhesitatingly upheld Balbus as superior to 
 Caius, asking at one time, "Which is the wiser, Caius 
 or Balbus?" and immediately answering his own ques- 
 tion, " There is no doubt that Caius is nothing com- 
 pared to Balbus." At another time he admiringly ex- 
 claims, " Is there any man who can be compared with
 
 l88 CLASS-ROOM HUMORS. 
 
 Balbus?" Alas, that a friendship so close, so disinter- 
 ested, so beatific generally, did not endure ! Soon I 
 began to suspect that Balbus was no longer faithful to 
 him, but was bent on some scheme of private aggran- 
 dizement. " Even Balbus is not averse to ambition," 
 he says, and adds doubtfully, " I am afraid I do not see 
 through Balbus's designs." Soon convinced that his 
 suspicions were well founded, and wishing to ascertain 
 whether You considered it better to follow Balbus or 
 himself, he cautiously asked, " Do you envy me or Bal- 
 bus ?" You wisely preferred to keep the good-will of 
 I, and the two, deserting Balbus, made common cause 
 with Caius, to whom I transferred his paternal care and 
 advice, thus : " I warned Caius whom to guard against," 
 and " I will warn Caius how advantageous it is to keep 
 one's word." Later on, we find I asking, " Was the 
 funeral pile lighted by you or Balbus?" which shows 
 that the change in the relations of the parties must have 
 taken place before the burning of Euclid in Sophomore 
 year, I wishing to know which of the now rivals had 
 obtained the honor of applying the devouring flame. 
 So hostile had the once chums become, that they came 
 to blows once at least, for I asserts, " Both you and 
 Balbus have lifted up your hands." What a scene for 
 a painter ! Mill between Damon and Pythias ! 
 
 Probably Balbus now made some declaration of his 
 high-toned determination to break up the odious sys- 
 tem of toadyism which prevailed. Whatever his dodge 
 was to win popularity, it was in some measure success- 
 ful, for " There was some one who assisted Balbus." 
 These co-reformers braced him up, it seems, for "About 
 all of them visited Balbus ; ' Keep,' said they, ' your word ; 
 finish the business which you have undertaken.' " Thus 
 supported, it might have been dangerous to entirely
 
 BALBUS. 189 
 
 overlook him, and so I prudently says, " I will enquire 
 of Caius whether Balbus should be consulted ;" which 
 enquiry resulted in the conclusion, " We must consult 
 the interests of Balbus." But ere long the adherents of 
 Balbus saw that they were on the losing side, and so 
 lessened his power by deserting him, that his interests 
 demanded little consultation, and I asks contemptu- 
 ously, "Is not anything enough for Balbus?" The last 
 mention we find of the college life of our friends shows 
 that Balbus had, by some means, got a part in one of 
 the plays at a Thanksgiving Jubilee, most probably in 
 his Junior year. But by this time both I and You 
 thoroughly disliked and despised him, and in spite of 
 their former friendship for him, were willing to see him 
 publicly disgraced, and even to aid in disgracing him. 
 We read, " I will make no objection to your hissing off 
 the stage that very bad actor, Balbus !" 
 
 Poor Balbus ! Like many a college student now-a- 
 days, he started in his course most brilliantly, and 
 seemed destined to continue throughout as he had be- 
 gun, a leading man in the class. But he was too am- 
 bitious, too unscrupulous, too economical of the truth ; 
 and " rising like a rocket, he fell like a stick."
 
 IMPEDIMENTA.
 
 Umbrella. 
 
 IT has always seemed a curious thing to me that 
 funny people should be so prone to jest about the um- 
 brella. The child Punchinello made his bow to a long- 
 suffering people with one pocket stuffed full of this 
 sort of gossip, ending with a " to be continued." I sup- 
 pose he did this in order to establish his claim to be 
 considered one of the funny fellows. Now I have 
 often puzzled myself in trying to find out the reason of 
 this. I have asked myself if it were occasioned by the 
 peculiar shape of the umbrella by its diminutiveness 
 in fair weather and its bulk in stormy weather by the 
 character of its materials by the uses to which it was 
 put by its migratory tendencies ; but in every in- 
 stance I have failed to solve the riddle. So far as I 
 could see, there was nothing funny in the umbrella it- 
 self nor in its relations. Indeed, as I have become bet- 
 ter acquainted with the article in question, I have found 
 very many things about it calculated to produce sober- 
 ness if not sadness. And especially has this been the 
 case since I have been in college. 
 
 If you ever observed the advent of an incoming class, 
 you have probably noticed that each member comes pro- 
 vided with a new umbrella. The carefulness of a mother 
 is as sure to provide this protection for her boy, physi- 
 cally, as the Bible in his trunk for his protection, mor- 
 ally. In this way the supply of college umbrellas is 
 kept up. Of course, a professional wit would extract 
 7
 
 IQ4 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 much matter for laughter out of this. But it does not 
 strike me in that fashion. Consider, in the first place, the 
 amount of misplaced confidence on the part of parents, 
 which is utterly destroyed in this process. To be sure, 
 some one may say that misplaced confidence is a drug in 
 the world, and the quantity destroyed in this case is of 
 no particular account any way ; but when we remember 
 how often the average student is obliged to draw on the 
 home stock of this commodity, anything which tends to 
 diminish the article in question becomes at once a mat- 
 ter of great importance. 
 
 But the effect produced upon the student himself 
 is, after all, the main thing to be considered. And 
 certainly no one at all conversant with college life 
 can deny that this effect is a serious and a sad one. 
 A young man comes here with his new umbrella. 
 It is, to him, an indication that he has at last assumed 
 the toga virilis. Whatever else he may lack, he 
 certainly is the uncontrollable owner of an umbrella. 
 It is, as it were, a patent of manhood, granted to him 
 by the authorities at home. But this young man is 
 the victim of a singular delusion. He has, in addition 
 to his other vagaries, a notion that he is the peer 
 of every man in college, each one, like himself, the 
 owner of an umbrella. Accordingly, he treats them as 
 such. With primeval simplicity, he regards this as the 
 elysium of umbrellas. Perhaps it rains, on the morn- 
 ing of his first appearance at college. With umbrella 
 spread, in proud conspicuousness, the youth starts for 
 chapel. With unhesitating confidence he leaves it at 
 the door not even stopping to wonder why he has no 
 example for this original proceeding. There it stands, 
 in solitary grandeur a striking and overwhelming 
 proof of the original innocence of man ! It is, indeed, 
 a sight which thrills the heart of every lover of his kind !
 
 MY UMBRELLA. 195 
 
 Meanwhile, the new-made peer goes through his devo- 
 tions in proper form. Not a thought of his umbrella dis- 
 turbs the sweet serenity of his spirit. The services over, 
 the young man, after conscientiously bowing to the Prex, 
 departs. Now just consider his situation. His natural 
 amiability, increased by the refining influences of a pre- 
 paratory school, and at the present moment subdued by 
 the chastening atmosphere of the chapel, leads him to 
 put the most implicit faith in all mankind, and partic- 
 ularly in that part of mankind now included within 
 the pale of Yale. His heart swells as he thinks that he, 
 too, is part and parcel of the noble human family. Un- 
 der the influence of these emotions, he looks for that 
 new umbrella. Of course it is not to be found ! It has 
 gone to swell the general stock of college umbrellas. 
 But the Freshman ! Who can estimate the harm it has 
 done him ? His faith in human nature the sense of 
 his own dignity the religious calm of his spirit all 
 obliterated in an instant ! And yet some men are 
 found heartless enough to joke about such things ! 
 
 This, however, is by no means the end of the matter. 
 Iniquity is a wonderful breeder of iniquity ; whence 
 it follows that he who has- had an umbrella borrowed, 
 generally becomes, in the end, a borrower of umbrellas. 
 Of course this result is necessary to the maintenance of 
 the system pursued here ; because if every man who 
 needed an umbrella were foolish enough to buy one, 
 there would soon be a surplus, and when this was 
 noised abroad it is not too much to presume that mem- 
 bers of incoming classes would become so recreant to 
 the duties of their station in life as to come to college 
 unprovided with these highly ornamental articles of 
 outfit. 
 
 But this borrowing may be carried too far. Observe
 
 196 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 the practical effects. A friend of mine was the owner 
 of an umbrella, purchased with lawful coin. Under 
 its kindly protection he had weathered two years of 
 college life. When storms were the most violent, it was 
 his best friend. For all its sorry appearance, he was 
 attached to it. One evening he left it at his door. It 
 was an infantile act. He has never seen it since. But 
 my friend was a philosopher. He privately assured me 
 that he had really wanted a new umbrella, one with 
 all the modern improvements, for a long time, but 
 habits of economy would not permit him to buy a new one 
 until he was rid of the old one. I think he felt under 
 obligations to the man who took it. Not long after 
 this, my friend appeared with a new umbrella. I can't 
 remember a tithe of its peculiar excellencies for each 
 one of which he paid a good sum, as the manner is ; 
 but, taken all in all, it was a very remarkable piece of 
 property. Owing to his inadvertence, however, it ran 
 the same risk as its predecessor, and, it is almost need- 
 less to add, incurred a similar fate. My friend's phil- 
 osophy has not been heard of since. He said little, but 
 it was to the point ; and in the time that has elapsed 
 since then, he has become the possessor of seven um- 
 brellas. 
 
 Now a witty man might consider this a capital joke 
 but I cannot. It is demoralization demoralized. 
 For the system does not provide for such unlimited 
 borrow it is not expected that any man will have 
 more than one borrowed umbrella on hand at a time. 
 But here is a man who has seven ! One of two con- 
 clusions is inevitable : that either six borrowers have 
 been robbed of umbrellas borrowed by them, or those 
 who naturally provide these six borrowers with umbrel- 
 las are unable to supply their wants, on account of the
 
 MY UMBRELLA. IQ7 
 
 rapacity of my friend. This is a serious matter, one in 
 which every college man is interested, and one which 
 least of all is capable of exciting mirth ; though there 
 are persons who will try to make you laugh about it. 
 For such persons I am profoundly sorry. 
 
 There are phases of the umbrella question which 
 might be examined ; but I think it would be very sad- 
 dening work. One recurs to me now. It is the possi- 
 ble danger that some member of one of the lower 
 classes, after having had his own umbrella borrowed, 
 may go into the same business on his own account. 
 This, of course, would be destructive to the system 
 since at least the newest comers are supposed to pro- 
 cure their umbrellas only from regular dealers. How 
 sad it would be, if they, in a moment of thoughtlessness 
 should thus go contrary to the plainest maxim of the 
 system ! But the shocking disregard of all college 
 principles of right and wrong which such a procedure 
 would indicate, is the worst feature about this possible 
 change. For the credit of Yale, it is to be hoped it 
 will never take place. Leastwise, let's have no joking 
 about it !
 
 "A lytell ragge of rethorike, 
 A lesse lumpe of logyke, 
 A pece or a patche of philosophy." 
 
 JOHN SKELTON. 
 
 MY pipe is a very ordinary one, but it has a deal of 
 comfortableness about it. A cherry stem, which still 
 keeps the smell of orchards, and a plain, but plethoric 
 bowl : this is my pipe. It has no ornament, save a trifle 
 of antique carving about the edge and this is wholly 
 accidental, coming from sundry knockings against the 
 stove, in my lazy attempts to empty it. I like it the 
 better that it gets ornaments from hard knocks. A 
 dry old fellow is my pipe, and yet not utterly without a 
 certain juicy humor ; as my friends are wont to lugubri- 
 ously observe, after smoking it. But my pipeand I un- 
 derstand it all ; we take our comfort just the same. 
 
 And yet we have our ups and downs, my pipe and I. 
 We try, however, to bear all that comes with philosophic 
 patience, if not with philosophic indifference ; for as my 
 pipe often says, rainy days last only twenty-four hours, 
 just the same as sunshiny ones, which I have never yet 
 been able to gainsay. 
 
 My pipe is an every-day friend : it enters into all the 
 business of my life. It marks the cheerful epochs of 
 each day ; breakfast-time, dinner-time and supper-time 
 precede its pleasant companionship ; meeting a friend 
 necessitates its introduction ; a letter from home is more 
 relishable from its presence ; it helps to " welcome 
 peaceful evening in."
 
 MY PIPE. IQ9 
 
 My pipe makes stormy weather bearable. When rainy 
 days come and the leaves are falling, it grows joyful 
 for such weather promises more of my company. Bless- 
 ings on the friend who is thus most faithful in adverse 
 seasons ! Given plenty of tobacco and a match or two, 
 and it will smoke me all the day long, then. And truly 
 it does soften the fall of the orphaned leaves to see them 
 go fluttering earthward through the fragrant clouds of 
 tobacco-smoke which issue from my pipe ; while the 
 patter of the rain is wondrously softened under its mol- 
 lifying influences. Indeed, I am not sure but that this 
 is the chief charm of my pipe that it tones down all 
 the roughnesses of life, and while it in no sense weak- 
 ens my apprehension of their existence, yet so removes 
 me in feeling from them that I am able to view them 
 rather as a spectator than as a sufferer. My brother, then 
 
 " Nee te poeniteat calanao trivisse labellum." 
 
 The groundlings may declaim ; but you, sitting in the 
 " calm lights of a mild philosophy," can well afford them 
 this privilege. 
 
 Even the Lord's day is not unblessed by my pipe. 
 !\nd surely a college Sunday needs something to relieve 
 it. Not to mention the dismalness of prospective or 
 realized chapel services, and other incidental matters of 
 a like nature, with which we are " disciplined," it is 
 enough that we have no home here at college, such as 
 most of us have previously enjoyed. But my pipe rises 
 to the full measure of the situation. It strengthens for 
 chapel ; it refreshes afterward ; it steadies for the excite- 
 ments of a mission Sunday-school or a united service ; 
 it quiets in the hours of meditation which follow. But on 
 a Sunday night my pipe fits me for fellowship. In a 
 cozy circle of genial hearts, my pipe reigns over me with 
 undoubted supremacy. For me it softens the jest ; for
 
 200 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 me it liberalizes philosophy ; for me it increases charity. 
 Enveloping us in its all-embracing folds of smoke, it 
 makes us brothers indeed. Later, when that sober and 
 half melancholy mood follows which always fills up a 
 part of the sitting of any group of college friends, my 
 pipe fits itself to the humor of the time. Not a wink 
 escapes it not a wrinkle of laughter disturbs its calm 
 serenity. As the talk runs on about the now and the 
 to-come, about goodness and badness, about destiny 
 and God, it tells me to be patient in the present, to wait 
 and hope for the future ; it softens for me the coldness 
 and abstractness of virtue and teaches me to be pitiful 
 to the sinner whispering that although sinning he may 
 have been sinned against, and adding that He who is all- 
 merciful, as well as all-just, may be kinder to him than 
 I think ; it bids me have faith, for 
 
 " God's in his heaven 
 
 All's right with the world !" 
 
 And afterward, when at last the kind faces and loyal 
 hearts have gone, and my pipe and I are left alone, it 
 grows still more communicative. With a comical de- 
 nial of egotism visible in its honest old face, it asks me 
 to notice how it is always faithful, patient and ready in 
 my service ; how it is as much my friend when comfort- 
 able in my old boots as when I have torment-causing 
 new ones on, ending its questioning by asserting that if 
 it, only a pipe (and there was a pathos in its tone when 
 it says this, which means, to me, if I only were a man 
 or a woman, I would show you what a human friend 
 ought to be), can be so constant and true, how much 
 more true and constant must a sentient entity be ; and 
 thus it leads me to have faith in my kind thus it per- 
 suades me that goodness and faithfulness are active 
 principles in some human hearts. My pipe, with a rare
 
 MY PIPE. 2OI 
 
 generosity, does not assume to itself all the excellency 
 there is in the world. 
 
 But my pipe, unwittingly, has led me into trouble. At 
 home, especially, is this true. My father, worthy man, 
 smokes as what worthy man does not? " Qui vit sans 
 tabac n'estgas digne vivre" But that his boy should be 
 a devotee of the pipe ah me, that is putting the boot on 
 the other foot ! So I get my regular lectures though I 
 have noticed that my father is able to put a peculiar unc- 
 tion and torce into his speech if he be but smoking at 
 the time : to explain which many ingenious theories 
 might be framed. 
 
 And this, with other things, have I suffered on thy ac- 
 count, my pipe ! But thou art too kind too faithful to 
 be relinquished for such petty vexations. Thou, if no 
 other, art always suited to my mood. And I have need 
 of such a friend : for life is changeable and I am human 
 so sometimes I am pleasant, and why nobody knows ; 
 and often 1 am sour and cross with as little reason. A 
 good dinner, a pleasant word, a happy thought, are 
 dominant over the best of us. And my pipe knows this. 
 Well-filled and well-lighted, its big mouth sends forth 
 the sinuous smoke in complete accord with my humor: 
 thin and spiteful puffs when excited or disturbed long 
 luxurious whiffs, surrounding me with a thick cloud of 
 hazy blue, when lazily contented. In this way my pipe 
 tempers my disposition : alleviating and diminishing 
 my perplexities and sorrows moderating and etherial- 
 izing my pleasures and joys. 
 
 My pipe is singularly gracious and helpful -to me, how- 
 ever, when I am melancholy or meditative. 
 
 " Ven clouds are plack above, 
 Und much is plack below, 
 Tish den dat I do love 
 A cloud of smoke to plow."
 
