The legendary consisting of original pieces, principally illustrative of American history, scenery, and manners |
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LEAVES FROM A COLLEGER'S ALBUM. |
 | LEAVES FROM A COLLEGER'S ALBUM. The legendary |  |
LEAVES FROM A COLLEGER'S ALBUM.
Horace Fritz! thou inimitable dandy! thou strange
compound of quiz, mimic, and cavalier! with thy nice
honor, thy racy humor, and thine exquisite quizzery so
mingled, that no one could tell whether it was likelier
that thou wouldst die harlequin or hero—master of the
art of elegant idleness; pet of the gentler sex, and thy
tailor's oracle! accomplished in everything but that for
which thou wast sent, and envied for everything but
thy noblest element—the mind thou dist neglect—
Horace Fritz! I say—did it ever enter that beautiful
head of thine, whose hyacinthine curls and perfect contour
are before me, this moment, to the very life, that,
Proteus as thou art, thou wouldst ever figure in a veracious
and consistent history?
Charles Wimbledon! thou prince of college good-fellows!
didst thou ever dream of being the hero of a
story? Who that had seen thee, in thy faded brocade and
slippers, shuffling to a recitation from thine unopened
Euler—who that had witnessed thine imperturbable
gravity while dazzling the simple intellects of thy tutor
thine ignorance—who that had seen thee, in thy moods
of philosophy, posed upon an abstract principle, with
thy chin resting on thy two palms, and thy hair like an
ill painted Medusa—thy legs thrust from under the table
and resting on thy heels, and thine eyes, beautiful with
intellectual light, fixed on the large nail in the wall
which served thee as a tether for thine imagination—in
a word, who that had not eaten with thee, and drunk
with thee, and slept with thee, night after night and
term after term, yawned with thee in thy gravities and
been convulsed with thee in thy gaieties, would have
dreamed that thou couldst, by any hyperbole, be made
the hero of a story?
Job Clark! thou curiosity in human nature! thou
great, unsightly, romantic, true hearted, delightful fellow!
with a spirit so `tall' that thou walkest ever in the
stars, and a person so awkward that none but thine own
sex could ever look tenderly on thee—thou gorgeous
enthusiast, who, in a chrysalis of eighteen years, wert
insensible to the very sunshine of thy present existence—
nature, poetry, and woman! thou lunatic by night! thou
sun worshipper by day, and thou poet in every season!—
susceptible, chivalrous, diffident, uncouth, generous Job!
I am about to tell the world of thee. Behemoth as thou
art, thou wilt blush like a shy girl if I praise thee, and if,
in letting in the light upon thy virtues, I expose aught
at which the naughty will smile, I am sure, my dear
Job, thou wilt forgive me!
The Senior vacation had come. We had been
examined successfully for degrees, and were separating,
with six summer weeks before us, to meet once more at
Commencement. Charles Wimbledon, Horace Fritz,
and Job were going together to Niagara.
`Will you go, Tom?'
I passed a long sigh down the catalogue of my available
wealth. It came back to my heart like a leaden
bullet.
Seven o'clock and a brilliant July morning. The
entries were crowded with porters; stage-horns were
blowing at the gates; Seniors in boots and black cravats,
an umbrella in one hand and a cloak in the other, were
hurrying across the yard; trunks and travelling bags
were scattered round under the trees; three legged and
battered furniture, whose `occupation was gone,' was
laid up against the fence, the property of rapacious
brokers; farewells were hastily exchanged; the smothered
`God bless you!' of friends, whose hearts had
beaten pulse for pulse during the years that had come
to a close, and who, after one more brief meeting, would
part forever, was here and there just audible, and
melancholy faces and elastic steps, the merry good bye
to duty and the sad good bye to mates, the gay notes of
departure and the evident clinging of fond associations
as the last look was taken, all mingled together in the
strange and trying contrasts of a final vacation.
