most eminent
school and drill-master in New England. Under him I just escaped
becoming a classical scholar and also nearly lost the chance of ever
acquiring a love for the classics; for it was drill, paradigms, rules,
exceptions, scansion, in short, all that pertains to the external
apparatus of the Greek and Latin tongues. Often we spent two hours on
eight lines of Homer. The father of literature became a Procrustean,
grammatical bed on which we were to be stretched, and it did nearly
exterminate every one of us. For my own part, I was possessed with an
intemperate haste to read Homer straight through as fast as I could; for
I felt, without exactly knowing, that there was something in the epic I
wanted, yes, I needed and must have. Checked in this by the rigors of
the recitation room I lost much of my interest in study, and spent the
time which was supposed to be given to text books in reading all the
classic and English poetry I could find, and in valorous attempts at
composition, both prose and verse. This I by no means now regret, and
rejoice that my tuition escaped the Spartan discipline no less than the
present pragmatical curricula.

At length I was fitted for college and admitted to Harvard. Misfortunes
culminated at the same moment. I did not remain. I was too ill for
study, and suddenly the bottom of my perfidious purse dropped out.
Bitter was my disappointment. But in another year I began a new career
which brought me happiness, new opportunities, new friends and dividends
from Utopian investments. Health and hope, my natural inheritance,
returned. Boyhood was gone, but not the invincible boy.

As in the Parable I had traveled far, uncertain of the road. My diet had
been mostly husks, but how sweet! Arriving at last at hospitable doors,
I could receive without penitence, without tears the welcome long
prepared for me. Thenceforth I submitted myself with more patience and
trust to the destiny which had been awaiting me throughout my
apprenticeships. My destiny became my choice.

AVE ATGUE VALE

I shall not pass this way again;
But near by is the town where I was born;
I loved it well.

And near my heart my mother State;
She wreathed her sword with freedom, learning, law
When tyrants fell.

Three words from Athens held me long;
Nothing-too-much, proportion, harmony;
By these excel.

I never hurried for the goal,
But like the tort