 202 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 I remember returning to my room one Sunday night 
 not so long ago but that I remember it heartily sick 
 of living. The friends I had seemed of no worth to me, 
 because the one I believed in was a myth. The night 
 was cheerless, and old South College looked grim and 
 forbidding. Entering my room, my pipe, in good- 
 natured attempt to cheer me up, tipped me a wink of wel- 
 .come, although I could see beneath this assumption of 
 good feeling a look which said plainly " Well, old fel- 
 low, here is a pretty fix !" I scowled at it, as my manner 
 is with my best friends. My pipe sobered down at that ; 
 even its cheerfulness gives way before one of my 
 north-east moods. I sat down then for a visit with the 
 blue devils. They were not behindhand in coming, 
 either. All about me and over me they perched. One 
 wonderfully ugly imp planted himself directly upon my 
 knee. How fraternal he was ! I understood then how 
 honest Sancho Panza came to say "gadenookers !" In 
 utter desperation I finally shoved the little heathen into 
 the stove, and rejoiced in my soul to see the blue spurt 
 of flame which signalized his return to "night's Pluton- 
 ian shore." Wretchedly I turned about for comfort. 
 And there was my pipe. You who smoke, know what 
 it did for me. 
 
 He who remembers and reflects needs to smoke. A 
 dapper genius lurks about the ragged edge of my pipe, 
 with wand in hand, always ready to show me pictures of 
 the past. As I gaze at the quaint magician, but dimly 
 seen through the revolving blue, I lose myself in mem- 
 ories and reveries. Childhood days and early friends 
 appear before me. The song of the robin, first heard 
 upon a June morning long time since, haunts me with 
 its original influence ; again the sunshine shimmers 
 down through the trees upon the head of my little girl
 
 MY PIPE. 203 
 
 sweetheart, as it did when we teetered under the apple- 
 blossoms summers ago ; the story-books are once more 
 full of marvels for me, and I wonder whether Robinson 
 Crusoe and Masterman Ready are yet the heroes I some- 
 time imagined them to be ; just as my pipe goes out I 
 see myself, pure and guileless, kneeling at my mother's 
 knee and stammering out a drowsy 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep." 
 
 But I can never tell all about my pipe. Here it 
 
 is before me now, good and kind and faithful as ever. 
 I think I'll smoke.
 
 Slooe. 
 
 I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to 
 compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to 
 time the difference between idea and reality. 
 
 DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 THE stove has long ruled in Yale College. But 
 " The king is dead : long live the king !" And yet the 
 old despot was not a bad one. Even though he be dead 
 I see the relics of his power still remaining in the 
 older buildings ; while wherever two or three of the 
 cherishing mother's children are gathered together the 
 central figure of their college reminiscences is the old 
 stove. 
 
 I remember not only when the stove was omnipotent 
 but also some of its peculiarities. 
 
 In the first place it was always an article of furniture ; 
 often, too, rather useful than ornamental. Whether 
 ornamental or not, however, it was always a familiar and 
 confidential member of the household. It first made my 
 den look something like home ; it welcomed me back at 
 each beginning of term-time ; it kept its countenance 
 in spite of my best jokes ; it preserved its serenity when 
 I lost my temper ; it looked cheerful when I was blue ; 
 it noticed all my weak points and yet remained my 
 friend ; it endured my gibes and cursings with unvary- 
 ing gravity, and warmed me well for it afterward. Not- 
 withstanding its solemn appearance, however, it had 
 a touch of humor about it. Often and often have I 
 caught my stove drowsily and laboriously chuckling to
 
 MY STOVE. 205 
 
 itself at the thought of my state of mind upon finding as 
 prospectively good a fire as I ever saw in my life out in 
 the morning. Apparently it used to be meditating 
 some joke at all hours of the day, but it never quite 
 made up its mind to attempt it until late in the evening : 
 and so it happened that I always went to bed in a de- 
 licious state of uncertainty as to whether I should ever 
 see that fire again or not. The hopeful-spirited man to 
 whom I sold my stove thought this peculiarity ought 
 to diminish its value to a mere fraction of the price I 
 put upon it, but I finally convinced him to the contrary. 
 Said I " My dear sir, supposing you should start on a 
 trip round the world, and should leave a good fire in 
 that stove, would you want it to keep burning all the 
 while you were gone? Not at all ; every one of poor 
 Richard's maxims would be irrecoverably demolished by 
 such a proceeding as that, sir. Very well. Just take 
 that stove ; make as good a fire as you can in it ; say 
 good-bye to your weeping friends ; put more coal on the 
 fire and seize your carpet-bag ; then calmly lock your 
 door, and I'll guarantee that that fire will go out before 
 the key touches the bottom of your pocket !" 
 
 As I sat by my stove for the last time previous to its 
 removal, naturally I thought about the approaching 
 change. Those new buildings with all their modern 
 improvements rose up before me in their ideal beauty. 
 And especially the heating apparatus. A vast skeleton 
 of iron pipes and brazen coils upreared itself like the 
 gothic steed of the Potomac warrior. And every one 
 packed full of steam every pipe, little and big, fairly 
 sweating with the steam it contained. I began to fear 
 my new home would be uncomfortably warm. And 
 then steam steam ! Ominous word for me connected, 
 from the day in which I burned my nose trying to smell
 
 2O6 IMPEDIMENTA. . 
 
 of the spout of the family tea-kettle, to the time of the 
 last railroad disaster, with horrible things ! I looked at 
 the shadowy fabric again ; I saw no way for the steam 
 to go, if it got out, except perhaps upon my unsuspecting 
 back, perhaps into my innocent face. But that would 
 hardly be called. an improvement, thought I, even by an 
 intelligent, though interested artisan. And then I 
 smiled grimly at my stove as I thought it could play no 
 more jokes on me ; " Summer the year round after this, 
 you know, my dear old friend," said I, blandly. An 
 equable temperature, that's what's on the programme of 
 the future, which will tend, let us hope, towards an 
 equable temper ; whereupon the ungrateful old hard- 
 ware nearly tipped itself off its legs trying to put a 
 damper on my expectations. The next moment one of 
 my boots went nearly through its shaky sides, thereby 
 making it a piece of fixed property for me. 
 
 It was in July when I saw the perspiration on the 
 iron pipes and brazen coils ; in January those beaded 
 drops were turned into icicles ; and I still live ! I 
 have gotten over my ancient dread of steam at least in 
 the mild form in which it has assailed me. I verily be- 
 lieve I could stand in it up to my neck and not shiver 
 unless with cold. I now understand what an equable 
 temperature means two-degrees above the freezing- 
 point and a temper at the same level thrown in ! 
 
 A steam-heater is beyond question an ingenious con- 
 trivance. It warms the body and disciplines the soul. 
 In this respect it seems to have been patterned after the 
 prospective abode of unrepentant sinners. It delights 
 the eye and tortures the ear. In this respect it resem- 
 bles the shrewish talk of a pretty woman. It is now 
 hot and now cold. 
 
 The normal condition of the steam-heater is one of
 
 MY STOVE. 207 
 
 frigidity. It tempers the air delightfully, in the summer 
 months. Even in May and June it adds much to the 
 pleasure of life. With the warm air streaming in at the 
 open windon one enjoys sitting by it and reading about 
 the pre-Adamic world. The steam-heater, when full) up 
 to the modern standard, is an odoriferous arrangement, 
 and yet it never suggests the aromatic musk or the spicy 
 spikenard. Oil of long-standing and much experienced 
 in the vicissitudes of fortune issues from it in a delicate 
 mist, and the clayey tenement of the unfortunate tenant 
 of the room is kept well-oiled for unavoidable contests 
 with a cold and unfeeling world. The steam-heater is 
 a great promoter of sociality. Most men when under 
 its influence have something to say, and it's poor fun to 
 scold about a cold to one's self. It exhiliarates one to 
 hear a crowd of fellows, on a cold day, talk about a 
 steam-heater. There is a crispness and vigor in the 
 conversation which augurs well for the future of the 
 U. S. Senate. 
 
 The ideal steam-heater, like the ideal baby, is a de- 
 lightful thing. But, as the real baby seems to be always 
 the victim of a chronic disarrangement, so the real 
 steam-heater is generally out of order in some way or 
 other from one week's end to another. For instance ; 
 the pictured steam-heater is always represented as 
 swelling with steam. In point of fact, however, the 
 every-day steam-heater is as a rule in a woeful state of 
 collapse on account of the lack of steam. As an useful 
 fixture in a room, therefore, it is at the best unreliable ; 
 while as an ornamental fixture it is too suggestive of this 
 age of brass and the business of the shop. 
 
 In a well-regulated family it is possible that the aver- 
 age steam-heater might be of some use. In stormy 
 weather I should suppose it would be a good thing on
 
 208 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 which to hang clothes, though unless there was a good 
 stove in the room I doubt if they would ever dry ; for 
 which statement old Falstaff's saying, that " a good wit 
 will make use of anything," is my chief warrant, though, 
 to be sure, he never so much as dreamed of steam- 
 heaters.
 
 Clock. 
 
 THOUGH the category of " Possessions of mine," with 
 which the reading and traveling public has been favored 
 I came very near saying bored for the past year or 
 two, has been well-nigh exhausted, extending in an un- 
 broken succession from "That Husband of mine," with 
 his " wide-awake hat and cut-away coat," down to " That 
 Wife of mine," with all her distinctive peculiarities, one 
 possession has unfortunately been passed over. I can- 
 not conscientiously accuse our popular writers of neg- 
 lect in this matter, and yet the subject has not been 
 mentioned. I refer to " That Clock of Mine." So it be- 
 comes my painful duty to inflict upon the literary world 
 one more, and I hope a final, history, whose title is to 
 be vaunted with glaring capitals upon the bookstore 
 bulletins, and shrieked with the discordant notes of the 
 newsboys upon every railroad train in the land. It is 
 necessary for me to state by way of explanation, and in 
 order to save myself from the imprecations which might 
 otherwise fall upon my defenseless head, that " That 
 clock of mine " is not, dear reader, the identical time- 
 piece the story of whose birth, life and death has made 
 melodious the midnight air on many a college campus, 
 and which is credited with having belonged to " My 
 Grandfather." In these prominent respects does my 
 clock differ from the above. First, it was not " bought 
 on the morn of the day that I was born," how could it 
 have been, when I purchased it myself? Secondly.it
 
 2IO IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 did not " stop short never to go again, when the ' old 
 man ' died," because, unfortunately, the ' old man ' is 
 still in the land of the living, and, Thirdly, it never 
 belonged to my grandfather at all ! And so the ava- 
 lanche of wrath and the vengeance which every sensi- 
 bly-minded man has sworn upon the next poor unfor- 
 tunate who should allude to " My Grandfather's Clock," 
 must for the present be spared from me. 
 
 The metamorphoses which the Yale student's room 
 undergoes during the four fleeting years of his tarrying 
 in the land of elms would indeed furnish material for 
 many a popular writer. The various stages of its 
 transformation are interesting to study. First, the 
 Freshmanic, in the top floor of North or North Middle. 
 Its occupant, with the parental instructions to beware 
 of college extravagance still fresh in his memory, fur- 
 nishes it scantily and barely, and lives like his fellow- 
 student at a four-dollar club, in the hope of something 
 better and brighter to come in the future. Second, the 
 Sophomoric stage amid the classic and venerable shades 
 of South Middle, with forty centuries more or less 
 looking down upon us ! This is the year when ingenu- 
 ity and Sophomoric taste vie with each other in decora- 
 tion. The traditional bangers and stove-pipe must be 
 crossed above the door, and the announcement, " Chil- 
 dren positively not admitted here unless accompanied 
 by their parents," must be placed in a conspicuous 
 position. In a word, everything must be done to strike 
 terror to the Freshmanic heart and inspire him with 
 reverential awe when he is summoned before that 
 dreaded tribunal which is very likely to hold its sessions 
 in the afore-mentioned room about the beginning of the 
 fall term. 
 
 Sophomore annuals safely passed, " a change comes
 
 MY CLOCK. 211 
 
 o'er the spirit of his dreams." Childish things must 
 be put away. South Middle, with all its tender as- 
 sociations, must be handed over to the ruthless Fresh. 
 The dignity of Junior year must be assumed, and 
 a room in Farnam or Durfee is considered the only 
 proper thing. And at this stage I must beg leave to 
 pause, for, thanks to an indulgent faculty and skillful 
 systematic skinning, I am now enjoying the privileges 
 
 of Junior year at No. Farnam. There ! I came 
 
 near telling the number of my foom, which would be 
 a decidedly rash and dangerous procedure, not only 
 "giving myself away," of all things most dreaded by 
 a college man but it would spoil all chances for guess- 
 ing and conjecture, which are the reader's special priv- 
 ilege. 
 
 The most prominent piece of furniture in my room 
 is a tall, slender, wooden clock. It is an ancient time- 
 piece, which, like the " Horologue of Eternity," 
 
 " Points and beckons with its hands 
 From its case of massive oak ! 
 Like a monk who, under his cloak 
 Crosses himself and sighs, alas ! 
 With sorrowful voice to all who pass, 
 ' Forever never ! 
 Never Forever.' " 
 
 I came across it at an auction of ancient furniture in 
 New York last summer. A second-hand dealer and 
 myself were the only bidders, and finally it was knocked 
 
 down to me at , but to tell the price would take 
 
 away all the beauty. I bought it, brought it to New 
 Haven, and placed it in my room, where, thanks to a 
 little oil and furniture polish, it looks as bright as in 
 its youth, and the old pendulum performs its slow and 
 steady oscillations with all the regularity and dignity of 
 years gone by. It may seem childish and foolish, and
 
 212 IMPEDIMENTA. 
 
 yet I love that ancient clock. It has come to be so 
 companionable that I regard it as a friend, and some- 
 times when it starts to strike, it almost seems as it were 
 alive and trying to speak ! It used to show all the 
 changes of the moon and planets in former days, but 
 now the wheels are out of order and the solar system 
 for the present is at rest. The new moon tries pretty 
 hard to creep out from behind the cloud in the sky 
 which is painted on its face, but remains hidden in spite 
 of itself. Some days it looks so bright and cheerful, 
 and seems to say with its stately tick as I leave it to go 
 to recitation : 
 
 " Rush ! Fizzle ! 
 Fizzle ! Rush !" 
 
 And then I always get a splendid mark. But of late its 
 tone has changed, and now its voice is subdued and 
 sad, and there is a touch of plantive melancholy in it 
 as it motions to me with its ancient hands, and warns 
 me, 
 
 " Flunk ! Fizzle ! 
 Fizzle! Flunk!" 
 
 Too true ! too true ! old friend. Physiology and Ahn 
 have done their work, and what was once a splendid 
 stand is now upon the ragged-edge of average. Two 
 letters with the college stamp have evaded all the plans 
 of interception and reached the paternal hearth the 
 outlook is indeed a dark one.
 
 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES.
 
 THREE years in New Haven, and have never seen the 
 Thimble Islands ! Well, a day or two on salt water 
 and in sunshine, will do wonders for that dyspepsia of 
 yours ; so borrow a double-barrel from somebody, and 
 join Captain and the Doctor on a ducking-party. Four 
 of us will be merry enough for the Gem ; there's a 
 capital cold lunch in that hamper, and never mind what 
 it is that clinks against the ice in the bucket. 
 
 Captain's portly form looks odd enough in his well- 
 worn shooting-jacket ; which tells, however, many a 
 tale of swift destruction to innocent snipe and plover, 
 in its ooze-drabbled edges, and the evident traces of 
 Charm's muddy paws. His moustache, too, takes a 
 still fiercer curl as he carefully sifts the powder into 
 his flask. One cannot look at him without thinking of 
 Kingsley's ideal naturalist. " He must be strong in 
 body, able to haul a dredge, climb a rock, tu.rn a boul- 
 der, walk all day uncertain where he shall eat or rest ; 
 ready to face sun and rain, wind and frost, and to eat 
 or drink thankfully anything, however coarse or meagre ; 
 he should know how to swim for his life, to pull an oar, 
 to sail a boat, and ride the first horse which comes to 
 hand ; and, finally, he should be a thoroughly good shot 
 and a skillful fisherman ; and, if he go far abroad, be 
 able on occasion to fight for his life." 
 
 Even the Doctor's impregnable countenance is lighted 
 with a complacent look, not to accuse him of a smile,
 
 2l6 . DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 which reminds one of some old granite fortress, bright- 
 ened by a ray or two of sunset. 
 
 You and I, unsportsmanlike in our boating flannels, 
 wear perhaps too unsophisticated a gladness on our 
 visages, though the well-earned tan on our hands and 
 faces, together with the patches on our fishing-boots, 
 will clear us from any sweeping charge of verdancy. 
 But the tide has turned ebb by eight o'clock, and we 
 cannot afford to lose this fresh south-wester, which 
 every October morning does not give us, so pulling off 
 to the stake in Brooks' diminutive scow, we are forthwith 
 on board. Not a very bad twenty foot craft this ; hardly 
 celebrated, or likely to be, regatta-wise, but staunch, 
 and a sufficiently good sailer. Haul away your throat- 
 halyards ! now the peak ! slack a little for boom-lifts ? 
 up with your jib ! lay her head a little more to 
 port ! and as the sails fill, we slip off easily toward 
 the old fort, for we cannot quite lay our course, with 
 the breeze in this quarter. As we get beyond the 
 wharf we can take in New Haven at a glance, just 
 astern. To port are the hill-barriers of Lake Salton- 
 stall, dark with evergreens ; Indian hill, crowned with 
 the fort, which ancient settlers of Quinnipiac made 
 good against the Pequots ; and right over the bow, 
 Fort Hale, round, wave-washed, and rugged in its ruin, 
 not very formidable in look, and, even in its best days, 
 less dangerous probably to an invading armament, than 
 the crooked channel, and these mud shoals on which 
 we shall ground if we do not come about. 
 