Again! the horn sounds a prolonged note. One
more grasp! another deep `God bless you!' and with
a crack of the whip are divided ties which can never in
this world be matched or reunited.
I turned away from the gate. Three or four poor
students in their threadbare coats were leaning over the
fence, gazing with melancholy earnestness after their
happier classmates, and one, who had been confined to
his bed till he was childish with sickness, and whom
they had bolstered up to the window that he might see
them go, had just put aside impatiently the cup which
the nurse was pressing upon him, and was sobbing in a
passion of tears.
I could not bear the stillness of the deserted entry.
I shut my door violently, and when the reverberations
died away I felt alone in the world.
The next week I received a joint letter from my chum
and his company. What follows is an extract from the
part written by Fritz.
`The pretty Quaker sat in a corner of the cabin when
I first went below, talking to an old woman through an
ear-trumpet. She was the prettiest, simplest looking
creature I ever saw. Her plain drab silk frock was
fitted closely to a most bewitching figure; her cheek
and lip looked as if she lived upon roses, and her brown
hair was smoothed away behind the funniest little ear in
the world. Her foot was not so small as one we wot
of, but it had never worn a tight shoe, and had the perfect
lines of statuary; and the ancle!—hang me, Tom,
if I did n't long to be a little cotton stocking!
`How should I get acquainted with her? Impudent as
I am, I never could be nonchalant with a country girl.
My art forsakes me when there is no suspicion of it.
I could make love to a belle with less embarrassment
than I could make a bow to a rural. While I sat
wasting my brains on expedients, Job started suddenly
and broke out with one of his Latin apostrophes to
something which delighted him in the scenery. The little
Quaker looked earnestly at him and then whispered to
her companion. It was evident that she thought him
crazy. I had my cue. I went up and patted him
soothingly on the shoulder, and whispered some nonsense
or other into his ear, and then crossed over to
the lady.
“`I beg you will not be alarmed, Miss,” said I,
“he 's not at all dangerous. He 's very gentle to
ladies.”
“`Then he is out of his head, poor man,” said she,
looking at him compassionately. “Are you his keeper,
Sir?”
`What a question, Tom, to a buck of my water! I
looked into the glass opposite me, to see if it was indeed
Horace Fritz, or no, who was so insulted. “No—
oh! no, that gentleman and I are taking him home to his
friends—can do nothing for him at the hospital, poor
fellow!”
“`How long has he been so, Sir?”
“`Ever since he was eighteen years old, Miss.”
“`Dear me! so long? What made him so?”
“`Love, Miss—love!” said I—I thought to be facetious,
Tom—“he got in love with a Miss Moonlight
when he was only sixteen—Miss Diana Moonlight—
charming girl!”
“`Did she refuse him, Sir?”
`Tom, it was too much! to take my beautiful allegory
for earnest! I had no conception simplicity could be so
simple. “Miss Diana Moonlight!” Heavens, what a
goslin!
“`Why, no—no—not right out; but he went to see
her very often, and would sit and look at her without
speaking a word for whole evenings together.”
“`How tired she must have been!” said Simplicity.
“`She never showed it in her manner, Miss—and
though he 's not handsome—”
“`Oh! very ugly!”
“`There was but one gentleman whom she was ever
known to prefer.”
“`Was he handsome, Sir?”
“`A splendid fellow! His name was Apollo. He
kept a carriage and four, and used to drive by the
windows every day.”
“`Did the crazy gentleman know that she liked him,
Sir?”
“`Oh! yes, Miss. He was with her frequently when
Apollo drove by, and the moment he came in sight, she
turned as pale as ashes.”
“`Dear me!”
“`And by the time he got opposite the window, he
blushed violently and she fainted away.”
“`Bless me! how very singular! Are they married
now, Sir?”
“`Nobody knows. She's very inconstant, and he 's
so hot headed that nobody can live near him—but they
go off together frequently.”
“`Alone, Sir?”
“`Yes, indeed, and that 's what crazed my poor
friend here.”
