e an obsolete mood--the old-fashioned humor of
melancholy. I don't suppose now that a light-hearted, French kind of
chap like you can understand, in the least, what those fine, crusty
old Elizabethans meant when they wrote,

'There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy.'

This noisy generation has lost their secret. As for me, I am content
with the grays and drabs. I think the brighter colors would disturb my
mood. I know it's not a large life, but it is a safe one."

I did not at the moment remember that this had been Armstrong's very
saying fifteen years ago, but some unconscious association led me to
mention him.

"Armstrong and you have changed places in one respect, I should
think," said I. "He is keeping a boarding-school somewhere in
Connecticut. And instead of leading a Tulkinghorny existence in the
New York University building, as he firmly intended, he has married
and produced a numerous offspring, I hear."

"Yes, poor fellow!" said Berkeley; "I fancy that he is dreadfully
overrun and hard up. There always was something absurdly domestic
about Armstrong. They say he has grown red, fat, and bald. Think of a
man with Armstrong's education--and he had some talent, too--keeping a
sort of Dotheboys Hall! I haven't seen him for eight or nine years.
The last time was at Jersey City, and I had just time to shake hands
with him. He was with a lot of other pedagogues, all going up to a
teachers' convention, or some such dreary thing, at Albany."

I had an opportunity for verifying Berkeley's account of Armstrong a
few days after my conversation with the former. The Pestalozzian
Institute, in the pleasant little village of Thimbleville, was
situated, as its prospectus informed the public, on "one of the most
elegant residence streets, in one of the healthiest and most beautiful
rural towns of Eastern Connecticut." Over the entrance gate was a
Roman arch bearing the inscription "Pestalozzian Institute" in large
gilt letters. The temple of learning itself was a big, bare, white
house at some distance from the street, with an orchard and kitchen
garden on one side, and a roomy play-ground on the other. The latter
was in possession of some small boys, who were kicking a broken-winded
foot-ball about the field with an amount of noise greatly in excess of
its occasion. To my question where I could find Mr. Armstrong, they
answered eagerly: "Mr. Armstrong? Yes, sir. Y