 The next tack disclosed the white shining crescent of 
 the cove beach, with the country houses above it, and; 
 once more on starboard tack, we leave the stunted 
 cedars and barnacled rocks at the lighthouse ; the flat 
 beach, and creek outside, and are fairly into the Sound.
 
 THE THIMBLE ISLANDS. 217 
 
 Now we can make straight sailing to Branford Point, 
 and well beyond it you may see a cloudy something 
 just above the water ; that is the outermost island. 
 Round we come, ' let her pay off a little more slack 
 your main-sheet !' and we relapse into the most perfect 
 inertness, until, with the thin jets of smoke from his 
 hitherto compressed lips, the Doctor slips out a con- 
 gratulatory " Ah !" and is again silent ; but there are 
 four muzzles pointed over the weather bow, at a half 
 dozen fishy, tough, black ducks and a simultaneous 
 bang. .When we get on shore we shall be more sports- 
 manlike, and not quite so inclined to broadsides. But 
 here is the advantage of having a shot in the party ; 
 there is a dead duck without doubt, for there it nutters, 
 and quite as undoubtedly, the Captain must be the suc- 
 cessful marksman. But we are race-crew men, and he 
 gracefully shares the glory ; and lets the game go to 
 the commonwealth, without grumbling; the epithet 
 " beastly," with the accompanying " hem," referring, 
 beyond question, to the prospective flavor of the duck. 
 
 Subsiding again into leisure, Captain regales us with 
 a scientific account of his new invention for increasing 
 speed in ocean navigation. The great mechanical and 
 scientific minds of two continents have made this a 
 principal object of inquiry for years, ist. How to in- 
 crease the speed of ships, by models securing a sharp 
 run and light draught. 2d. How to steer a balloon, 
 which is supposed to have sufficient speed already. 
 
 Truly it is real greatness that shows simplicity in in- 
 vention, causing to wonder, all those who had before 
 perplexed themselves with intricate solutions of the 
 same problem. 
 
 Captain simply combines steamship with balloon, 
 lifts the sharp beautiful hull till only keel and rudder
 
 21 8 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 and paddles touch, and the nicely balanced fabric will 
 slip from wave to wave, with the lightness and velocity 
 of the balloon, and meeting the resistance of the air 
 alone ; but moving, nevertheless, with all the steady 
 security of a steamer, finding propelling-resistance and 
 steerage-way, in the denser medium of water. He 
 grows eloquent as he expatiates on the feasibility, the 
 economy, the safety, the speed. He gives us the cost 
 in dollars, tells how beautifully the fair craft, Nautilus- 
 like, shall fold the silk} 7 tissues of the balloon, when 
 the storm is too powerful and head winds assail her, to 
 come forth more beautiful, on, or rather above, the 
 assuaged element. Finally, with formulas and stochio- 
 metrical deductions innumerable, he shows conclusively 
 how little burden or expense to the ship would be the 
 
 SO 3 .HO + Zn=SO,ZnO + H or HCH Zn=ZnCl + H, 
 necessary to the production of hydrogen to fill the bal- 
 loon, if once collapsed by stress of weather. Where 
 is the Great Eastern ? 
 
 Another hour and a half brings us to the Islands. 
 " Keep outside the spar-buoys," which the Captain 
 facetiously terms " pugilists," and once by this confused 
 jumble of rocks and sand-bars, we are in the narrow 
 channel, and what is worse, in a calm, with no means 
 of determining what will come next, a puff off the 
 land, or a white squall. The hamper and the ice-bucket 
 are examined. Then we all join the Doctor in the 
 tobacco movement ; for, save while he was eating, his 
 pipe has been between his teeth since we got under 
 sail. Still nothing to help us in another mile, no mo- 
 tive power save tide, and Kidd himself never could 
 have calculated the multiplicity of eddies among these 
 countless rocks. So dreamily we puff the fragrant 
 clouds, more dreamily gaze down into the placid wave
 
 THE THIMBLE ISLANDS. 2IQ 
 
 not the pure green of mid-ocean truly, but yet far 
 other than the muddy brackish stuff in the harbor ; and 
 we look down 
 
 " Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of 
 
 Nereus, 
 " Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the 
 
 ocean, 
 "Silvery fish, wreathed shell, and the strange lithe things of the 
 
 water." 
 
 Or as the Captain less poetically suggests, " we see 
 sharks in the eel-grass." 
 
 But you were right ; that cloud to southeast is rolling 
 up a little and will give us a blow. There it comes, 
 ruffling the smooth surface, now lashing it. Lucky it is 
 that we have her head well up into it. Now make Pot 
 Rock and the cove before we get the heaviest of it ! or 
 we shall be put to our swimming. Let the jib stand ! 
 Haul it a little closer with the main ! She reels to it 
 gallantly, but heavier comes the gale ; we cling close to 
 the weather gunwale, but are almost buried to leeward. 
 Steady in this narrow inlet ! that is a rock which grates 
 the rudder, but we are already in the lee of the island, 
 and now through between these big wave-worn ledges, 
 and in Capt. Kidd's famous hiding-place, quiet enough, 
 deep and fair anchorage-ground. 
 
 We thought it tried our nerves a little coming through 
 here in this little thing, but consider the skill it would 
 take to jam a heavy armed pirate through these wind- 
 ings ! But here Kidd used to lie at anchor, concealed 
 by the high rocks and trees of a perfect circle of islands, 
 with more than one channel, dangerous and intricate to 
 protect him. Hard up your helm ! Lay her right into 
 that small cove! Let go main sheet! Now we will 
 make all ship-shape and see his look out, the top of
 
 22O DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 this hill}' island. Here is the celebrated punch-bowl 
 in the rock, big as a barrel ; and near by, his scarcely 
 traceable initials. But how the wind beats this side of 
 the island ! We are fortunately out of it : it is grand 
 to look at, this 
 
 " Crashing and Japping of waters, and sighing and tossing of weed- 
 beds, 
 Gurgle, and whisper and hiss of the foam, and thundering surges." 
 
 But if the worst of it had come first, where you see are 
 white breakers already, we should have had but an un- 
 seaworthy craft to get back in, at best. 
 
 These rocks, black and dirty at low tide, are broken 
 by many a reedy inlet, where sea fowl love to hide, as 
 close and cunning as so many pirates. We have a ren- 
 dezvous for sleeping and eating, for Pot Rock boasts a 
 hotel, very caravansary like, but yet a hotel. We shoot 
 a great deal and hit some. 
 
 Captain explains the divers species of game. Doctor 
 becomes hilarious, and talks up a camel store of con- 
 versational exertion. We have shot away all our pow- 
 der would that we had its equivalent ! and " want to 
 go home," but there are white-caps enough outside yet 
 and it takes a good hand to keep a boat steady before 
 such a fickle wind, gusty and strong. 
 
 However, Doctor must go home, for he is out of to- 
 bacco. Captain must go or the "Biddy" will ruin his 
 aquarium again. You must go or you will not get 
 " that Philosophical," and I must go or I shall be ship- 
 ped from college. The tide is full and covers the rocks 
 that were troublesome at ebb ; we shall not handle the 
 staunch little Gem very badly, and, if at worst, we do 
 go over, we are all better at swimming, and far more 
 likely to distinguish ourselves in that way. So furl
 
 THE THIMBLE ISLANDS. 221 
 
 your jib close ! reef the mainsail ! stow everything 
 snug, and risk the wetting. All very pretty boys' play 
 till we run out into open water, but now how we pitch 
 about ! Nice work, but not so wet as might be, and 
 cannot last long at this speed. How we leap through 
 it ! A half hour, and then another, still we are right 
 side up and confident enough, now we are afloat. 
 The wind has got a little northerly, and these chop- 
 ping cross-seas off the Light, wash us beautifully. 
 They are poor sportsmen, however, who cannot take a 
 bath at any moment, and like it, or at least pretend to
 
 " Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her." 
 
 AMONG the facilities offered for acquiring an educa- 
 tion by New Haven, I count its natural facilities as by 
 no means the most insignificant. "To eat, drink and 
 be merry," we do not ask a scriptural confirmation to 
 assure us, is not the formula of the healthiest philoso- 
 phy. If board and lodging are the only noble objects, 
 if there be no kindly influence in virtuous emotion, or 
 no discipline in the exercise of the most refined enjoy- 
 ment, then let us stick close to the atmosphere of anti- 
 quated literature, or enshroud ourselves in the mustiness 
 which our libraries afford. Nevertheless man cannot 
 live by erudition alone ; and if he give himself up to 
 Greece and Rome so completely that he is always a few 
 thousand years behind his times, his whole life will be 
 a prolonged endeavor to re-heathenize the world. I 
 however, am bold to say, that it may be worth our while 
 to study the "books in the running brooks ;" and that 
 we are standing quite as near our Creator when the sky 
 only is over us, as when reading the mummified morals 
 which have never been accepted in any period of his- 
 tory. 
 
 Better than a good Greek recitation or an original de- 
 monstration in Euclid ; nay, even better than a meer- 
 schaum and a hand at whist in a fetid room, is a walk to 
 West Rock, with its view of the city and the distant
 
 AMBULATORY. 223 
 
 meadows, where Mill River, like an antediluvian snake 
 winds toward the Sound ; with its prospect of the Giant 
 sleeping in his majestic calm ; with its Judges' Cave, 
 and all the neighboring trees whispering as you come 
 up " So, let us see how this fellow worships here !" in 
 a word, with its balms of lively pulse, and purified 
 thought, and gentler sympathies toward all mankind. 
 The writer of this is of a phlegmatic temperament, and 
 yet if he ever does feel like calling for a lyre, it is when 
 he looks out upon that file of grand old hills, which 
 have been halting for some centuries beyond the west- 
 ern boundary of this city. He has seen them by a clear 
 summer dawn, when they seem to lie along the horizon 
 with such a wealth of good-natured strength that, in his 
 enthusiasm, he has wished to be broad-armed enough to 
 hug their shaggy bosoms. Or he has seen them on a 
 dark November day, when they loomed up sullen and 
 impregnable, as a heavy grief upon the mind. 
 
 He saw them at another time. It had been a sulphur- 
 ous Independence Day ; and a friend and himself 
 hunted from one lurking to another by clash and clang 
 unceasing fled by night from the city toward West 
 Rock, as it basked mellow and beautiful under the full 
 moonlight. The uproar died away, long before we 
 reached its base, and changed to utter stillness as we 
 stood upon its summit. We sat down there lifted up 
 toward the heaven. Below us in the town, we knew 
 there was a horrid din and horrid smell of brimstone, 
 loud obscenity and swearing, and swarms of vicious 
 thoughts ; while here all was serene and noiseless, 
 except when a foreign sound came softly floating in 
 upon us. We had gone out feverish with trivial ambi- 
 tions, and saddened by ephemeral sorrows, but the 
 night-wind was taking them away.
 
 224 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 It went hard with our self pride at that time. It 
 went hard to listen, in that still hour, to the whispers 
 of the heart, and find them passionate and guilty. It 
 went hard to gaze up at the calm, rebuking stars, and 
 feel our sophistry falling off and leaving us naked and 
 pitiful. But it brought a deep peace, thus, as it were, to 
 own our shame on that high place before the Universe. 
 And the smaller peaks were watching us, yet we knew 
 they would not babble any of the secrets we might trust 
 to them : our little confidence, along with other stranger 
 things, we felt would be forever unbetrayed, till the 
 Great Command should thrill them into speech. After 
 much meditation, we started to descend, feeling our 
 way with caution lest we might slip and dash ourselves 
 to pieces ; and turning toward our city dungeon, we left 
 the gray Rock with its mystery, to Silence and the 
 Night. 
 
 Old Rock, so often eulogized by College rhymers, 
 I too would add a thankful word, however clumsily 
 it may be spoken. Thou hast strengthened me when 
 weak, hast cheered me when cast down, hast chastened 
 every dangerous speculation. As I go wandering 
 abroad, I may, indeed, see many more pretending 
 mountains, but thy memory clinging with other Col- 
 lege recollections shall often call me back and make 
 me once again the wayward student of past years. 
 From the youth who comes up here to Yale, thou wilt 
 attract less giddy pupils ; and unto these as unto me, 
 thou shalt become a stern yet faithful teacher, whose in- 
 telligence shall not grow dim with age. Our instructors 
 may be slow to see thy influence, but thou art greater 
 than them all ; worshipped with a higher love and 
 served with a more perfect obedience. 
 
 But the " melancholy days " of rain and frost must
 
 AMBULATORY. 225 
 
 have their rule, when hygienic law prohibits strolling off 
 among the hills. Yet must we break with Nature dur- 
 ing the long winter months? Trust me, if we are fair- 
 weather friends, we shall get but scanty pleasure from 
 her acquaintance. " Why does not every one (who can 
 afford it)," asks Leigh Hunt in his graceful way, "have 
 a geranium in his window or some other flower? It 
 sweetens the air, rejoices the eye, links you with nature 
 and innocence, and is something to love." I fear that 
 certain of us will put the idea to flight, as sentimental 
 and unmanly, and feel it more ennobling to tipple vigor- 
 ously, and shrivel into that dismal being known as a 
 jolly blade. 
 
 I will turn from these then, and ask the gentle-men 
 among us, why they do not act upon the hint, and 
 detain one of these tiny hostages for the return of 
 milder skies. The little elf will charm away with its 
 soft presence the coarser feelings which the lustiness of 
 young life is apt to call into being, and a score of times 
 each day, will thrust its cheerfulness upon your gloomy 
 reveries. There is a prevalent opinion that birds and 
 flowers are fit for girls, but that a boy to be noble and 
 hearty and in no respect a milksop, must put away in- 
 nocent things, and get a little of the fiery flavor of sin ; 
 that men respect him more, and women smile upon him 
 sooner when he has a small coloring of vice. Hence he 
 indulges in semi-profanely words, chews tobacco and 
 demeans himself stoutly, in order to gain the poor name 
 of a plucky mettled fellow. I am not sure but this 
 would be quite to the credit of a cannibal, but I am sure 
 that it is totally repugnant to the spirit of civilization. 
 Just look at it ! God has been exhibiting before us a 
 series of magnificent cloud-paintings, each day renewed ; 
 He has touched the forests with a loveliness of color in- 
 8
 
 226 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 conceivable ; at His command the flowers have been 
 blossoming ever since the world was made, and yet man 
 has gone on disregarding all these pleasures, until a 
 good part of the planet's probation has already passed. 
 We ought, then, in this century, to make up for our lost 
 time. How many sunsets and how many autumns have 
 faded away unenjoyed ! Now, when our minds are so 
 impressible, we ought to cherish all the more exalted 
 feelings, and remember that the birds, shrubs, cliffs, and 
 skies, are all that remain as the Almighty made them 
 the last surviving treasures of an incomparable creation. 
 
 When I enter a student's room and find a hyacinth on 
 his window, or a bird making music just outside of it, 
 I feel immediate respect for him. I say to myself that 
 he is one probably who honors father and mother, who 
 will not overreach you in a bargain, and will give you 
 pleasant words oftener than sharp. For there is such a 
 delicate admission of the amenities of life here, that he 
 cannot be entirely depraved. Besides, it is not altogeth- 
 er fanciful that it may educate him somewhat. As the 
 bulb gave no sign of its expanded splendor, so may 
 there be in some nook of his heart an undeveloped 
 affection ; and as, day by day, he notices the swelling 
 shoot, putting forth leaves and crowning itself with a 
 wondrous blossom, so may the affection grow greener, 
 and in the end burst into perennial beauty. 
 
 The man who loves the country, I repeat, cannot be a 
 bad man. Many fine fellows doubtless take to it easily, 
 when the partridge is in season, but let us beware how 
 we bestow upon them for it, unjust praise. Nature is 
 plain honesty. No print of earthly fingers on her hills 
 and leaves and streams ! Springing into life fresh from 
 the hand of Him with whom is only truth, she strikes a 
 discord in the dishonest soul ; the insincerity of city
 
 AMBULATORY. 227 
 
 life chimes with its inclination the canvas landscapes 
 of the theatre are nearer to its liking. But to him who 
 has not parted with all sentiments of virtue, rural life 
 presents a fascination which cannot be imitated. It is 
 continually warning him by its eternity of his mortality ; 
 and teaching, by day or night, how small an atom he is 
 of the creation. Twice in my life, at least, I have been 
 humble. Once in a bright midnight when I looked down 
 over our western Babylon with its crowded ulcerous 
 civilization, and saw the Pleiades overhead, "like big 
 eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man ;" 
 and again when I watched alone through the night on 
 the bank of a great river whose waters had conquered 
 three thousand miles of their rapid journey to the Gulf 
 with starlight above me, and a wilderness on either 
 side. 
 
 It is not probable, however, that we shall take much 
 notice of Nature as an educator, for many years to come. 
 Half a century hence, however, when our woods are 
 hewn away and our hills blotched over with unsightly 
 tenements, our sons shall begin to appreciate the bless- 
 ings which their fathers cast aside. Our character, 
 moreover, will by that time have been changed, or rather, 
 formed. We shall have recovered from the abominable 
 habit of calling Tennyson pretty, and of labeling all 
 books as " summer literature," which do not concern 
 eating or trafficking. We shall, in some measure at 
 least, by that time, have got dissatisfied with the cold de- 
 ductions of the reason and have begun to listen to the 
 intuitions of the heart. 
 