“`Splendidissime!” exclaimed Job—the sun was setting—“
nitidissime! fulgentissime!” and he threw his
arms up and down in his peculiar pump-handle style—
you know.
“`Poor man! poor man!” exclaimed the drab bonnet
in great alarm. “Go to him, Sir! go to him, Sir!”
“`Hush! hang you, Job!” said I, punching him at
the same time with a bit of my science; but in the mean
time the drab bonnet was carried off by her deaf aunt,
and I just caught a glimpse of her as she vanished in
the ladies' cabin.
`The evening was delicious. It was bright moonlight,
and after supper the passengers all came upon deck.
There were no seats, as the canal bridges are so low
that you must lie down in order to pass under, and my
pretty friend, wrapped in a large cloak and flanked by
the old lady, who, she told me, was a Methodist aunt of
hers, was leaning, in a half reclined position, upon a
peeping out into the moonlight.
“`I am glad you have come,” said she, as I dropped
upon my elbow at a little distance; “I want you to tell
me the rest of the crazy man's story.”
`She turned her face towards me as she spoke,
and threw back her bonnet so that the moonlight just
fell upon her lips and left her eyes in shadow. I was
ashamed of having quizzed such a beautiful creature,
Tom. If I could have done it without mortifying her I
would have confessed it all—but it was impossible, and
feeling sufficiently punished for my folly by the necessity
of continuing it when not in the vein, I proceeded.
“`There is little more that would interest you, Miss—”
“`My name is Rachel, Sir.”—Oh! Tom, if you had
seen that smile!
“`Thank you! mine is Horace. There is little more
that would interest you, Miss Rachel. My poor friend
was sent to the hospital”—Yale college—you “take,”
Tom—“as soon as his symptoms became alarming.
He has been there four years, and is no better. He is
gentler now, it is true, and sometimes writes poetry very
like a sane person, but there 's no hope of his ever being
as he used to be.”
“`Poor creature!” said Rachel, with a sigh that
made me wish my quizzery to the devil.
`She dropped her eyes as she spoke, and began to
trace the plaid of her tartan cloak with her dimpled forefinger,
evidently musing on Job's melancholy situation.
Her innocent confidence and sensibility touched me.
Upon my word I felt as tender as a Freshman.
“`Rachel!” said I, “I beg pardon—Miss Rachel—”
“`You may call me Rachel if you will,” said she, raising
her soft lashes and looking at me with an expression
of almost sisterly fondness.
`I took up the little dimpled hand, and half raised it
to my lips—Rap! came the ear trumpet of our Methodist
aunt down upon the fingers;
“`Come to the cabin, you slut, you! come along to
the cabin! sparking here with a strange gentleman!—
Ar' n't you ashamed of yourself?—Kissing your hand,
indeed!—Go along to the cabin, you tyke, you—go!”
`Tom, you might have heard her a mile.'
The extract to follow is from Job's letter. I must
make an apology for my queer friend. To those who
know him it will be unnecessary, of course; but to those
who do not, I will just say that Job Clark is a pure, unsophisticated
Vermont boy, with not one particle of
knowledge of the world, and a mind of an overrunning
and most luxuriant enthusiasm. At the time we speak
of he was just at that state of existence when the ideal
world touches without mingling with the real—when, as
every sometime enthusiast will remember, the glory of
a beautiful creation is extended to everything that
moves upon it, and there is no eye for deformity, because
in nature there is none visible, and his own heart,
kept, even yet, apart from the collision which developes
it, has not yet taught him the chilling secret of its depravity.
It is at this period, if ever, that the generous
impulses have their perfect way—that everything about
us takes the color of our own mind, and every impression
is a sensation of pleasure. It is then that the beautiful
but frail philosophies of the ancients are drunk in
with an unquestioning eagerness, and believed because
felt to be worthy of an ennobling consciousness; and it
is after this that infidelity—not only of revelation, but of
ourselves and our immortal but much clouded destiny,
and the first discovered bad passions of the world.
