Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 11

But I am inclined to think that the one member of our cla.s.s whose fame will last to remote posterity, a fame which he will owe to a single poem, is Walter Mitch.e.l.l. He was a very bright and accomplished person in college and a great favorite with his friends. He studied law, but afterward determined to become a clergyman and took orders in the Episcopal Church. I have never heard him preach, but I have no doubt from his distinction as a writer and scholar in college that he is an excellent preacher. But his poem of the sea ent.i.tled "Tacking the s.h.i.+p off Fire Island" is one of the most spirited and perfect of its kind in literature. You can hear the wind blow and feel the salt in your hair as you read it. I once heard it read by Richard Dana to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, and again by that most accomplished elocutionist, E. Harlow Russell. I never read it or hear it without a renewed admiration.

But the brightest, raciest, wittiest, liveliest, s.p.u.n.kiest of all the youths was Daniel Sargent Curtis, one of the race of that name so well known in Boston for excellence in various departments. Curtis was the son, I believe, of Thomas B.

Curtis, the merchant, a nephew of Charles P. Curtis, the eminent lawyer, and a cousin of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis.

I do not know what he would not have made of himself if he had cultivated his great literary capacity. Certainly if he had performed the promise of his boyhood he would have been one of the foremost men in American literature. He studied law but pretty soon became a banker. Soon after he took up his residence in Italy, where I suppose he is living now. He produced some serious poetry which he read to some college societies. I hope for the credit of the cla.s.s and for the country and his name he may have done something in later years which will be given to the world. It is said, I know not how truly, that he was for many years a near neighbor and intimate friend of Browning. When he was in college and in the Law School the boys used to enliven all social gatherings by repeating his good jests as, in later years, the lawyers did those of Rufus Choate, or the people in public life in Was.h.i.+ngton still later, those of Evarts. Such things lose nine-tenths of their flavor in the repet.i.tion and nine parts of the other tenth when they are put in writing. Curtis was quite small in stature but he was plucky as a gamec.o.c.k, and a little dandyish in his dress. It is said that when he was a freshman, the boys at the Cambridge High School, a good many of whom were much bigger than he was, undertook to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at him one day as he went by. Whereupon Curtis marched up to the biggest boy and told him if another s...o...b..ll were thrown at him he would thrash him and he might pa.s.s it over to the boy who did it. The result was that Curtis was not troubled again.

You could not attack or rally him without some bright reply.

Horace Gray, afterward the judge, went shooting one day and met Curtis as he was coming back with his gun over West Boston Bridge. Curtis asked him if he had shot anything. Gray said, "No, nothing but a hawk in Watertown. I stopped at the Museum as I came by, and gave it to Aga.s.siz." "I suppose Aga.s.siz said 'Accipter,'" said Curtis.

When Professor Greenleaf resigned his place at the Dane Law School, much to the regret of the students, it was proposed to secure a likeness of him for the lecture room. There was some discussion whether it should be a bust or a picture, and if a bust what should be the material. Curtis said: "Better make it Verd Antique. That means Old Green."

Dr. Beck once required his cla.s.s each to bring a Latin epigram.

Dan Curtis, who was not very fond of work unless it was in the line of his own tastes, sent in the following:

Fugiunt. Qui fugiunt? Galli; tunc moriar contentus.

"What is that, Curtis?" said the Doctor. "Dying words of Wolfe, sir," replied Curtis. "Ah," said the Doctor with great satisfaction. He thought it was Wolf the famous Greek scholar, and thought the epigram highly to Curtis's credit.

I have still in my memory a very bright poem of his. I do not think I ever saw or read it written or in print. But I remember hearing it read in one of the college clubs more than fifty years ago. He has Longfellow's style very happily, including the dropping from a bright and sometimes a sublime line to one which is flat and commonplace, as for instance in the ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington.

Meantime without the surly cannon waited, The sky gleamed overhead.

Nothing in Nature's aspect indicated That a great man was dead.

