treacherous inseparable prefix had imparted to my "leaving them" an
unlooked-for emphasis. The laugh for the moment was on me, but only
for the moment. A little later Knopff was telling me of the old
manuscripts in the library illuminated gorgeously by "de pious and
skilful monkeys of de Middle Ages." He was a bright fellow, and I have
hoped I might encounter his name in some honourable connection. If he
survived it was as one of the _unbekannt_, an affix very dreadful
to young aspirants for university honours.

As regards the men who, during the past seventy-five years have so
greatly widened our scientific knowledge, I have had contact with
those of Germany only for brief periods, and in the outer circle. As
to their American brethren, fate has been more kind to me. I have sat
as a pupil at the feet of the most eminent, and with some I have stood
in the bond of friendship.

Divinity Hall, at Harvard University, has always had a pleasant
seclusion. Near the end of its long, well-shaded avenue, it had in the
rear the fine trees of Norton's Woods, and fifty years ago pleasant
fields stretching before. Of late the Ampelopsis has taken it into its
especial cherishing, draping it with a close green luxuriance that can
scarcely be matched elsewhere. Moreover it is dominated by the lordly
pile of the Museum of Comparative Zooelogy. "Whence and what art thou,
execrable shape!" a theologue once exclaimed as the walls were rising,
feeling that there must always be a battle between what the old Hall
stood for and the new building was to foster. But the structures have
gone on in harmony, and many a devotee of science has had hospitable
welcome in the quarters intended for the recruits of what so many
suppose to be the opposing camp. There was a notable case of this kind
in my own time.

One pleasant afternoon a group of "divinities" (Ye gods, that that
should have been our title in the nomenclature of the University!)
were chatting under one of the western porches. Talk turned upon an
instructor, whose hand upon our essays was felt to be soft rather than
critical, and who was, therefore, set low. "By Holy Scripture," broke
out one, "a soft hand is a good thing. A soft hand, sir, turneth away
wrath." The window close by opened into the room of Simon Newcomb, a
youth who had no part in our studies, but of whom we made a chum. In
those days he could laugh at such a joke as it blew in at his window
with the thistle-down,--indeed