But here is a part of his letter.
`Have you ever read Undine, Tom? Did you conceive
of a river of wondrous and perfect beauty?
Was it fringed with all manner of stooping trees, and
kissed to the very lip by clover? Did it wind constantly
in and out, as if both banks were enamoured of its flow
and enticed it from each other's bosoms? Was it hidden
sometimes by thick masses of leaves meeting over
it, and sometimes by the swelling of a velvet slope that
sent it rippling away into shadow? and did it steal out
again like a happy child from a hiding place, and flash
up to your eye till you would have sworn it was living
and intelligent? Did the banks lean away in a rich,
deep verdure, and were the meadows sleeping beneath
the light, like a bosom in a silk mantle? and when
your ear had drank in the music of the running water,
and the loveliness of color and form had unsettled the
earthliness within you, did you believe in your heart
that a strip of Eden had been left unmarred by the angel?
`We have been on the edge of such a river for eighty
miles. The motion of the boat is imperceptible, and
the scenery glides by like a dream. Everything has
been beautiful—beautiful! The sun set gloriously last
night, and soon after, the moon rose full and perfect
from the bosom of a white cloud. Never was there a
more magnificent night. Do you recollect in the Epicurean,
Tom, the “night upon the Nile,” which Alciphron
says, was “like that which shines upon the sleep
of the spirits who rest in the valley of the moon on their
way to Heaven?”
`I do believe that I have seen this river before. It
satisfies something in my heart like a recollection.
bank and water—has moved my memory like something
I imperfectly recollect. One of two things is
certain—I have seen all this before, or, there is a degree
of beauty which stirs the spirit by its approximation
to something with which it has been familiar. How
many—many feelings of this kind have we which we
never define, but which, without a theory of previous
existence, are perfectly unaccountable! How often do
whole trains of thought—wild and unutterable thought—
pass through the mind, every shade of which is familiar,
while we know, perfectly, from the very nature and
cause of suggestion, that never before in this world
could they have been felt or engendered. Is it true,
after all, that this is not the beginning of our existence?
Is it true, that the magnificent idea of a series of existences,
ascending, and innumerable as the stars in
heaven, is not visionary and idle? that, as the great
Wordsworth says,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.”
`How much more sublime than ever, if this is true,
is his address to a child:
Thy soul's immensity!
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind!
That, deaf and silent readst the eternal deep;
Haunted forever by the eternal mind!
Mighty prophet! Seer blest!
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality,
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom, on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life!”
`Dear Tom, I have bored you with my Pythagoreanism,
but it has brooded on me all day, and I must tell
somebody. Fritz would laugh at it, and Charles is an
unbeliever, and what could I do?
`This morning we had one of those thin, watery
atmospheres which are peculiar to the rivers. Apart
from the pleasure of breathing it—for to me its rarity is
like exhilirating gas—it threw me into a mood of delicious
mysticism. The decided outlines of the scenery
were lost or softened away, and, with the quiet motion
of the boat, it was not difficult to believe every rock a
gray ruin, and the apparent gliding by of the tall trees
the stalking of giant phantasms. It was an atmosphere
in which Ossian would have seen “Temora like a
spirit of Heaven, half folded in the skirt of a cloud,”
or have sung, “Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun!
Thou shalt sleep in the clouds, careless of the voice of
the morning.”
`Tom! did you never wish you were the “Wandering
Jew,” and could live forever?'
The remaining part of the letter was written by my
chum. It is principally a description of one of Horace's
fond. I do not approve of telling idle stories, but it brings
out a trait or two of Job's character, and is, literally,
and without embellishment, true. The captain of the
canal packet — has since gravely told me the story as
he understood it—of course with some slight variations.
Charles thus describes it.
`Yesterday you know was Sunday. It was one of
those hushed, breathless mornings that seem peculiar to
the Sabbath. Job had put on his black coat and a white
cravat out of respect to the day, and was sitting alone
on the forecastle in a brown study. The passengers
were all reading or asleep; the pretty Quaker looked
serious, and Fritz was horribly ennuied.