 And yet, as it is, I do not leave off hoping that these 
 country rambles may be of use to us. We may be des- 
 tined to be bound by the omnipotent incentives of daily 
 bread to a desk in the darkest corner of a dark count-
 
 228 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 ing-room. How pleasant then to take with us into the 
 dreary den, a memory of sunlight and violets ! Be- 
 grimed as we shall be with the cares of business, we 
 will require all such memories to keep us from becom- 
 ing altogether worldly.
 
 Sailors. 
 
 TCOVTIUV Tt KVfiaTUV 
 
 I DREAMED of the summer sea. Not when we had 
 strolled together in the dying twilight, and had seen 
 the first rays of the stars glitter on the sleeping tides, 
 for it was not to " the many rippling laughter of the 
 music of the sea," I listened then, and the words I read 
 upon the hard white sand, tide-waves never traced 
 there, though, when the moon rose, they had hid them. 
 
 Nor, when we sat, at noon, in the cool shade of a 
 sheltering rock, where the sea-breeze fanned us, did I 
 watch only the surf and the rollicking bathers, or 
 hearken in silent musing to the grand roar of the break- 
 ers' surge that now and then rolled in to the highest 
 beach and dashed our faces with its showery spray. 
 There was little romance in my dream. 
 
 The crew had been at Captain Brooks' all the morn- 
 ing, our last day there, " black-leading " the boat, and 
 after the last finishing touches had been given to the 
 smooth surface from kelson to top-streak, we had 
 turned her right side up again, that the fresh varnish 
 might not blister. So, while the others were bearing a 
 hand in carrying out some boat from the narrow winter 
 quarters of the cellar, or laughing at the eager Fresh- 
 men who were vainly endeavoring to extricate some old 
 barge (newly purchased), from the perplexing intrica- 
 cies of Thatcher's storage, I climbed up to the loft
 
 230 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 and lay upon the roof of the shed, enjoying in " solitary 
 grandeur " a quiet cigar, in disobedience of the race 
 rules and looking down upon a scene amusingly ani- 
 mated. Yet those fellows, blundering there over that 
 old tub, by the best of practice, heavy rowing, will soon 
 learn to pull their new shell against our crack oars. 
 That deep narrow cockle-shell they are spending so 
 much admiration upon is the ill-fated Volante. They 
 will laugh at its round log-like sides before'they gradu- 
 ate. Calthrop is laughing at it now to his boys. 
 
 There I lay up on that roof beside the old canvas- 
 covered spyglass which has watched the first boat round 
 the buoy in so many a Yale race the sleeves of my flan- 
 nel boating-shirt rolled up to my elbows, and my hands 
 still black with the copal and lead-dust. But I gazed 
 out over the still bay, through the light wreath of 
 smoke, and through the vapory haze that seemed but a 
 vail to cover the fair face of the harbor whose winds 
 and waves were sleeping and I dreamed too. A boat- 
 man came from across the water much unlike the 
 ancient mariner. Young, almost boyish, his light foot 
 and broad shoulders, the stout arm his blue shirt cov- 
 ered, told me he was a boatman, as well as his hard, 
 brown hand, that clasped mine with a good-natured 
 grip, that almost crushed my fingers. It was a wonder 
 it did not wake me. 
 
 He told me of Yale's first race the training the boats 
 the stroke, and said our quick stroke system is still 
 wrong, then showed me how it must be altered and 
 the models of our boats changed.. This information is 
 of course private except to the Commodore. He con- 
 sidered Calthrop's ideas on the subject orthodox, but 
 when I showed him the account of "An English boat- 
 race," he smiled rather ironically, and said it was fool-
 
 OUR SAILORS. 231 
 
 ish to throw away one's hat that a " bump-race " was 
 only a scrub at best, and nothing to " along-side," as at 
 Putney-on-Thames. And while he was making some 
 dry remarks about keeping cool the boats and yard 
 seemed to vanish, and I was showing him our practice. 
 
 It is morning then, early morning, the air keen and 
 bracing, the dew brushes off in sparkling drops, if you 
 touch the grass by the walk. 
 
 A short run together up " Tutor's lane," takes the 
 place of our ordinary four mile stretch, which is too 
 much for the day of the race. After a sponge-bath, we 
 sit down to breakfast with a huge appetite, and the rare 
 beefsteak and eggs disappear at a rate which would 
 alarm any but boating men, and which raises the market 
 price at every mouthful. 
 
 The juices of the meat run almost red, and Stroke, as 
 he passes his plate for the third cut, quietly asks for 
 " a little more of the gore." 
 
 After breakfast we walk briskly to the boat-house, 
 where they are already putting the fresh lead on the 
 boat. The air is as clear as before breakfast, but the 
 wind is south-east and in puffs, and those light feathery 
 clouds are a little ragged. 
 
 Put on the lead boys, polish her up to the gunwales ! 
 We shall have a spanking breeze and white-caps enough 
 by ten. 
 
 So goes the morning, till carefully launching our boat, 
 each in place "Push off! Ready! Port give way! 
 Give way all ! " and we are off. 
 
 Down the river on a spurt to warm up a little then 
 round by Riker's and through the draw out into the 
 open bay. There ! that's racing water for you, long 
 enough and broad enough no sickly-yellow river. On 
 this course " bumping" is ruled foul, and, when the full
 
 232 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 ebb covers the mud shoals close in, it is ocean water 
 that floats us, and the waves curl and their foam-crests 
 flash with the lustre of the real briny sea, which gives 
 vigor to the very breeze. 
 
 What a crowd on shore ! more than one of those hand- 
 kerchiefs are waving at us, and, as each race-boat 
 comes up, its own club cheers. 
 
 The French yacht shows her colors as we pass, and 
 see the bonnet-strings flutter from her deck " Ready 
 oars ! Peak ! " so answering her salute we pull leis- 
 urely by and saluting the Commodore, take position 
 (by lot) outside. There are all colors of boating-shirts 
 about us some on shore with the ladies, some in boats, 
 some by that line of carriages, some in the sailing craft 
 that are everywhere dashing about. But here, in line, 
 are no "light blue jerseys," nothing but white white 
 duck pants white close-fitting knit shirts white skull 
 caps. It is the boats we must distinguish. 
 
 Inside next the Commodore, that little sharp four- 
 oar, with those bearded fellows, is pulled by men from 
 the Scientific School. We give her twenty-four seconds 
 handicap. The next, that straw-colored boat with the 
 beautiful rise of the bow, is a St. John's built boat, cel- 
 ebrated as a winner of more than one race, and called a 
 splendid sea-boat. Here next us is the champion of 
 last year, also a fine weather-boat, with a new but pow- 
 erful crew, and our boat, long and low, is as straight as 
 an arrow on the keel, (you can see her timber as you sit 
 here in her), but wide on the gunwale amidships, and 
 you see the sheer of her sides, and how each of these 
 rolling swells hits her. How those white-caps outside 
 will toss her ! 
 
 Now what are we racing for? for we have no "head 
 of the river." Do you see that flag in the Commodore's
 
 OUR SAILORS. 233 
 
 hand, a little the coarsest and most weather-beaten 
 piece of blue bunting you ever saw, and nailed to an 
 old green staff? " Pioneer Yale No. i." That is the 
 first flag that a Yale boat ever carried. The winners 
 are to keep it as the " champion flag " until they are 
 beaten or graduate. And it is for that old blue bunting 
 that we are ready to pull as long as we can see to keep 
 stroke. There ! now we are in line " Back a little ! " 
 That's it ! No coxswain holds to a stake. The little 
 four-oar and ours carry none. That is the flag-boat 
 right off the bow, a point or two to leeward. See the 
 stripes flutter just a speck at a mile and a half. " Keep 
 her so ! steady !" The Commodore rises. " Ready 
 all ! " " Give way ! " Do you feel that spring from the 
 oar blades ? Is it not worth your training to feel that 
 one bound the bound of your heart and the boat to- 
 gether? But those rising bows and quick deep stroke 
 win the start from us. Did you say the crowd cheered ? 
 That is for the four-oar. But we do not hear it for we 
 are behind and pulling like mad for the lead. " Steady 
 men ! " " Steady and cool ! you are pulling wild. 
 Strong and together ! " Now our shoulders come back 
 with real old swing " long in reach and quick on the 
 feather" and our long sweeping strokes are beginning 
 to tell the four-oars' bow just opposite the waist 
 thwarts, and the St. John's stem for stem with us. 
 
 " Stead y and hard." We are beyond the wharves 
 and now we catch it. " Feather flat against this wind ! " 
 Swash sh sh the bowsman gets a drenching, and 
 now the waists, but only a few drops in the bottom. 
 " Not a miss-stroke now for your lives ! Careful 
 men ! " 
 
 Steady and hard again for half a mile more, stem and 
 stem the four-oar hugging close, and " Now men we
 
 234 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 must turn the stake-boat first while our low bows favor 
 us Jump her ! Hard ! " and away we go, springing to 
 the oars with a vigor that strains every muscle from 
 hand to shoulder, and from shoulder to foot. 
 
 But they throw themselves to the spurt with all their 
 strength, and it is only inch by inch that we draw away 
 from them. " Now work ! Hard and strong ! Hard !" 
 It is here that shoulders and thighs, and training, and 
 pluck tell. They cannot stand this with us, and their 
 stroke is flagging. Now there is a boat's length be- 
 tween us, and now another. 
 
 " Hard for one more ! Pull now with a will !" and 
 " Hold water starboard ! Hard a-Port ! Careful as we 
 go round, steady ! " Never mind the splashing, the 
 spray only gives us a fiercer glow. We only ship a hat- 
 full or so, and round the stake-boat with a clear length 
 start though the sheer of the keel makes those lifting 
 bows there turn as on a pivot. 
 
 Away we spring on the home-stretch. Did anything 
 ever make your blood leap like this ? Shall you shout ? 
 Shall you throw away your hat? Bless you ! you would 
 not know you ever had a hat, and as your fingers clench 
 the oar with a nervous grip, and your breath comes hot 
 and heavy, and your head swims with the exertion, you 
 could not think of shouting any more than of flagging 
 of anything but the stout strain to the oar and your 
 feather. And you would not exchange the free heav- 
 ing of your chest, the swelling joy in your throat, for 
 royalty ; for your heart beats prouder, more exulting, 
 and you love your swift boat, and the stout fellows with 
 you, with a hardy sailor's love that sighing swains can- 
 not dream of. 
 
 Round they come with us, but the little four-oar is 
 too sharp for this weather and lags behind, dragging
 
 OUR SAILORS. 235 
 
 and water-logged, but now the wind fills the high bows 
 of the St. John's and the Champion as it would a sail, 
 and how they come down for us. But it is the home- 
 stretch, and we hold them by hard pulling, and come to 
 the wharves still on the lead and spurt home, drawing 
 well away from them. Bang ! Bang ! the Frenchman 
 salutes us, and now we can listen to the ringing cheers 
 from the shore, and see the ensigns all about us go up 
 to mast-head, and so trail alongside the Commodore's 
 boat, first winners of the old blue bunting. And as we 
 stoop to dip a handful of the cool water to wet our 
 warm temples, we answer many a nod of approval 
 many a fluttering handkerchief and in five minutes 
 more are on shore shaking hands with our fellows, who 
 crowd around us, and then listening to congratulations 
 almost more acceptable. 
 
 " But do you not feel sick almost ? are you not ex- 
 hausted ? " 
 
 That is the pride of our training after cooling our 
 faces and a swallow of water, our heads are as clear 
 our nerves and pulses are as steady, as this morning, 
 and for a six months after our steps will be lighter, our 
 hearts beat more buoyant for the luxury of health in 
 every vein. 
 
 We are trained not to be battered in a prize ring 
 until victor and vanquished more than undo all that the 
 discipline effected but to feel the glowing exhilara- 
 tion of strength and strong muscle for many a month, 
 and add vigor if not years to our future life. You can 
 be happier and better men, most of you, by feeling 
 even once the generous rivalry of a boat race. And 
 here in salt water and out over the tossing Sound you 
 may become not mere effeminate " fresh water sailors," 
 to " make time " on a sleepy river, but boatmen who shall
 
 236 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 pull daringly and strong against wind and tide. And 
 if bay mud at low tide be vile, and our arrangements 
 not entirely the most convenient yet you may learn 
 to shun filth and luxury together, and by the coarse 
 diet acquire a command over your appetites, yes over 
 yourself that is not limited to restraint from drink and 
 tobacco. 
 
 " You Bowsman ! Come down ! " 
 " You lazy dog, you were asleep up there." 
 " You have been smoking, you wretch " and what 
 they said to me for my contempt of race rules just one 
 quiet dreamy smoke, I prefer not to put in type.
 
 ittonologne on in dans. 
 
 " Meliusne fluctus 
 Ire per longos fuit, an recentes 
 Carpere flores." 
 
 Hor. Carm., III. 27. 
 
 " Wie herrlich leuchtet 
 
 Mir die Natur ! 
 Wie gliinzt die Sonne, 
 
 Wie lacht die Flur !" 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 I AGREE with Horace that Botany is decidedly prefer- 
 able to Boating. I have a mortal horror of a boating- 
 shirt. It appears to me I should prefer the under-gar- 
 ment that burned old Hercules. There was a time, it is 
 true, when I rejoiced in Freshman innocency. There 
 was a time when my fancies were tinged with the blue of 
 the waves and my thoughts with their countless laughter. 
 But I thank my stars that one windy Wednesday after- 
 noon " relieved " me. " It's in me," I exclaimed with 
 Sheridan, " and it's bound to come out !" The rock and 
 swell of those thick-coming waves ugh ! If anybody 
 has a poetic longing to experience what John Bunyan 
 calls " the power and terror of what is yet unseen," I 
 advise him either, like Henry Ward Beecher, to take a 
 front seat on the cow-catcher of some snowbank-break- 
 ing locomotive, or else some gusty day to try boating. 
 
 I have consequently taken to botany. My coat-tails 
 may be observed any Saturday disappearing in the dim 
 distance of Tutor's lane, or a good achromatic instru-
 
 238 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 ment may possibly distinguish me about five degrees 
 above the horizon, climbing the perpendicular ascent of 
 East Rock. As I fall from " running to going, and 
 from going to clambering on my brands and knees," I 
 have but to look about me to raise my spirits to my own 
 proud elevation. Right below me stretches the forest 
 of New Haven Elms, waving in the sunlight their tops 
 of golden green ; far away the shores of Long Island 
 lie on the margin of the water like a sea-nymph sleep- 
 ing ; at my feet the placid surface of the bay, fringed 
 with green shores and broadening to the sea, mirrors 
 back these frowning cliffs, each an Acropolis, embrac- 
 ing, as Willis says, this city of the Elms with quotation 
 marks of rock, to indicate its emanation from the mind 
 of Hillhouse. And as far beneath my contempt as be- 
 neath my feet, paddles a college boat like a polywog in 
 a frog-pond. 
 
 " But who am I ?" I? I'm the man with the tin can, 
 and the twelve-and-a-half cent hat, and the seven- 
 leagued boots. I? I'm a lover of nature, and the 
 " female persuasion," and of flowers. I am one of the 
 noble army of botanists. I haunt the sacred Druid 
 groves, cool when the sun shines hot, and dark at noon- 
 tide. I roam abroad these sultry days " on breezy 
 slopes and under God's own clear sky." I wander 
 apart from men, nourishing silent fancies, and watching 
 the wondrous processes of nature in the trees, and 
 plants, and flowers. I rise before prayers, rush to the 
 fields, inhale 
 
 The breath of heaven fresh-blowing, pure and sweet, 
 With dayspring born, 
 
 and on cloudless days, after a shower that has washed 
 the tiny hands of the innumerable trees, I lie on the soft
 
 MONOLOGUE ON TIN CANS. 239 
 
 warm earth, and listen to the leaves lisping the music of 
 childhood, and swelling ever and anon into the congre- 
 gational singing of the forest. And then there comes a 
 lull, and I listen to the silence of the solemn wood, and 
 thoughts throng thick through the silence. I think how 
 often poor Alton Locke, who had never left the eternal 
 daily and nightly din of London, found in his first jour- 
 ney into the gay green country, an unutterable mystery 
 in this same silence a new world in the quiet. And I 
 think that like this, after the spirit-strife of " this dim 
 spot which men call earth," with an inexpressibly more 
 glorious and holy calm, may come over the spirit the 
 perfect peace of Heaven. 
 
 I carry out, better than any of you men who sleep 
 away your Saturday afternoons in close college rooms, 
 the prescription of our revered Professor for clearest 
 vision. My cornea is lubricated in the right manner. I 
 lie on my back and see the stars through the openings 
 of the trees, and when I get tired of that, I come to the 
 conclusion of Dick Swiveller and take a taste of "the 
 balmy," and as I've walked five miles to get here, I get 
 a clear idea, as I fall asleep, of that image than which 
 there is none more beautiful in all our English poetry : 
 
 Music that gentlier on the spirit lies 
 Than tired eyelids on tired eyes. 
 
