ch associates? What I did do,--avoid them,
shun them, live in utter estrangement from all their haunts, their
ways, and themselves. If the proud man who has achieved success in
life encounters immense difficulties when, separating himself from
his fellows, he acknowledges no companionship, nor admits any to his
confidence, it may be imagined what must be the situation of one who
adopts this isolation without any claim to superiority whatever. As can
easily be supposed, I was the butt of my fellow students, the subject of
many sarcasms and practical jokes. The whole of my Freshman year was a
martyrdom. I had no peace, was rhymed on by poetasters, caricatured by
draughtsmen, till the name of Potts became proverbial for all that was
eccentric, ridiculous, and absurd.

Curran has said, "One can't draw an indictment against a nation;" in the
same spirit did I discover "one cannot fight his whole division." For a
while I believe I experienced a sort of heroism in my solitary state;
I felt the spirit of a Coriolanus in my heart, and muttered, "I banish
_you! _" but this self-supplied esteem did not last long, and I fell
into a settled melancholy. The horrible truth was gradually forcing its
way slowly, clearly, through the mists of my mind, that there might
be something in all this sarcasm, and I can remember to this hour, the
day--ay, and the very place--wherein the questions flashed across me: Is
my hair as limp, my nose as long, my back as arched, my eyes as green as
they have pictured them? Do I drawl so fearfully in my speech? Do I drag
my heavy feet along so ungracefully? Good heavens! have they possibly a
grain of fact to sustain all this fiction against me?

And if so,--horrible thought,--am I the stuff to go forth and seek
adventures? Oh, the ineffable bitterness of this reflection! I remember
it in all its anguish, and even now, after years of such experience as
have befallen few men, I can recall the pain it cost me. While I was yet
in the paroxysm of that sorrow, which assured me that I was not made for
doughty deeds, nor to captivate some fair princess, I chanced to fall
upon a little German volume entitled "Wald Wandelungen und Abentheure,"
von Heinrich Stebbe. Forest rambles and adventures, and of a student,
too! for so Herr Stebbe announces himself, in a short introduction to
the reader. I am not going into any account of his book. It is in
Voss's Leipzig Catalogue, and not unworthy of perusal by those who are