“`Egad, Charles,” said he, thrusting his hands into
his pockets after a long yawn, and eyeing Job with that
quizzical expression of his, “does n't he look like a
parson?”
`Presently he gave one of his portentous laughs and
turned suddenly on his heel.
“`Captain,” said he, addressing him gravely as he
stepped upon deck, “that gentleman yonder in a black
coat is a Methodist clergyman. You see how he sits
and thinks. His mind is very uneasy about travelling
on Sunday. He says it would be a relief to him if he
could preach to the passengers, and he wanted me to
ask your permission. Now if you 've any objection—”
“`Not the least,” said the captain, bowing politely;
“I'll propose it to the passengers.”
`He went below and stated the request. No objection
was made, and after moving the table to the upper
end of the cabin and placing the desk upon it for an
extempore pulpit, he came again upon deck. Fritz stood
by with a look of immoveable gravity.
“`All 's ready below, Sir,” said the captain, coming
up to Job, and touching his hat respectfully.
“`Sir?” said Job.
“`All 's ready for the sermon, Sir.”
“`Sermon?” said Job.
“`Yes, Sir, the passengers will be happy to hear you.”
“`Hear me! `a sermon!' why, I 'm not a clergyman!”
`The captain turned to Fritz. He met him with a
look of profound astonishment. The captain was staggered.
Fritz touched his forehead significantly and
shook his head.
“`Aha!” said the captain, comprehending; and he
went below and announced that there would be no service,
as the preacher was taken suddenly ill.
“`Now, Job,” said Fritz, as soon as the captain was
gone, “I 've told him you 're a preacher.”
“`Why, Fritz!”
“`No matter now—he 's in a devil of a passion and
has gone down for his pistols. If you do n't read a
sermon, I must fight him—that 's poz.”
`Job was in a cold sweat. The idea of a duel was
too horrible! But then to read a sermon to forty people
in a canal boat!—and perhaps they would ask him to
pray! He hesitated—it was a dreadful alternative!
“`So,” said Fritz, buttoning up his coat and looking
determined, “I must fight, I see.”
“`Oh no, Fritz—no! I 'll—I 'll—I 'll read the sermon—come,
Fritz—I 'll read it—but—but—do n't fight,
do n't fight!”
“`Thank you!—thank you!” exclaimed Fritz, with
warmth, and pulling out a rank Universalist sermon
which he had found in the cabin, he gave it to Job, and
went in search of the captain.
`After explaining to him that the minister was now
in a lucid interval, and had again expressed a wish to
trembling like a leaf, went down with the sermon in
his hand.
`It looked very appalling. The passengers were
seated on each side of the cabin in two long rows. A
large Bible lay on the desk, and a glass of water had
been set beside it by the captain, who was fearful of a
return of the malady.
`Job's knees knocked together as he rose. He
opened the sermon and read the text in a tremulous
voice.
“`He has forgot the prayer!” whispered the captain—“poor
fellow!”
`Job went on. The sentiments grew bold. The old
woman with the ear trumpet, who sat at a little distance,
moved nearer. It grew worse and worse. The old
lady looked at her trumpet. There was no obstruction.
She moved close up to him. There came a flat assertion
that hell was a mere bugbear. Up jumped the
old lady—
“`You a Methodist minister! You a Methodist
minister! How dare you call yourself a Methodist
minister, you Universalist, you!”
`Job turned to the titlepage. He had not understood
a word of what he had read. Sure enough, it was a
Universalist sermon. He gave Fritz a look of indescribable
distress, hurled the sermon indignantly out of
the cabin window, and rushed upon deck.
“`Crazy!—crazy as a loon!” exclaimed the captain,
as he stepped into the middle of the cabin to apologize.
But we are at Rochester, so
| LEAVES FROM A COLLEGER'S ALBUM. The legendary | |