This is Curtis's poem:

Wrapped in musing dim and misty, Sit I by the fitful flame; And my thoughts steal down the vista Of old time, as in a dream.

Here the hero held his quarters, Whom America holds dear; He beloved of all her daughters, Formerly resided here.

Here you often might have seen him, Silvery white his reverend scalp, Frowned above a mighty chapeau Like a storm-cap o'er the Alp.

Up and down these rooms the hero Oftentimes would thoughtful stray, Walking now toward the window, Stalking then again away.

By the fireside, quaintly moulded Oft his humid boots would lie; And his queer surtout was folded On some strange old chair to dry.

In the yard where now before me Underclothes, wind-wafted hang Waved the banners of an army; Warriors strode with martial clang.

These things now are all departed, With us on the earth no more, But the chieftain, n.o.ble-hearted, Comes to visit me once more.

In he comes without permission, Sits him down before mine eyes, Then I tremble and demnition Curious thoughts within me rise.

Slow he speaks in accents solemn, Life is all an empty hum, Man, by adulation only Can'st thou ever great become.

I ought perhaps to mention a young man of most brilliant promise, an excellent scholar and a great favorite, who died before the cla.s.s graduated, on a voyage to the East Indies which he undertook in the hope of restoring his health,-- Augustus Enoch Daniels. He left behind him one _bon mot_ which is worth recording. We were translating one day one of the choruses in AEschylus, I think in the Agamemnon, where the phrase occurs [Greek omitted], meaning "couches unvisited by the wind," which he most felicitously rendered "windla.s.s bedsteads." Such is the vanity of human life that it is not uncommon that some hardworking, faithful and bright scholar is remembered only for one single saying, as Hamilton in the House of Commons was remembered for his single speech. Another instance of this is that worthy and excellent teacher of Latin and Professor of History, Henry W. Torrey. He was an instructor in college in our time, afterward left the college to teach a young ladies' school and came back again later as a Professor.

I presume if any member of the cla.s.s of 1846 were asked about Torrey he would say: "Oh, yes. He was an excellent Latin scholar, an excellent teacher in elocution and in history.

But all I remember of him is that on one occasion a man who professed to be learned in Egyptian antiquities advertised a course of lectures, one of which was to be ill.u.s.trated by unrolling from a mummy the bandages which had been untouched since its interment, many centuries before Christ. The savant claimed to be able to read the inscription on the cloth in which the mummy was wrapped and declared that it was the corpse of an Egyptian princess, whose name and history he related.

Having given this narrative and excited the expectation of his auditors, the wrappers were taken off and, alas, it turned out to be the body of a man. The poor professor was, of course, much disconcerted and his lectures, I believe, came to a sudden ending. Mr. Torrey said that 'it was undoubtedly the corpse of Spurius Mummius.'"

But no account of my cla.s.s ought to omit the name of Henry Whitney. He was a universal favorite. In all the disputes which arose in all the divisions of sets or sections, Whitney maintained the regard and affection of the whole cla.s.s.

After graduating he was a very successful and influential business man in Boston and was President of the Boston & Providence Railroad, which under his masterly administration, attained a very high degree of prosperity. I think he corresponded with every member of the cla.s.s, and did more to preserve and create a kindly cla.s.s feeling than any other member. It seemed when he died as if half the college had died. He was a man of great refinement and scholars.h.i.+p, and was fond of collecting rare books. He had a great many editions of Milton which he liked to exhibit to his friends. He had a most delightful wit, and was the author of some very good songs and other humorous poetry.

I do not of course undertake to give sketches of all my cla.s.smates, either the living or the dead, or those who have attained distinction as useful and honorable members of society. So far as I know their career since they left college, there is none of them of whom the cla.s.s or the college need be ashamed.

The different cla.s.ses had not much intercourse with each other unless it happened in the case of boys who came from the same town, or who came from the same school, until late in the college course, when the members of the Hasty Pudding Club and the Porcellian, the two princ.i.p.al secret societies, formed intimacies beyond their own cla.s.s in the meetings of those clubs. There were some persons in the cla.s.ses near mine, both below and above me, with whom I had an acquaintance in college which grew into a cordial friends.h.i.+p in the Law School or in later life. Perhaps, taking him all together, the most brilliant man in Harvard in my time was John Felton.