 I don't believe in the Indian method of resting when 
 one is tired. I tried it one day to test it fairly. The re- 
 cipe was to take up a stone of some two hundred 
 pounds weight, carry it a quarter of a mile, when on 
 letting go of it the patient would feel sensibly relieved. 
 There may be a difference in constitutional habit, but I 
 have given up the remedy as not applying to the pecul- 
 iar diagnosis of my own case. I myself take a better 
 rest from study. I take that Lord* Bacon took. " God
 
 240 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 Almighty first planted a garden, and indeed it is the 
 purest of human pleasures, and the greatest refreshment 
 to the spirits of man. There ought to be gardens for all 
 months in the year, in which severally things of beauty 
 may be then in season. And because the breath of 
 flowers is sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes 
 like the warbling of music), than in the hand, therefore 
 nothing is more fit for that delight." And in his direc- 
 tions for the building of a noble garden, he lays out 
 within it a mimic wilderness where vines and trees may 
 twine together, and where burnet, wild thyme and 
 water-mints may grow. All this I enjoy out in the open 
 woods, no mimic, but a real wilderness. All about the 
 town on warm and shady slopes, wild roses grow ; 
 through moist meadows I catch the Arethusa glimmer- 
 ing and blushing through the grass ; on the crags of 
 those twin rocks away up between earth and sky, the 
 blue hairbell, so often made the image of deep azure 
 eyes, lifts its slender form and bends beneath the upper 
 breeze ; and on still waters spreads its broad leaves, 
 and opes its snow-white petals to the sun-beams, the 
 queenly water-lily so beautifully named by botanists, 
 Nymphaea odorata. 
 
 There is a name connected with water-lilies and all 
 pleasant things, that cannot die with some men I know. 
 A generous man with a generous enthusiasm for flowers, 
 and not only an enthusiasm for 'flowers, but a skill and 
 progress in botanical science that has won encomiums 
 from its masters a man of a genial soul and a large 
 heart. He gave all of us our first lessons, he breathed 
 into us something of his own spirit. Who doesn't know 
 "Cady"? You would, if you had seen him stalk 
 proudly into a mill-pond to take possession of a Nu- 
 phar advena till the water poured into his tin knapsack,
 
 MONOLOGUE ON TIN CANS. 24! 
 
 as Balboa " clad in complete steel,"" long time ago 
 waded into the Pacific at Darien and claimed the bil- 
 lowy sea for Spain and for the Cross. Were we pro- 
 phets, we might predict the culmination of his rising 
 star. But the memory of his generous good-fellowship 
 is written for all of us in 
 
 Those bright mosaics that with storied beauty. 
 The floor of Nature's teraale tesselefe. 
 
 I met a queer old man in a charming place the other 
 day, who told better than I can, the uses of these flowers. 
 The landscape was one which ought to be better known 
 to Yale men. It is on the Derby road where the chan- 
 nel of the West River first winds along its side, then 
 crosses it with a sudden turn. A glorious waste of 
 meadow-grass on each side the winding stream, is 
 flanked by green and abrupt banks that have all the 
 look of hills. In the distance, right before you, rises 
 clear and precipitous, West Rock, with its bare, brown, 
 furrowed face, printing its verdurous locks against the 
 sunny sky, and at its foot climbs half-way up the cliff 
 the tall and slender spire of the village church. The 
 scene has had painters, but it needs observers. I was 
 picking a violet there, and a voice made me start. 
 " How beautifully does a good God deck the year with 
 flowers, changing every week, but always beautiful !" 
 I turned and saw an old man, meanly dressed, with a 
 thin and sallow face. His short, straight, white hair 
 fell sparingly down over a forehead half hid by an old 
 straw hat. His eye, too, was dim with age. " But old 
 Ireland far surpasses this. There the meadows are all 
 blooming the summer long. How beautiful were the 
 meadows on the lakes of Killarney, just where I was 
 born ! Just think ! three hundred and sixty-six little 
 fairy islands, one for every day in the year, and one
 
 242 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 over and above ! But it's there just as it is here. That 
 apple tree covered with blossoms, how like the Christian 
 adorned with the Christian graces ! And every little 
 flower, how it speaks of the boundless love of our 
 Heavenly Father to every one of his poor and sinful 
 creatures !" I talked with the old man. I found in him 
 a specimen of the true Irish character, unlearned save in 
 the lore of nature and of God, but with a warm heart 
 and an upspringing love for the beautiful, and a genuine 
 Irish eloquence. But that was not the lesson I shall re- 
 member longest. I shall think of the language the 
 flowers spoke to him, and to all the humble and the 
 sorrowing and the poor. 
 
 Heaven wills these simple things should give 
 Lessons to teach us how to live, 
 
 Said Gray, " Happy are they who can create a rose-tree 
 or erect a honey-suckle." I adopted the advice, but my 
 rose-tree withered 
 
 Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring, 
 Nipped by the lagging rear of winter's frost. 
 
 So I betake me into the " blithe and breathing air, into 
 the solemn wood." There live the flowers through all 
 the live-long summer. There I can commune with 
 Nature, and her tranquil mind sheds sweet influence 
 over mine. There I find in the cup of the lily, or the 
 petals of the forget-me-not, nay even in the springing 
 spears of grass, lessons of tas + e, of feeling, of poetry, of 
 religion.
 
 QTljc OMb muioersitg 
 
 IF it had ever been my fortune to have had for my 
 playmate, in my ripe infancy, a little, laughing, two- 
 year-old girl, if we had made mud pies and sailed chips 
 down the gutter together, if we had learned our let- 
 ters and eaten molasses-candy together, if I had sent 
 her a valentine, if, before I had left off my jacket for 
 a coat and vest, and she her red stockings for white 
 ones, some unkind providence had carried me away 
 from her side and made me live in some other town, 
 if, after I had gone, her brown curls should, in time, 
 have been gathered up from her shoulders within the 
 precincts of a net, and her dresses lengthened so as to 
 hide the white stockings, if her cheek should have 
 come to glow with the warm blood of passion rather 
 than with childish health, and if the laugh of her child- 
 ish eye should have deepened into the quick, passion- 
 ate gleam of a maid, if, all unknown to me, she 
 should then somehow have pondered long, O ! far too 
 long, on the strong and wild and free loves of the 
 twittering birds, of flowers, of the murmuring rivers, of 
 the earth and sky locked silent in their long love- 
 embrace, so that, in time, she had come to love as 
 deeply, as warmly, as freely as they, if all this had 
 been, and, somehow, it had been my lot in later years 
 to have seen, in some hospital ward, her poor, gaunt 
 form, or rather, her poor, bleeding soul, stretched on 
 its dying bed ; it may be, my reader, yes, it may be, I
 
 244 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 would have turned away and left my whilom playmate 
 to struggle toward the farther shore as best she might ; 
 but I fear I would have seen her, as kindly as I could, 
 out of this world ; I fear I would have commended 
 her, with what earnestness is in me, to heavenly for- 
 giveness ; I fear I would have kissed the blue lips of 
 the foul outcast, and I fear and pray that, rescuing 
 her from the potter's field, I might have seen well to it, 
 that my little two-year-old playmate was put to rest in 
 some better place ; that lilies-of-the-valley should bow 
 in pity over her grave ; that green boughs of some kind 
 should whisper softly above her mound, and that 
 among the grass-blades thereof tears might sometimes 
 fall. 
 
 I never knew a dying girl for whom I could have 
 done all this, and I trust I never shall know such an one. 
 But for a certain old boat now passed out of existence 
 I can perform such kindly office. She was a comely 
 craft once, trim and stanch. But she was willful. And 
 as this same baneful quality has wrecked many fair 
 and promising maidens, so it wrecked this boat. Be- 
 cause she would be headstrong, she brought upon her- 
 self irretrievable ruin. I knew her, though, in her 
 halcyon days, in her glory, when she reposed in state on 
 the cross-beams in the boat-house, with the marks of 
 her victory at Worcester still about her the black-lead 
 still upon her bottom. And I knew her afterward, in 
 her dishonor and her shame ; when, prostrate, rubbish 
 among rubbish, she encumbered the boat-house floor 
 a shattered thing. Now, I know her only as dead. 
 Prosperous was she, then fell, then perished. She is 
 beyond the range of mortal help, and so there is not 
 much for a friend to do for her. But, at any rate, I can 
 see her decently laid away in her final home. I can, in
 
 THE OLD UNIVERSITY SHELL. 245 
 
 relating her fall, palliate it perhaps ; from her fall I can 
 follow her to her grave as a mourner ; and there I can 
 stand respectfully, with my hat off, while she passes 
 forever from mortal sight. True, this is not much ; and 
 I cannot hope that my words shall bend over her 
 crumbling remains with the beauty of lilies-of-the-val- 
 ley over a sunny grave, nor that my thoughts shall ever 
 whisper to any reader half so softly as green boughs 
 whisper in the summer air, nor that a tear-drop will 
 ever fall upon this page which tells of her woe ; still, it 
 is something ; and it will show that I do not wish to 
 disown her acquaintance, even though she does lie in a 
 grave of shame. 
 
 She was a buxom bark, this old shell ; short, broad 
 and thick-hided to the extent of half an inch, I think. 
 But though wide, she was not round ; on the contrary, 
 she was rather scow-shaped, with a broad, flat bottom. 
 To this peculiarity in her structure I attributed all her 
 misdemeanors ; this it was that made her willful on the 
 seas, perverse and headstrong ; and as she came to her 
 destruction through her blind willfulness, I hold that 
 the real cause of her ruin was this vile peculiarity in 
 her physical structure ; and since her builders were ac- 
 countable for her shape and not she herself, I lay all 
 the blame of her sad end on them. 
 
 It was heart-rqnding to watch the ways of this per- 
 verse craft on the various excursions over the harbor. 
 If the water was still enough down the bay for the 
 doughty crew to venture without the drawbridge, the 
 chances were ten to one that the witch of a boat swung 
 up broadside against" some dignified schooner riding at 
 anchor, and that too through no fault of the coxswain. 
 Up the river her actions would have moved to tears, 
 had they not excited to curses. Her principle of proced-
 
 246 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 ure was simply this ; to yield herself up with perfect 
 passivity to the influence of external circumstances, 
 such as the wind and tide, but to resist, with all her 
 might, any attempt at controlling her from within, as 
 by the rudder, or by " hard port !" or " hard starboard !" 
 much as we have seen bad girls willingly following 
 every chance hest of their varying whims and passions, 
 but stamping in anger at the kind admonition of a 
 mother ! It is always a point among coxswains to avoid 
 hitting oyster-stakes. With this boat the attainment of 
 that point was an impossibility. If she once took it in- 
 to her head to brush up against an oyster-stake, she 
 would do it, despite the crew, despite the devil. I have 
 known her to sheer clear across from one side of the 
 Quinnipiac to the other, and then, against all the efforts 
 of the crew to the contrary, leap for a stiff oyster-stake, 
 hit it, and unship all the oars in the boat. Going about 
 in this way, it might have been expected that the 
 flighty wench would some day come to grief. And so 
 she did. 
 
 One evening in June, we launched her as usual from 
 the boat-house " float." There were, at that time, sev- 
 eral cracks in the bottom of the boat ; and as we laid 
 her on the tide, she took in through them quite an 
 alarming quantity of water. The bystanders on the 
 float, noticing this, remarked to us, laughing, that "we 
 would never come back in that boat again." We looked 
 up from our thwarts in piteous contempt of their ignor- 
 ance. That evening, too, a freshman on our rival Har- 
 vard crew happened to have come to town to take notes 
 upon our rowing. He was on the float when we pushed 
 off; and seeing him there watching us, we straightway 
 set about rowing in as poor time and with as much 
 splashing as can well be imagined. Simple souls ! I
 
 THE OLD UNIVERSITY SHELL. 247 
 
 fear we overdid the business. After getting round the 
 first bend in the Quinnipiac, however, we settled down 
 to regular work, and pulled up against the tide as far as 
 the " red house." The water had been perfectly smooth 
 throughout the course, but the tide was running out 
 with unusual velocity. After we had turned, the boat 
 was more unmanageable than ever. She swung about 
 on the rapid current, as if she were uncertain whether 
 bow or stem ought to be going down the river first. 
 We were now nearing the upper bridge the railroad 
 bridge on our homeward course. On the west side of 
 the stream at this point, the ebb tide always runs, and 
 runs with mighty force, for the channel narrows here 
 at a 45 angle with the open passages between the piles ; 
 but, in the middle of the stream, the current runs 
 straight through one or two of the middle passages of 
 the bridge, and this is the regular channel for all boats. 
 But our flat-bottomed craft, through being flat-bot- 
 tomed, had refused to go anywhere else than toward the 
 westward bank of the river ; and that was our position 
 when we approached the bridge. We expected our 
 fate ; still, hope was not altogether dead in our bosoms. 
 "Pull hard, now! harder ! harder !" yelled the bow 
 oar. We were under the bridge. " Oars on port !" It 
 was too late. Smash went the port side against the 
 piles ; the boat careened to port, filled, cracked loudly 
 from stem to stern, and went down. The action of the 
 crew at this point was diverse. The bow-oar climbed 
 an adjacent pile in good style. The port-bow followed, 
 wildly suspending his entire weight from the coxswain's 
 feet. The starboard-waist sat in the boat while it set- 
 tled, and when it had settled too far began to tread 
 water. The port-waist and starboard-stroke set off in 
 high glee for a long swim down stream. The stroke
 
 248 DESCRIPTIVE HECES. 
 
 all honor to him went wading about in the water, which 
 was not over waist deep where he stood. It was amus- 
 ing to observe how large a crowd gathered, and how 
 quickly it gathered, on the Fair Haven bridge, to wit- 
 ness the disaster. Multitudes of fishermen, too, put off 
 from shore in their boats, and hastened to the rescue. 
 The wreck was abandoned. Shivering, four of us were 
 hoisted, dripping, into a scow, and were rowed, or 
 rather rowed ourselves, down to the boat-house. 
 
 While walking up the float, hallooes were distinctly 
 heard in the still night air (it was about nine o'clock), 
 which appeared to come from that spot where the new 
 Chapel Street bridge now touches the Fair Haven shore. 
 The voices were recognized. They were those of the 
 two hardy swimmers. Clothed in a wet shirt and drip- 
 ping pantaloons, on that mud shore they stood in 
 the starlight alone, and one would suppose forlorn. 
 Soon the shouting ceased. Then, after a few minutes, 
 a " dug-out " was paddled along the float, and, cross and 
 grumbling, the two drenched wanderers rolled out upon 
 the dock. On the next day, the crew borrowed a gig, 
 rowed to the scene of the accident, and towed the 
 wreck down to the boat-house. She was dropped 
 carelessly on the boat-house floor, and lay there in 
 her shame for some weeks. But before the crew left 
 for Worcester, she was taken out and dumped into the 
 water as a piece of good-for-nothing lumber. Whither 
 she floated, none can tell. Perhaps she went up the 
 river, and was burned for firewood by oysterman ; per- 
 haps she drifted down the harbor slowly as slowly as 
 the summer clouds drifted southward above her, and 
 to quite as uncertain a destiny as they. 
 
 This is all. Perhaps it is foolish for me to have made 
 so much ado about so worthless an old hulk. But it
 
 THE OLD UNIVERSITY SHELL. 249 
 
 was a simple act of friendship. I have wandered 
 through a cemetery, and have come across an old friend's 
 grave unmarked ; and I merely lay this scroll upon its 
 top, for a kind of headstone.
 
 IF I ever become rich enough, without at the same 
 time growing too stingy, I shall build a college. The 
 college shall stand at the foot of a mountain ; yet far 
 enough away, not to be endangered by the rocks which 
 sportive Jack Frost occasionally rolls down the mount- 
 ain sides. To have a bowlder, six by ten, come crash- 
 ing through the college walls would be at all times 
 inconvenient ; quite as much so, as to have benighted 
 Sophomores, standing knee-deep in the snow during a 
 fierce northeaster, toll the college bell at half-past two 
 in the morning. 
 
 The mountain should be about half an hour high, 
 more than twice the height of West Roek. It should 
 be climbable, but only so, by teeth, fingers and toes. 
 It should be wooded from bottom to top. There should 
 be the scraggy, tough-rooted cedar, the rock-loving 
 maple, and the beech with its long and pliant boughs. 
 The chestnut, also, should not be wanting, nor the 
 spicy black-birch, nor the oak and hickory. The top 
 of the mountain should be rocky and mossy, with 
 abundant patches of wintergreen and trailing-arbutus. 
 
 In short, this mountain behind the college, should be 
 to the students a perpetual source of pleasure and 
 health. A run of three minutes would bring one from 
 the college doors to the tumble down rocks at the 
 mountain's base. A hand and foot climb by bush and 
 crag would, in half an hour, place him upon the sum-
 
 VAGARIES. 251 
 
 mit. Should the* rambler choose to go no further, but 
 to return immediately to his books, he would have the 
 satisfaction of an end attained, over and above the 
 mere stretching of his legs and expanding of his lungs. 
 His walk would, like a good story, contain within it a 
 beginning, a middle and an end. The student often 
 has an hour which he might spend in recreation, but he 
 seldom has half a day which he can profitably devote 
 to that purpose. Now, take away the mountain from 
 behind the college, or remove it to the distance of Savin 
 Rock, Wintergreen Lake or " My Farm at Edgewood," 
 and the leisure hour will rarely be spent in walking. 
 There are plenty of good long walks about New Haven, 
 but very few short ones. 
 
