d out a torrent of words and, young though I was, I
felt that they were not empty. There was plenty of thought and
well-arranged knowledge. This pregnant fluency always characterised
his public deliverances. Of late years it has been reported that
he had at first a defect of speech, and to this the extraordinary
momentum of his utterance was due. In the early time I never heard of
this. He did not stammer, nor was there other impediment; only this
preternaturally rapid outpouring on occasion, from a man usually
quiet. When I heard him preach in later years the peculiarity
remained. It was the Phillips Brooks of the Institute of 1770,
matured, however, into noble spiritual power.

Brooks had attained nearly or quite his full height on entering
college, nor was he slender. His large frame was too loosely knit
to admit of his becoming an athlete. He had no interest in outdoor
sports. I do not recall that he was warmly diligent in study or
general reading. His mind worked quickly and easily. Without effort he
stood well in the class, absorbing whatever other knowledge he touched
without much searching. His countenance and head in boyhood were
noticeably fine, the forehead broad and full, the beardless face
lighting up readily with an engaging smile, the eyes large and
lustrous. It was evident that a good and able man must come out from
the boy Phillips Brooks, but no one, not even President Walker, who
was credited with an almost uncanny penetration in divining the
future of his boys, would have predicted the career of Brooks. Though
decorous and high-minded he was not marked as a religious man. If he
were so, he kept it to himself. Though sometimes hilarious, he was
never ungentle or inconsiderate, a wholesome, happy youth, having due
thought for others and for his own walk and conversation, but without
touch of formal piety. When I was initiated into the Hasty Pudding
Club, I recognised in a tall fiend whose trouser legs were very
apparent beneath the too scanty black drapery which enveloped him, no
other than Phillips Brooks. He was one of the most vociferous of
the imps who tossed me in the blanket, and later, when the elaborate
manuscript I had prepared was brought forth, was conspicuously
energetic in daubing with hot mush from a huge wooden spoon the sheets
I had composed with much painstaking. The grand event in the "Pudding"
of our time was the performance of Fielding's extravaganza of _Tom
Thumb_. I think it was