of viewing and
treating the subject of slavery. One of them was so amused and excited
that he lost all self-control. He threw down his book, caught me with
his two hands about the waist, and tickled me so that I fell upon the
floor. Then they raised a shout. We have cool nights here, sometimes, in
the warmest weather, and we keep, on the foot-boards of our beds, cotton
comforters, called _delusions_, because they are so downy and light. Two
of the students took the Senior's comforter and laid it on me; then four
of them sat down, one on each corner, to keep me underneath. I have told
you that it was a sultry August day. I thought that I should smother. I
told them so, as well as my choked voice would allow; but one of them
said, in a soft, meek tone, as I writhed in distress, "Hush, Gustavus,
lie still; you are certainly laboring under a delusion." This was all
the more painful from its being so cruelly true, in a literal sense,
while I knew that they had reference to my views with regard to freedom,
in the word "delusion." What sustained me in those moments, dear Aunty?
It was not that I had myself stood by when this trick was played on
Freshmen, and encouraged it by my actions; no, a higher and holier power
than conscience of wrong-doing wrought upon me in those moments. Oh, I
thought, the very cotton which fills this comforter, was cultivated by
the hand of a slave. And shall I complain at being nearly smothered by
it, when I remember what an incubus slavery is to the poor creature who
gathered this cotton, and what an incubus it is to our unhappy land? I
was delivered at last from my load, because my tormentors were tired of
their sport. Would that there were some prospect that they who load
cruel burdens on the slave were increasingly tired of their work!

They would not, however, let me rise. So, thought I, when we have taken
the burden of slavery off from the poor negro, unholy prejudice against
color keeps him from rising to a level with the rest of the community. I
begged that I might get up. They told me that my morning exertions
required longer rest. I told them that I must get my Greek. Whereupon
one of them stood over me, with his arms raised in a deploring attitude,
and said,--

"Sternitur infelix!--
--Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."

This, dear Aunty, is the lamentation of a Latin poet over a Greek
soldier lying prostrate on the battle-field, far from home;--"and dying
he remembers his sweet