 While every one is aware of the uninteresting char- 
 acter of a walk along level brick pavements, too few 
 have experienced the exquisite pleasure of climbing 
 among the rocks. Said an old Yale man in speaking 
 of one of our Connecticut hills, " I just love that moun- 
 tain. I climb it nearly every day. It keeps me in 
 health and makes preaching compatible with a sound 
 digestion." Mt. Carmel undoubtedly affords better 
 climbing than any hill in the immediate vicinity of 
 New Haven ; yet the western side of West Rock does 
 very well. This part of the rock is reached quite as 
 conveniently as the path upon the eastern side. After 
 leaving the horse-car at Westville, the way turns down 
 the first street at the right, till the pond and mill are 
 reached. There it turns to the left and follows the 
 course of the stream some thirty or forty rods, when it 
 crosses the bridge and sweeps round towards the rock. 
 Arrived at the woods, the road divides, leading along 
 the base of the rock in opposite directions. From this 
 point the way is pathless ; the adventurer may choose
 
 252 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 his steps according to his humor. He may climb by 
 means of bushes and trees, or up the notches in the 
 bare rocks. But whatever method he chooses, when he 
 reaches the top, he will find his blood glowing warm to 
 the very tips of his fingers. His lungs will have been 
 filled several hundred times to their utmost capacity 
 with the pure mountain air. A run over to the Judges' 
 Cave and back will give him sufficient rest to undertake 
 the descent. Now a new set of muscle come into play ; 
 and this will be found less wearisome than the ascent, 
 and much more exhilarating. 
 
 If one has sufficient time, the ramble may be extended 
 from the cave to Wintergreen Lake and Falls, and 
 thence back by the way of Pine Rock. If the time be 
 autumn, numerous turnip fields will enliven the way 
 and add new interest to the occasion. 
 
 Or, if one does not wish to go beyond the cave, but 
 to return by the way he came up ; then having reached 
 the foot of the rock, the walk may be continued very 
 pleasantly, by following the road around that part of 
 the precipice. Here a number of men may always be 
 found, quarrying stone, digging it out of the rubbish 
 which has accumulated at the base of the cliff, as- 
 sorting it for various uses, and loading it in carts. It 
 is amusing to hear these men talk. They are a jolly 
 and hard-handed set of fellows, and seem to enjoy the 
 life they lead. They descant on the virtues of their 
 sturdy oxen, tell the traits of each particular steer, his 
 tricks of kicking or balking, or his pluck and strength 
 in dragging a heavy load. In their peculiar language, 
 which is a strange mixture of slang and vigorous sim- 
 plicity, they tell of the dangers to which their occupa- 
 tion exposes them ; how the blasts of powder fling the 
 fragments of stone about ; how the frost and the thaw
 
 VAGARIES. 253 
 
 loosen great bowlders and send them thundering down 
 the mountain-side. They are philosophers, too, in their 
 way, and treat the dangers which threaten them, in 
 philosophy's coolest fashion. They also, as we, have 
 their dreams and air-castles. The imagination of a true 
 laborer, however uncultivated he may be, covers the 
 dullness of his occupation with a glow from his own 
 living spirit. The quarryman's fancy works more 
 nimbly than his pick. Buried within the mountain's 
 mass, he sees untold wealth. Cities of solid stone 
 with carved spires and arched gateways spring up 
 around him, himself the master architect and sole pos- 
 sessor. 
 
 But I cannot linger longer with the quarrymen. For 
 further acquaintance the reader must seek the men 
 themselves. 
 
 I am sorry the snow has come. It cuts off any near 
 prospect of walking to the hills. It, however, brings 
 recompensing pleasures to a few. The bells jingle 
 merrily ; but I am not behind them. The sleighs cut 
 swiftly through the snow ; but I am not in them. The 
 horses are not mine : and others are driving them. So 
 I look to the hills for my pleasure ; and wait for the 
 melting of the snow.
 
 (filttitmipiac. 
 
 THE lengthening intervals of the days in which loung- 
 ing on the fence again becomes a duty and a pleasure, 
 recall to my mind various pleasant summer recreations. 
 Chief among these pleasures I place that of boating. 
 Unfortunate it surely is that the word has, also, 
 reminiscences of another and less pleasing nature. 
 With the recollection of the word I hear an importun- 
 ate knocking at my study door, far different from the 
 modest tap of the beggar, or the well known announce- 
 ment of my friends. Armed with catalogue and pencil, 
 these men of authority so ply us with the magnitude of 
 navy or class debts that we give up all counter argu- 
 ments, and affix the required amounts to our names 
 without a murmur, but with much after repentance. 
 Then, too, our colors have not been always in the 
 ascendant at Worcester and Springfield. 
 
 But I would view boating from a different standpoint. 
 Two ways there are of pursuing boating ; one, as a means 
 of glory, making pleasure and physical improvement 
 subservient ; another, making health, development and 
 pleasure the end of the exercise. Count me, if you 
 please, in the latter crowd. All praise to the six oars 
 who, manfully struggling against the inertia of inborn 
 laziness, twice a day strain heart, lungs and muscles to 
 their utmost, in valiant efforts to maintain the honor of 
 their class or college in an approaching contest. All 
 commendation to the possessors of the straining backs
 
 QUINNIPIAC. 255 
 
 and blistering hands ; but for pleasurable and healthful 
 exercise commend me to the single-scull. Here no stroke 
 calls for a spurt when you, the crew, deemed yourself 
 already spurting to the best of your ability. Here no 
 fellow oarsman grumbles at receiving a gratuitous 
 shower-bath from your oar-blade, nor does another 
 offend your ear by profanity when you recover with 
 especial energy against the small of his back. Here 
 you are bow and stroke combined, and can bestow as 
 much praise and censure on the crew as you please. 
 
 Given a cheerful frame of mind, a warm, sunny day 
 with no wind, and the problem of passing a Wednesday 
 or Saturday afternoon pleasantly in this manner is not 
 difficult of solution. Approximating your costume as 
 nearly to that of nature as boat-house propriety allows, 
 you will get the full benefit of the sunlight and the open 
 air. Launching your shell, a few strokes put a wide 
 space between you and the rapidly receding crowd on 
 the float. Abandonment to the pleasure of physical 
 exercise on the water alone rouses an exhilaration of 
 animal spirits which doubles your capacities for enjoy- 
 ing life. The bracing air clears away from your lungs 
 the impurities left by the foul atmosphere of many a 
 crowded recitation-room. Your seat, it is true, is hard 
 as that upon which you grumble at Chapel, but the 
 gentle motion of the medium beneath makes it as easy 
 as the cradle of infancy. On you go to the Point, the 
 water rippling before the sharp bow, when, suddenly, a 
 bump recalls you from your reflections, and you find 
 yourself entangled in a plantation of oyster-stakes, out 
 of which you must needs back-water ignominiously. 
 When fairly under way again a glance over your 
 shoulder discloses a spiteful little tug bearing down on 
 your craft. Your shelf is hardly able to dispute the
 
 256 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 right of way ; indeed, you have enough to do to ride out 
 the " stern rollers " in the tug's wake. Again, as if to 
 remind you that there is another side even to this pleas- 
 ure, a neighboring Superphosphate-of-Lime factory 
 sends its compliments to you across the water, and 
 drives out of your recollection all the perfumes which 
 have hitherto made you grateful for a nose. These are, 
 however, minor discomforts, and you are soon by them 
 all. With an afternoon before you, you may follow the 
 river for a number of miles into the interior. A 
 striking landmark is the " Red House," interesting 
 from its bad reputation, and from being the scene of a 
 murder some time since. Shooting the bridges when 
 the tide is running out will be found exciting enough 
 in a wherry. Contact with their piers has ere now 
 wrecked many a paper and cedar shell, and dampened 
 the enthusiasm of many a navigator !
 
 Stacking. 
 
 AMONG the forms of pleasurable excitement which we 
 demand in time of relaxation from College duties, I 
 know of none better than Ducking. 
 
 The locality is favorable, the season good, and the 
 ducks both shy and plenty, so that the sport offers 
 inducements to the most scientific, as well as greenest 
 shot. It excites all the activity that a man has stowed 
 away for contingencies, forcing the mercury in his tem- 
 perament alternately through every degree, from zero to 
 boiling-point. 
 
 A few weeks since it was my good fortune to make 
 one in a crew of five who engaged in a ducking expedi- 
 tion, the incidents of which were so numerous, that I 
 desire you, reader, to take the trip with me again. 
 
 We deposit selves and baggage in a trim yacht, and 
 move out into the harbor under a stiff breeze. And 
 now the sight of a solitary gull, in the distance, sug- 
 gests the possibility of duck. With the air of veteran 
 sportsmen we load our guns, and strain our eyes over 
 the water. 
 
 No ducks in sight but stop ! Yes ; there are two, 
 scudding over the white-caps, under bare poles, but 
 safely enough, for our fowling-pieces would have to be 
 enlarged to Parrot guns in order to reach them. 
 
 The stiff breeze soon carries us beyond the Fort and 
 Savin Rock, and as we near the Light House, we bear 
 down on the advance-guard of the ducks. Then to the 
 9
 
 2$8 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 right they fly, eight or ten in line, skimming along just 
 above the waves. No one wishes to sink his reputation 
 by firing at such a range, and so, with philosophic 
 equanimity, we let them pass unscathed. But now our 
 sentinel, in the bow, descries a duck, with its black 
 head a little ways ahead, and we fire an ineffective 
 broadside into her duckship, as she raises anchor, 
 hoists sail, and runs over under flying colors. Our 
 guard again resumes position, while the writer takes 
 the offensive, on the starboard. Presently, the percep- 
 tion of duck impiesses my visuals. A duck rises at 
 long range, and as it crosses the bow, I instantly fire, 
 with no perceptible shock to the duck, but greatly 
 alarming the shocking sensibilities of my friend in 
 the bow. As the shot suddenly whistles by, he turns 
 pale, and in " a voice broken with emotion," appeals 
 to the company whether it is allowable to fire in such 
 proximity to a brother sportsman. 
 
 It is decided, unanimously, that in ducking times, 
 all ordinary military tactics must be disregarded : that 
 it is the duty of every man to fire, instantly, on the 
 appearance of duck : that each must keep clear of his 
 neighbor's shots. 
 
 Here and there upon the crests of the white caps 
 were visible, little black spots, and as these rose and 
 fell with the waves, it required critical observation to 
 pronounce them ducks. But, on nearer approach, they 
 developed into heads, then necks, then wings, and 
 finally, the bodies of veritable ducks. The wary coots, 
 however, kept at a respectful distance, while the noisy 
 gulls flew over us with impunity, crying out, derisively, 
 at each unsuccessful shot. 
 
 And now we are bowling along in the vicinity of 
 Charles Island, and ducks are flying in every direction.
 
 DUCKING. 259 
 
 Quick ! there goes one right across our bow, within 
 easy gunshot. One of us jumps to his feet and fires, 
 while mirabile dictu, the duck falls. The boat speedily 
 swings round, but too late, for the waves have swept 
 over the unfortunate fowl, "and left not a trace be- 
 hind." Our fortunate shot goes into such a fever of 
 excitement, that he unconsciously pours his caps into 
 the barrel, while the powder finds its way, outside the 
 gun, into the water. 
 
 Twilight comes on, and ducks fly safely within a few 
 rods, conscious that our guns are stowed away, and that 
 we are smoking, in all the calmness of philosophic con- 
 templation. In the distance is an object, regarded by 
 one astronomer as an unknown star of the first magni- 
 tude, but, on nearer approach, we see, plainly, the ap- 
 pearance which theory has assigned to the revolving 
 heavenly bodies, and pronounce it Stratford Light. 
 
 We drop anchor inside the bar of Stratford channel. 
 One party goes ashore in search of a candle, which is 
 obtained only by dint of persuasion and bribery, while 
 the remainder of us hoist the boom, so as to answer for 
 a tent-pole, and across it stretch some extra canvas, 
 whose ends are fastened to the sides of the boat, thus 
 forming a comfortable tent. Finally, everything is ready, 
 and the tent lighted for our little " convivial." Stretched 
 at random on the floor, we enter on the duty of the 
 hour, and every man does yeomanry service in attack- 
 ing the provisions. After supper, the usual smoke, 
 during which we discuss the theory of "ducking by 
 moonlight." The sky is overcast with drifting snow- 
 clouds, so that the first essential is not clearly given, 
 but three of us, now ashore, and separating, take up 
 our lonely tramp along the beach. 
 
 But no duck is willing to suffer martyrdom, and so,
 
 260 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 while musing over the disappointments of ducking, my 
 equanimity is startled by the report of a gun a few hund- 
 red feet distant, and the rattling of shot in my vicinity. 
 Then another and another, and again another. The shot 
 whistle by as if a five-hundred-pounder had discharged 
 its complement of grape within short range. After the 
 first shock, I reason that I am still existent, because 
 I possessed consciousness, and that I am cognizant of 
 that, you will at once subsume, on recalling the fact 
 that consciousness involves the cognition and percep- 
 tion both of the ego and non-ego, in this instance, being 
 a duck floating a few yards ahead. Bear in mind the 
 fact, that the ego cognized the non-ego, and the prob- 
 lem is at once solved. More accurately stated, in the 
 language of the schools, it would be, " Reason, led 
 from perception of the duck to consciousness, and 
 that, to the phenomenon of self-existence." 
 
 I pick up the duck, and first taking the precaution- 
 ary move of " boarding " my sporting friends, row on 
 for some distance, and after shooting another duck, 
 return to "ye staunch ship Julia." Each disposing 
 himself in the most uncomfortable situation possible, 
 endeavors to persuade himself that he can readily fall 
 asleep, realizing its necessity from the fact that he is 
 to rise at four A. M., and go in pursuit of ducks. But, 
 however clear this may be in theory, in practice it proves 
 a very knotty problem. 
 
 Tossing and rolling with the swell of the tide and 
 wave, while the roar of breakers at the harbor's mouth 
 is sounding in your ears, may be very poetic, but when 
 the attendant circumstances of a damp, cold bed, in the 
 close quarters of a small sail-boat are considered, then 
 comes the rub. 
 
 I first sleep the sleep of Abou Ben Adhem, but
 
 DUCKING. 26l 
 
 quickly awake, under the impression that I am stretched 
 in a coffin, to which the lid is in the act of being nailed. 
 The actuality gives good cause for play of imagination, 
 for I am stowed away in far less room than would 
 suffice for a comfortable coffin, and almost stifled by 
 the closeness of the air. I next seek a " downy couch" 
 on the soft oaken seat, in width just eleven inches, but 
 am again awakened to unpleasant consciousness by 
 the rain, pouring through the rotten canvas overhead. 
 
 "Ab uno disce omnes." At four A. M. rain pours 
 down in a continuous stream, and each man thinks 
 more of sleep than duck. At last we rise to the exi- 
 gencies of the occasion, and after a frugal meal, proceed 
 to the hunting " grounds ;" and now we bear down on a 
 flock of black ducks, and each, eager with a determina- 
 tion to do or die, determined to fire. The rain pelts the 
 ducks, but they seem to enjoy it, and in lazy satisfaction 
 turn their curious eyes upon the intruders, but suddenly 
 surmising danger, rise, and fly swiftly away. Every man 
 pulls trigger, but no report rings out from the guns, so 
 long exposed to rain. With elongated countenances we 
 joke over our foolish inattention, and drawing the charge, 
 re-load our pieces, in most approved style. We bag a 
 brace of ducks, when a North-east gale strikes us, in all 
 its fury, and we are barely able to reach the Julia, and 
 lash securely every strip of canvas. The gale shows no 
 sign of abatement, and after philosophizing in the style 
 of Diogenes, we decide to go ashore, where we separate, 
 part going to the thriving city of Stratford, and others 
 going upon the flats, in search of " dry" shooting, which 
 was obtained in the midst of a pelting rain storm, by 
 wading, constantly, in about fifteen centimetres of H a O. 
 Finally we straggle, tired, wet, and hungry, into the 
 " birth-place of the gentle bard of Avon."
 
 262 DESCRIPTIVE PIECES. 
 
 Arrayed in costumes that would have gladdened the 
 sight of Salvator Rosa, we march through the long 
 avenue, vainly seeking our lost companions beneath 
 some elm-swinging sign, "lodgings for man and beast." 
 We finally obtain that great desideratum of a hungry 
 philosopher, which is appropriately termed by Aristotle, 
 a warm dinner. After this, we slowly come to the sad 
 conclusion, that ducking prospects are clouded, that we 
 cannot cut the teeth of the gale with our yacht, that we 
 are worn out with fatigue and excitement, and that the 
 only sensible thing remaining for Les Miserables to 
 effect, is to take cars direct for New Haven. 
 
 Cheered by the thought of the cozy fires awaiting us 
 in " Old South," we say to the ducks, adieu for a time, 
 gird up our loins, strap on our luggage, shake off the 
 mud from our soles, and are off with a whistle.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.
 
 bacation in QMb 
 
 OF course, there is, in general, but one way of spend- 
 ing the vacation namely, to go into the country. But 
 this great end of summer existence may be attained in 
 various ways. If, for instance, it be viewed from a sar- 
 torial stand-point, two courses at once open before us 
 to go to a watering-place and wear good clothes, or 
 to go to a farm and wear old ones. Having tried the 
 latter course, I venture some explanations and advice 
 concerning it. 
 
 It must be premised, in reference to location, that by 
 the country is meant, not that mongrel compound of 
 the abuses of the city and the inconveniences of the 
 rural districts, but the country ; not a place where 
 wet walks and mosquitoes are a counter-irritant to hotel 
 privileges and daily papers, but a territory, the undi- 
 vided property of nature, where that famous dame " the 
 mother of all living " can be communed with, and 
 otherwise informally interviewed continually. 
 
