ms, which were indeed very pleasant, and by no means dear
as it seemed to me. I was to breakfast in my rooms, dine with the family
at one o'clock, and sup about town.

Then there was a grand council as to what I had better study, and over my
prospects in life; and it was decided that, as the law-students were the
most distinguished or swell of all, I had better be a lawyer. So it was
arranged that I should attend Mittermayer's and others' lectures; to all
of which I cheerfully assented. The next step was to give a grand supper
in honour of my arrival. After the dinner and the wine, I drank twelve
_schoppens_ of beer, and then excused myself on the plea of having
letters to write. I believe, however, that I forgot to write the
letters. And here I may say, once for all, that having discovered that,
if I had no gift for mathematics, I had a great natural talent for
Rheinwein and lager, I did not bury that talent in a napkin, but, like
the rest of my friends, made the most of it, firstly, during two
semesters in Heidelberg:

"Then I bolted off to Munich,
And within the year,
Underneath my German tunic
Stowed whole butts of beer;
For I drank like fifty fishes,
Drank till all was blue,
For whenever I was vicious
I was thirsty too."

The result of which "dire deboshing" was that, having come to Europe with
a soul literally attenuated and starved for want of the ordinary gaiety
and amusement which all youth requires, my life in Princeton having been
one continued strain of a sobriety which continually sank into subdued
melancholy, and a body just ready to yield to consumption, I grew
vigorous and healthy, or, as the saying is, "hearty as a buck." I
believe that if my Cousin Sam had gone on with me even-pace, that he
would have lived till to-day. When we came abroad I seemed to be the
weakest; he returned, and died in a few months from our hereditary
disease. How many hecatombs of young men have been murdered by
"seriousness" and "total abstinence," miscalled _temperance_, in our
American colleges, can never be known; perhaps it is as well that it
never will be; for if it were, there would be a rush to the other
extreme, which would "upset society." And here be it noted that, with
all our inordinate national or international Anglo-Saxon sense of
superiority to everybody and everything foreign, we are in the _main_
thing--that is, the truly rational enjoyment of life and the art