 Here, in pure airs, the mosquito is fain to cease from 
 troubling though, verily, his now and then attempted 
 tune does more vex the ear than the distant roar of 
 party strife, whose rancor, even here, leaves more poi- 
 son in the blood than his infrequent sting. Here health 
 laughs at August heats, and bids defiance to the seduc- 
 tive whortleberry and the insidious cucumber, which, 
 newly plucked, lose half their power for ill upon the 
 sons of men.
 
 266 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 But why waste time and paper on these trifles ? Here 
 you may taste a higher joy, a pleasure, the chief among 
 ten thousand, that a truly rural life affords. Here may 
 you be free from shining torments, fresh from the tai- 
 lors' cruel art, and revel in your cast-off clothes a 
 boon which the city grants no honest man, save the 
 rare specimens of that class found by mistake among 
 the bankrupts. 
 
 Alas ! that there be so many total strangers to the 
 calm and healthful joys latent in a veteran suit a suit 
 whose shapely folds time has attuned to harmony with 
 the irregularities of the " individual ego " as no sarto- 
 rial artist could fashion them. Comfort dwells in its 
 creases, and satisfaction in its softened seams. Alas ! 
 the pity that such should e'er wear out and quite re- 
 lapse away from the similitude of garments. But yet 
 more deeply is it to be deplored that " the refined 
 delicacy of modern society " should condemn these 
 trusted body-servants just when their usefulness be- 
 gins to ripen, should sanction their transmutation into 
 a few sordid bits of legal tender, and consign them to 
 the tender mercies of the Children of Israel. 
 
 From such abominably artful regulations, nature 
 affords relief. Pack your trunk, not with fine raiment, 
 fresh from the needle, but with habiliments of the past, 
 with suits from last summer with odd pieces, too, here 
 a coat, and there a pair of nether integuments. On 
 these latter will devolve the heavy duties of the cam- 
 paign ; for it is the chief excellence of this whole va- 
 cation system that the coat is only called into use when 
 needful to comfort. Leave it behind you from day to 
 day, roll up slightly the sleeves of the garment beneath, 
 disguise yourself in a square yard or so of straw hat, 
 and the rising barometer is shorn of half its terrors.
 
 A VACATION IN OLD CLOTHES. 267 
 
 You may stroll undismayed beneath the sun's fiercest 
 attacks. You become invulnerable to the solar ray, 
 and are free to watch with pleasure its invigorating 
 effects upon the vegetable world. 
 
 But, to have done with physical joys, old clothes 
 carry their influence and value into the realm of mind. 
 There inheres in them a mild stimulus, a gentle tonic 
 to the memory, which, alone of the mental faculties, 
 should be allowed any activity in vacation. Recollec- 
 tion treasures in them some pretty stores, and " fond 
 memories 'round them clinging" make them worth 
 their double of a newer guise. The magician had a 
 cap of knowledge ; but I have a coat of memory, a 
 vest for experience, and (smile not) unwhisperables of 
 reflection. 
 
 When I take them out, there attends them a troop 
 of other shapes and other days. I put them on, and 
 I am clothed in the past. Here, for example, is a coat. 
 What a particular heavy swell I once cut in the suit 
 of which it is the sole remnant. With what peculiar 
 pride I first donned it. What convivial scene is re- 
 called by the stain on the lapel of lemon-juice, or per- 
 haps more potent liquid. A neatly-mended rent in the 
 sleeve is embroidered with pleasant memories of a pic- 
 nic and a fair nymph, at whose bidding was undertaken 
 the plunge through a tangle after flowers that resulted 
 so disastrously to my attire, and whose charming face 
 bent penitently over the rent her commands had 
 caused, in vain endeavor, with pins, to make it good. 
 Ah, well-a-day ! Let that pass for the coat. The mai- 
 den is no longer kind : and I must turn to the next ; 
 for each can, like the coat, " a tale unfold." 
 
 But to recount at length the pleasures, whether of 
 body or soul, inherent in old clothes, is denied me ; for
 
 268 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 a sense of duty hurries me on to a few words of advice 
 and warning. Beware of abusing your treasures. Re- 
 member that they are a limited hoard, that the infirmities 
 of age are upon them, and that, once gone, they can 
 only be replaced by months of patient wearing of new 
 ones. Let your joy in their free use be, by this 
 thought, tempered to a wise discretion. Bear them not 
 into scenes of too searching trial. Frequent not over- 
 much the depth of the blackberry jungle primeval, 
 neither be allured by the coy pickerel too frequently to 
 the wet marshes at the river side. Make a careful ad- 
 justment of supply to demand ; else you must return 
 perforce to the unrestful elements of the world. Then 
 you are poor indeed. The need of such an one passes 
 that of those who only sigh for a new suit, and who can, 
 in the tailor, find every longing satisfied. For the 
 tastes which you have formed refuse to be denied ; and, 
 nevertheless, they cannot be satisfied. The rare flavor 
 of old wine, the rich perfume of old cheese, can no 
 more be hastened than can the excellencies of the com- 
 modity I extol. Like all true benefits, they come not 
 by gift, purchase, or exchange, but as the reward of 
 duty done. Before one can possess old clothes he must 
 wear down new ones to the proper tone. Their pos- 
 session in vacation is the guerdon of an academic 
 year's patient subordination to the requirements of 
 society. 
 
 To borrow here is impossible. A dress-coat might 
 be borrowed for one evening ; but against the loan of 
 an old coat the eternal fitness of things cries out in ab- 
 horrence. Why, it justly asks, had he not foresight 
 enough to lay by one against a rainy day? Let him 
 perspire in a new one without complaint. 
 
 Neither can purchase satisfy ; and this is why I in-
 
 A VACATION IN OLD CLOTHES. 269 
 
 culcate a wise prudence in their vacation use. Buy 
 them! Can I buy more than the mere cloth? Can 
 they, like my lost treasures, afford a perfect mould for 
 my weary frame, into whose embrace it shall sink as 
 snugly as the webbed foot of that famed aquatic bird 
 into the plastic ooze upon the margin of his watery 
 home? Nay, forsooth. Can lawful currency procure 
 the memories that make their better worth? Again, and 
 a thousand times, nay. Furthermore, to buy is to aid 
 in an unholy traffic. It is to encourage the seller to a 
 waste of his own physical comfort, and to help him to 
 part, as it were, with a portion of his own individuality, 
 to put himself piecemeal on the market ! 
 
 To be a go-between for their purveyance from man to 
 man, is to be twice cursed, in giving and in taking. 
 'Tis worse than traffic in dead men's bones. This I 
 do firmly believe to be a sufficient explanation of the 
 degraded state, from time immemorial, of the despised 
 race of the children of Jacob. They are a race of old 
 clo' dealers. Can deeper damnation dwell in a single 
 phrase ? 
 
 Here, too, is explanation ample of half the misery 
 and crime of city paupers and vagabonds. Do you 
 doubt it : look on the contented, though ragged, poor 
 of the country, and the honest farmer, far from poor, 
 who drives the plow in little better garments then on 
 the mongrel race of gutter-snipes, boot-blacks, and 
 their ilk. Those buy their garments in the cloth and 
 wear them until they grow old, and when they are old, 
 with decent pride in the legitimate possession. These 
 come into their nondescript apparel at hap-hazard. In 
 the eye of the law, it may be theirs ; but instinct pro- 
 tests that it is not. The very cloth that, on its original 
 and rightful possessor, was a rallying-ground of the
 
 27O MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 virtues, when transferred, seems to carry with it only 
 an atmosphere of vices in which to envelop its spurious 
 possessor. Even the unconscious feeling that he is not 
 himself throughout, but rather a compound of two men, 
 must invest the hapless possessor of second-hand 
 raiment with a feeling of irresponsibility more than 
 sufficient to account for all the misdemeanors laid at 
 the doors of his fraternity. Here is food for reflection 
 to the philanthropist. 
 
 When Burns called his ragged country friend "a 
 man for a' that," he showed a painful lack of his usual 
 insight into human nature. That was, iri sooth, the very 
 bulwark of his manhood. 
 
 But I digress.
 
 Cong Vacations. 
 
 I HAVE determined to write upon the above subject af- 
 ter a thoughtful consideration of the advantages which it 
 possesses over many more pretentious subjects. I am 
 aware that the thoughtless may express the wish that 
 at this point I had given my pen a long vacation, but 
 those who write for immortality are generally without 
 honor among their kinsfolk and friends. I am not 
 insensible to the fact that the thoughtful will at first 
 condemn the apparent unimportance and irrelevancy 
 of my theme, but such mistake my plan and purpose. 
 
 My proposition is that long vacations exert a baneful 
 influence upon the undergraduate world. In the first 
 place it is a vexation to be obliged to choose upon so 
 complex and elaborate a course of action as a long va- 
 cation necessitates. I exclude from this consideration 
 three classes ; those who take the wings of the morn- 
 ing and fly unto the uttermost parts of the earth to 
 spend the summer months ; those who chase about the 
 resorts of fashion the butterflies who swarm there, and 
 those who remain at home through necessity, and sell 
 eggs and molasses over the paternal counter. I am 
 speaking of the average man who finds himself about 
 the first of July with a long summer before him and a 
 considerate father behind. 
 
 But, suppose that not only the calculations have been 
 made, but the journey accomplished ; that the cinders 
 have been eliminated from his eyes, and that immacu-
 
 272 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 late as to shirt, collar and cuffs, he has been introduced 
 all round, and considers himself domesticated. Believe 
 me, trouble is about to commence. Within twenty min- 
 utes he will be sitting on the back-piazza with a previ- 
 ous arrival. I care nothing what his age, rank or past 
 connections may have been. I have known men leave 
 college in July as intangible as a hard-shell Baptist, 
 and return in September as tender as a soft-shell crab. 
 Irving says of this very class of men : " Such veteran 
 roysterers are daring wags when together, and will put 
 any female to the blush with their jokes ; but they are 
 quiet as lambs when they fall singly into the clutches 
 of a fine woman." 
 
 Thus he goes on from bad to worse. A quiet walk 
 to church is followed the next evening by a break-neck 
 ride along the river, and finally, a small-hour picnic 
 caps the climax, and puts him on the most uncomforta- 
 ble terms with his landlady. At last, after some quiet 
 day, night overtakes them under the apple-tree in the 
 side-yard, and just as he hoped he should survive, the 
 moon comes up, peeps through the leaves and concludes 
 the business. If she declines his kind offer, he returns 
 to college irate and misanthropic, and if she accepts 
 he comes back in great perplexity, and ten to one 
 makes up his mind to do an unmanly thing, causing a 
 little soberness in New Haven and a great deal of cry- 
 ing somewhere up among the hills. 
 
 But suppose that instead of some cozy little lake- 
 bounded town, the collegian seeks the seclusion and 
 the wild life of some sporting region. Evil follows 
 him. The Adirondacks engulf innumerable victims 
 yearly, who, having no opportunity to make love, learn 
 to vapor and exaggerate. I have heard men who had 
 never been known to catch a fish since the period of
 
 LONG VACATIONS. 273 
 
 bent pins and shiners, dwell with great prolixity upon 
 the merits of some new invention in fishing-tackle. If 
 we may believe their own words, men who, in the spring 
 at college, cannot get into a barge without tipping it 
 over, in summer up among the lakes chase deer and 
 shoot falls with the "happiest combination of grace and 
 efficiency." The climate of northern Maine is very 
 favorable for puffery and braggadocio, and the Adiron- 
 dacks have even produced a book. The habit of 
 vaporing thus induced does not confine itself to the ex- 
 ploits of a summer, but lingers along through life> 
 dressing everything in rainbows. When my friend 
 first showed me a boquet which he said he hastily 
 gathered from his conservatory, being fond of flowers, 
 I thought that some pleasant afternoon I would walk 
 over and examine it : but when I ascertained that the 
 conservatory consisted of a bee-hive turned glass-side 
 up and contained nothing but a flowering cabbage, I 
 determined not to go. 
 
 It would be easy to prolong this part of the subject, 
 but let us suppose that the ladies have all been dis- 
 . posed of and the trout all caught, that the merchants of 
 New Haven have re-opened their stores, that the furni- 
 ture wagons once more creak about the campus, and 
 that college has gone into winter quarters. It is now, 
 especially, that the evils of which I have spoken begin 
 to appear. One might, perhaps, get along very well if 
 his time were unlimited, but when you can barely man- 
 age to play daily as many games of whist as you think 
 necessary to develop your memory and reasoning pow- 
 ers, and to take the walk which you promised your 
 mother you would not forget, how in the world are yo^ 
 going to attend to the voluminous correspondence 
 which the summer campaign engendered?
 
 274 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 Again, a long vacation tends to dissipate that whole- 
 some respect for one's instructors which annuals instill. 
 It is hard to realize that the companionable gentleman 
 who allowed you to pay for the iced drinks in August, 
 will flunk you without a moment's warning in Septem- 
 ber. 
 
 Lastly, long vacations cause a subsequent neglect of 
 college duties. We come here primarily to learn, and 
 upon the studies of the curriculum we ought to spend 
 our best energies. Outside influences unquestionably 
 possess great developing power, and are worthy of 
 serious and considerate attention. Like the outside of 
 a letter, they are useful and attractive, but, after all, as 
 Tony Lumpkin justly observed, "The inside of a letter 
 generally contains the cream of the correspondence."
 
 inrcsljman fiains. 
 
 MANY are the distinctive parts of the student's year 
 and called by various names, but none is so distinctive- 
 ly termed as Freshman Rains. We have the Third 
 Term or rather we had for it has now been officially 
 merged in the second term, but this, another name for 
 the spring, the pastoral part of the student's life, is not 
 allotted to any particular part or department of the uni- 
 versity ; for all participate in its visions of swarthy 
 University nines, crews and teams. The very name 
 calls up long loungings on the fence, beatific snab in 
 their new plumage, walks into the suburbs, and an easy 
 time generally. We have too the Winter Term, sugges- 
 tive of the leafless elms and bare barrack-like buildings ; 
 of ulsters, old hats and heavy top boots, in which the 
 heart of the student rejoiceth exceedingly ; and if you 
 are a Senior and the cosy luxuriance of South's open 
 fires is open to you, of rooms lighted by that flickering 
 fire-light which is the beau-ideal of the romantic man's 
 vision of comfort. 
 
 But to the humble Freshman (for he certainly ought 
 to be humble) alone is consecrated this damp, disagree- 
 able, especially so by contrast with the halcyon days 
 which precede it, an epithet most expressive and preg- 
 nant of all, homesicky season. A genius indeed must 
 he have been who called it first by name. Naming it 
 did much toward adding to it those characteristics 
 which it lacked. For nameless, it is a dull, plain, pro-
 
 276 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 saic succession of rainy days ; everything is dark, every 
 body subdued and all nature seems shrouded in a half 
 mourning gray. But add to these the characteristics 
 which the mind so readily supplies when a name has 
 prepared for them a nucleus round which to cluster, 
 and what a dismal picture do we have. " Rains " alone 
 is bad enough, for mankind inherits from its ancestors 
 since the flood, a dread of long showers. As comes 
 down the rain, down sinks the barometer of our feel- 
 ings, and three or four days of wet weather with its 
 necessary accompaniments of darkness, mud, wetness 
 and general laziness induced by the difficulty of getting 
 from place to place, will make the most successful 
 optimist descend to a cynicism or at least render him a 
 follower of Heraclitus. But now add the qualifying 
 word "Freshman," and of all compounds you will 
 have the most hopeless. To the Freshman himself it 
 is a most cheering thought that this is his special sea- 
 son ; for this, he is responsible. It is looked upon as 
 something he brought with him ; a Pandora's Box, 
 which he himself has opened. He fancies the Senior 
 stalking solemnly and gloomily along, blames him for 
 it all as he wraps his dripping ulster more closely about 
 him and pulls his favorite old white hat into a still more 
 ridiculous shape. He cannot but feel it is scarcely fair 
 that he who suffers the most should be held responsible 
 for it all. Aside from this self-reproach, however, can 
 anything more gloomy and hopeless be imagined than 
 the lonely Freshman during these rainy days ? 
 
 You, perhaps, have had time to become accustomed 
 to the vagaries of New Haven weather, from the season 
 when all those elegant brick pavements are hid beneath 
 a smooth sheet of ice, to the sweltering, thirsty days 
 during which Traeger is par excellence, the student's
 
 FRESHMAN RAINS. 277 
 
 friend ; but he has had no experiences of its weather 
 save pleasant ones. It is natural his imagination should 
 picture the campus as bathed in warm sunlight with the 
 alumni tent always standing ready for his reception, 
 with its free lemonade in the center. For this is the 
 picture he has carried with him throughout the summer ; 
 remembering the long lines of cigarette-fiends upon the 
 fence, he thinks fondly of his " white-paper" and imagines 
 that he, too, will be now left in peace to enjoy that joy- 
 ous student-life ; with its " Chummy, hand me the 
 cigars," or " Come, lads, let's for a lark," or some 
 equally likely and natural conception of his daily con- 
 versation. He expects to meet his Steerforth, or Pen- 
 dennis, or Grey, or Drysdale, or Hardy, instead of Tom 
 Robinson and Bill Tompkins. His fall is somewhat 
 sudden, reminding one of a plunge into a cold bath of 
 realities ; and when to this is added a cold shower-bath 
 the result will depend upon his temper. Finding, 
 at his present state of progress, that college is but a 
 large school, that the "collegians" are but his old 
 school-fellows, and to some the most painful surprise 
 of all, finding he must work harder than he ever before 
 imagined against a competition which (to quote " Four 
 Years at Yale ") he " never before dreamed of," it is 
 likely, if he be of womanish or romantic stuff, that nos- 
 talgia will claim him for its own ; or if of a different dis- 
 position, he may learn to play penny-ante and say damn. 
 But I hope not. Imagine yourself in his position, or 
 (if you prefer Anglo-Saxon) put yourself in his place. 
 Conceive first the Freshman's room ; with its cylinder 
 stove which has such a bad habit of going out nights ; 
 his sofa, small, narrow and inhospitable ; his rocking- 
 chair and table, which handed down from older genera- 
 tions, continually remind him of his newness ; and
 
 278 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 finally his student-lamp oh, his student-lamp, with its 
 flickering, enough to bring tears to any eyes ; its goings 
 out, just at the most critical moments ; its unstable 
 equilibrium, enough in itself to occupy an able-bodied 
 man's full time. Why, a student-lamp is a fiend incar- 
 nate, and ought only to be sold with a lavatory, nail- 
 brush, thousand pound weight (to fasten it down), rub- 
 ber shade, malleable glass chimney, another lamp to 
 give light, a regulator, and a boy to tend it. And even 
 then the odds would be about forty to one that it would 
 blow up, catch fire and have to be thrown out of the 
 window. Excuse the digression, but a student-lamp is 
 a hobby of mine. 
 
 Add to this already desolate room, the Freshman-year 
 curriculum, the awful thought of Sophomores, the gen- 
 eral feeling of having lost your individuality and of be- 
 ing of no particular use to anyone, especially yourself, 
 and place a small Freshman in the middle of the room 
 studying the sensuous Euclid, while the fire is dying 
 out and the distant howling of the belated Sophomore 
 is heard in the distance. Having thus prepared your 
 , subject, turn on the rain. The result will be a letter 
 home somewhat to the following effect : 
 
 YALE COLLEGE, . 
 
 My Respected Parent : 
 
 Would my temporary return to the paternal man- 
 sion at all disconcert your plans? 
 
 Your respectful Son, 
 
 The result of which will be seen in a few days on the 
 receipt by mail of a package containing a few articles, 
 as follows : A comforter marked " From Mother," a 
 check for $1.50 signed by the respected head of his
 
 FRESHMAN RAINS. 279 
 
 noble house, a pen-wiper marked " From Sister Jane," 
 and " The Printer Boy," inside the fly leaf of which 
 may be found the following legend : "To Johnnie, from 
 his affectionate Teacher, Mary Bodgers." Do not scoff 
 at this, 'tis the affection of faithful hearts ; but some- 
 how it doesn't prevent " B " from flunking him, just 
 
 the same, in the morning. But bear up, O ye Fresh- 
 man, it will not last ; we have all been through it and 
 thoroughly sympathize with you in your trouble. Buy 
 an ulster, steal a Sophomore's hat and defy the ele- 
 ments ; letting not the storm without ruffle the calm 
 serenity within.
 
 "Backe and side go bare, go bare, 
 Both foot and hande go colde ; 
 But, bellye, God sende thee good ale yenough, 
 Whether it be newe or olde." 
 
 BISHOP STILL. 
 
 IT has long been the custom when a great public ser- 
 vant retires from active life, to speak of his past services 
 and to wish him happiness in his retirement. This is, 
 therefore, a most fitting time to write a few words about 
 that illustrious servant of Yale, Frank Moriarty. 
 
 Mr. Moriarty's aim in life has been to contribute to 
 the happiness of man, and he considered keeping an 
 ale-house the best way of accomplishing his aim. Then, 
 having served his generation faithfully, he retired for a 
 while into seclusion. It used to be his delight to be 
 surrounded by the jovial youths pouring down liba- 
 tions to Bacchus. His nights were most pleasant when 
 he saw his salon filled with the wits of the college ; and 
 as the wits used to congregate here in great numbers, his 
 walls were ever resounding with the boisterous laughter 
 of youths free from all care. 
 
 Among these crowds there was great diversity of 
 character, and their character and behavior were indi- 
 cated by their size. A party of two or three was con- 
 templative generally. They conversed in a low tone, 
 and never joked. Their heads were close together and 
 secrets were unbosomed, ambitious schemes announced, 
 personal triumphs and failures discussed. Then as
 
 MORIARTY'S. 281 
 
 they drank more ale, they became somewhat warmer 
 in their talk ; drunkards were denounced, enemies 
 condemned as fools, friends extolled, and other like 
 topics of conversation indulged in. Such were the 
 happy evenings close friends enjoyed, and such a place 
 was Moriarty's to them. 
 
 There was a second crowd about which I dislike to 
 speak. This crowd was usually composed of about 
 five or six men ; these gentlemen were extremists in 
 pleasure. They usually entered with unsteady steps, and 
 their clamorous demand for liquor showed plainly their 
 condition. Their conduct always proved them to be 
 beyond control. They shouted_ with great vigor, and 
 their curses were disagreeable to hear. They were sel- 
 dom sitting still, but on the contrary were continually 
 rising up to shake hands with new-comers. It is a 
 peculiar shake of the hands which drunken fellows al- 
 ways give, for they will never stop till their friends 
 see the need of a forcible separation. Undoubtedly we 
 have all seen such crowds at Moriarty's and therefore 
 the narration of their intemperance would, if continued 
 farther, become offensive. 
 
 The third and last set that used to come together at 
 Mory's was the largest in number and the grandest in 
 behavior. It consisted of about thirty men. For the 
 use of these crowds Mr. Moriarty generously surren- 
 dered his two parlors on the second floor. Then what 
 a night was there ! " nodes coenaque dedm /" The 
 two long tables are arranged, and an eager crowd gather 
 round. The generous host of the evening rises and 
 shouts to Cook to bring up an immense number of 
 ales, hot-scotches and ciders. For I would remark, that 
 there were always some gentlemen in those crowds not 
 yet of age, and these were the ones who took cider. There
 
 282 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 follows a sumptuous feast of Golden Bucks, Welsh 
 Rarebits, Sardines, and this is succeeded by the cigars. 
 Such feasts were the gods' in ancient days, with the ex- 
 ception that the goddesses were always present, while 
 in these days the goddesses are always wanting. And 
 now begins the singing ; every one feels in duty bound 
 to sing in'as loud a tone as possible, and the air is rent 
 with hymns of praise to the presiding God of Wine. 
 For a moment there is a lull in the storm, and no sound 
 is heard save the clash of the knives and forks, with 
 here and there the merry tinkle of a pewter mug and a 
 glass. Then again a song bursts forth, louder, more 
 boisterous, more riotous than before. One and all are 
 now in a wild seance of pleasure, and can scarcely be 
 distinguished in the midst of the huge volumes of 
 smoke. Here let us leave them, happy, good-natured, 
 on a royal frolic. Many a time has Moriarty seen all 
 this and enjoyed it keenly. As he walked down the 
 stairs from the second floor, he must have thought what 
 rich humor was his, when he painted over the front-door 
 the golden letters, " Quiet House." 
 
 While writing so much of the men who patronized 
 the Quiet House, I must not omit Mrs. Moriarty. For 
 she formed no small part of this establishment, and 
 always performed her duty right matronly. Her appear- 
 ance one would hardly call handsome, but her face ex- 
 pressed good nature. Her manners were rather re- 
 served. She seemed to have an exalted idea of her high 
 station behind the bar, for she was never known to de- 
 mean herself by handing around the ale, but steadily 
 maintained her position at the pumps, and made Cook 
 and her maid wait on us. Mrs. Moriarty was of a size 
 that one admired not a little ; short, thick, and im- 
 mensely broad. She and her husband were so stout,
 
 MORIARTY'S. 283 
 
 that when both were behind the bar, a third person was 
 never known to enter it. 
 
 Thus much for Mrs. Moriarty, and now to say a few 
 words about her assistant, the decorous maid with the 
 chaste countenance. Her duty was cooking Welsh 
 Rarebits. She was always treated with profound re- 
 spect ; but whether this proceeded from the good man- 
 ners of the students or the want of beauty in the maid, 
 would be hard to tell. But however this may be, there 
 never occurred any such thing as Tom Browning it with 
 her. For I am sure she worshipped at " Chaste 
 Minerva's " shrine. 
 
 Last among the subordinates of this house was Cook, 
 oo being pronounced like oo in fool ; but as he was 
 generally considered a fool, it is not proper to write 
 much about him. He was remarkable for nothing ex- 
 cept his low forehead and sorrowful expression of face, 
 as if he had met with a serious calamity in his youth. 
 It is sufficient to say Mr. Moriarty always treated him 
 with such contempt as Jupiter undoubtedly did Gany- 
 mede. 
 
 Such was Frank Moriarty's Quiet House. Such was 
 the favorite ale-house of Yale for many years. Not 
 only the dissipated men met here, but the sober and 
 well-behaved gathered here, at times. There is, there- 
 fore, a grateful remembrance of this place in the hearts 
 of all Yalensians. For one seldom forgets the spot 
 where he has spent happy hours.
 
 Smoking. 
 
 Do you see how West Rock stands white with snow ? 
 The trees, too, can no longer bear their load, and the 
 river's course has been checked by the sharp frost. 
 Turn on the steam-heater to thaw the cold, and pour 
 out, O Mrs. Moriarty, an ardent liquid from the Cale- 
 donian jar. Thus would Horace sing on the approach 
 of the winter term. The concluding lines about the 
 virgines ; or rather, as with more truth, the poet himself 
 remarks, puellae risus ab angulo Church and Chapel 
 streets, he would be obliged to omit : since at this 
 season of the year the lenes sub noctem susurri are heard 
 less frequently in the streets of this city of elms. But 
 still, we moderns have one resource which was denied 
 to the children of antiquity. That their deities posssess- 
 ed it, but kept it through a mean jealousy to themselves, 
 there is little doubt ; for surely, if the idols of the In- 
 dian savages were delighted by their worshipers' puff- 
 ing fragrant tobacco smoke into their nostrils, the 
 dwellers on lofty Olympus could not have been de- 
 prived of the greatest of human blessings. And when 
 my gifted friend enquires, " was that nectar, beer, or 
 whiskey-toddy?" I answer, neither; but the very com- 
 position of the word proves it to have been nicotine. 
 
 What a revolution in the whole range of theif litera- 
 ture would the Romans have experienced, had they pos- 
 sessed tobacco ! If Tityrus, when extended under the 
 shade of that wide-spreading beech-tree, had puffed
 
 SMOKING. 285 
 
 away at a good clay dudeen filled with cut-plug, instead 
 of cultivating the sylvestran muse on an oaten pipe, 
 how much more satisfaction would he have occasioned 
 to the passers-by, as well as to the generations of school- 
 boys who have toiled in silent anguish, or muttered 
 curses not loud but deep over the praises of Amaryllis. 
 Imagine the scathing scorn with which Juvenal would 
 
 have pursued the cigarette-fiend, and rejoice, Oh , 
 
 that you did not live in his day. But Horace, dear old 
 
 Horace, whom even two terms under "G " could 
 
 not entirely deprive of charm, how he would have rev- 
 eled in its enjoyment ! What an exquisite ode, "Ad 
 meant marts spuman" would he have left us ! With 
 what gusto would he have added a box of Havanas to 
 the list of good things which he requires of Thaliarchus ; 
 but, unfortunately, he lived in an age of darkness, and 
 his sum-mum bonum was a judicious mixture of Falern- 
 ian and philosophy. 
 
 "Oh, lived he to recant that wild opinion, 
 
 And sing, as I would that I could sing, of yore, 
 
 I was not born, alas, the Muses' minion ; 
 I'm not poetical, or even blue. 
 
 And he, we know, but strives on waxen pinion, 
 Whoe'er he be, that entertains the view 
 Of emulating Pindar, and will be 
 Sponsor at last to some now nameless sea." 
 
 Evoe Tobacco ! Evoe Tobacco ! I cry, as I prostrate my- 
 self before thy shrine. Why are thy praises neglected, 
 while in song Bacchus reigns supreme? Much more 
 worthy of praise art thou. From thee we obtain no 
 wild desire to betray our dearest secrets to the first- 
 comer : no rage for battle ; no racking headache the 
 next morning. Far otherwise. Thou inspires! discre- 
 tion ; thou promotest secrecy ; even among the un- 
 tutored savages didst thou deserve the title of " the
 
 286 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 pipe of peace." All praise to noble Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 Greater glory deserves he for introducing thee to civil- 
 ized mankind, than for all his victories over the Span- 
 iards. Had I been Pope, to which position modest 
 merit but rarely attains, then had I excommunicated the 
 cruel king who beheaded him and wrote a diatribe 
 against the plant ; while, heretic as he was, St. Walter 
 Nicotius had headed the calendar, a distinction which 
 he well earned by his narrow escape from martyrdom 
 by drowning, when his servant, mistaking the smoke 
 which issued from his nostrils for a general conflagra- 
 tion of his clothes, attempted to extinguish it by delug- 
 ing him with water. Richly did he deserve, with com- 
 pound interest, the sum which Nero offered to the 
 inventor of. a new pleasure. 
 
 I have tried the plant in all its forms, the insidious 
 cigarette, the fragrant Havana, the mild Manila, the 
 heart-comforting pipe. I have tasted all. I have puffed 
 the Irish dudeen ; I have kissed the lips of the ma- 
 chine constructed of horn and porcelain, so dear to 
 the natives of the Fatherland ; I have inhaled, at the 
 Centennial, tembek from the soothing nargilay, which 
 the cross-legged Turk enjoys, reclining on his divan ; 
 I have watched the delicate cream-color mantle on the 
 snowy bosom of a meerschaum, but I still remain faith- 
 ful to my first love, the sweet briarwood. 
 
 The cigarette, I regret to be obliged to condemn. 
 Not entirely, however, but merely as a venial sin. That 
 nymph has her charms, I confess ; for a neophyte she is 
 perfection. But she is too jealous in her exactions on 
 her votaries. She sets her seal on the thumbs of their 
 left hands. She requires them to wear, in token of her 
 sovereignty, a coating of burnt paper and nicotine upon 
 their lungs. Forty or fifty times a day must they sacri-
 
 SMOKING. 287 
 
 fice to her shrine. Unhappy are they when away ; not 
 satisfied, when propitiating her. Praises be unto Zeus ! 
 I have escaped from the thraldom of Circe. 
 
 After a good dinner a thing which, alas, one but 
 rarely obtains in this home of the Muses after a good 
 dinner, one of those days which are to be marked with 
 a white stone in this barren desert life I acknowledge, 
 that to obtain the acme of human happiness, a good 
 cigar is absolutely necessary. Then, with your two 
 lower waistcoat buttons open and your hands folded 
 you bid defiance to fortune, and say, with calm satisfac- 
 tion, " Fate cannot touch me ; I have dined to-day." 
 But too frequent use blunts its enjoyment ; and you 
 will never find in a confirmed cigar-smoker the calm 
 placidity, the unruffled philosophy of one who cherishes 
 a pipe. For the man who is without this inestimable 
 companion in life's troubles, I always feel a sincere 
 pity. It is ever useful. Are you cheerful? it adds to 
 your joy. Are you sad ? it consoles you. Better than a 
 wife, it divides your sorrows without quadrupling your 
 expenses. It never slanders you behind your back. It 
 never betrays the secrets you confide to its ear. 
 
 You are feeling blue. Your tactful friend, Candour 
 has just informed you that X. has stated his opinion 
 that you are an ass. Having always, heretofore, con- 
 sidered X. an admirer of your genius, this announce- 
 ment inspires you with a conviction of the falsity of 
 mankind. You declaim on the vanity of life in general, 
 and college-life in particular. The conviction that this 
 is a world of sin and misery is forced upon your mind, 
 and, on reaching your room, you throw yourself down 
 on the sofa, feeling utterly dissatisfied with things in 
 general. A few puffs and how everything changes ! 
 The halo of smoke which soon surrounds you magni-
 
 288 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 fies the virtues, while it shadows the faults of mankind. 
 Everything seems to smooth itself out. What do you 
 care for the opinion of an Aleck like X ? Anyway the 
 country isn't going to the devil, even if Tilden is elect- 
 ed. You fall to castle-building, or reminiscences of old 
 times, with unruffled spirits. Then, too, the habits of 
 meditation which its use inspires. Even my friend 
 Placidus, who takes more solid enjoyment from a pipe 
 than any man I know, says that he never watches the 
 last ring of smoke curl up to the ceiling and then vanish 
 into infinity, without being irresistibly reminded, "sic 
 transit gloria mundi ;" how the thoughts of the friends 
 you have won and lost, the triumphs and reverses you 
 have experienced, during your ownership of it, rise be- 
 fore you. It is the only combination of comfort, ro- 
 mance, and mental discipline which I ever met with. 
 
 But I might prattle on forever in praise of this de- 
 lightful employment, did I not know, gentle reader, that 
 I have already too sorely tried your patience. In con- 
 clusion, let me only advise you, have you been rejected 
 by a girl, or a society, or both ; has the hand of the 
 Lord or of the Faculty been heavy upon you ; have any 
 of these, or have still weightier misfortunes rendered 
 you a prey to despondency, do not attempt to drown 
 your sorrows in the flowing-bowl, but try a remedy more 
 efficacious than any to be found in the three volumes of 
 Robert Burton's delightful book, "Nunc fumo pellite
 
 Pt, 
 
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