He went to California and became afterward unquestionably the greatest lawyer they have ever had on the Pacific Coast.

He was in the cla.s.s after mine. I knew him slightly in our undergraduate days. But when I went to the Law School in September, 1847, we boarded together in the same house. We speedily became intimate and used to take long walks together of three or four hours every day. We rambled about Watertown and Brighton and Somerville and West Cambridge and had long discussions about law and politics and poetry and metaphysics and literature and our own ambitions and desires. We were constantly in each other's rooms, and often sat up together, sometimes until the constellations set, with the wasteful, time-consuming habits of boyhood.

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, How oft, unwearied, have we spent the nights In search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence and poetry,-- Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

John came of a distinguished family. His brother Cornelius was a famous Greek professor, one of the most striking figures about Cambridge. Another brother was Samuel M. Felton, the most distinguished civil engineer in the country of his time; builder of the Fitchburg railroad, afterward builder and President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; the man who conceived the plan of getting the New England troops into Was.h.i.+ngton by the way of Annapolis when Baltimore was in the power of the Rebels.

Another brother was quite distinguished in college in the cla.s.s of 1851. John after he graduated went to California and never came back from the Pacific Coast or kept up his communication with his old friends, although he received them with great hospitality, I am told, when they went out there.

I think he had a fancy that he would keep to himself until he could come back in some great place, like that of Senator or Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a candidate for the Senate at one time, but was defeated by a much inferior man. He was fond of argument; never was contented without challenging somebody and was a very tough customer to encounter, whatever side of a question he chose to take. He liked, however, nothing better than a st.u.r.dy resistance. To yield to him was never the way to win his good will. The first day when we went to live at the same boarding-house, I got into a hot dispute with him at dinner over the Wilmot Proviso, and the const.i.tutional power of Congress to legislate against slavery in the territories, which was then a burning question. John took the Southern side of that question, although I dare say he would have taken the other if a Southerner had introduced it, and we got pretty zealous on both sides and walked home together continuing the argument as we walked. As we separated, Felton said: "We will continue this discussion to-morrow. Meantime, won't you look up the history of the matter a little?" "Yes," said I, "and won't you study up a little on Whately's Logic?" The answer seemed to delight Felton, and he took me into high favor. I never knew a man of such ready wit, although I have known a good many famous wits in my day. But all these things evaporate with time. Or, if you remember them, they are vapid and tasteless in the telling, like champagne which has been uncorked for a week. We were one day discussing some question of law at the table, and John, who had not yet begun to study law himself, put in his oar as usual, when Charles Allen, afterward Judge of the Ma.s.sachusetts Supreme Court, turned on him with some indignation. "What do you know about it, Johnny? You don't know what a quantum meruit is." "If you had it, 't would kill you," said Felton. He was invited to the dinner given by the people of Nevada in honor of their admission as a State, and there was some discussion about a device for a State seal. Felton suggested that the Irish emblem would be the most appropriate, the "Lyre and shamrock." Once after deciding a case in his favor, Mr. Justice Field said to him: "Felton, I have made great use of your brief in my opinion." "Always do that, Judge," said Felton. He possessed considerable capacity for poetry, although I do not know that he cultivated it much after he left college. He delivered a very successful poem at Commencement, and gave the Phi Beta Kappa poem the next year and read some very witty verses at the Society's dinner the same day. He was much distressed over choosing a subject, and put off and put off writing his poem till within a few days of the time when it was to be delivered. And he finally resolved, in a fit of desperation, that he would go into his room, shut his eyes, turn round three times and take for his subject the first object on which they rested when he opened them. That happened to be a horseshoe which he had picked up in the street and hung over his fireplace for luck. He made a charming poem from this subject, on Superst.i.tion. The opening lines are:

Just over the way, with its front to the street, Up one flight of stairs, is a room snug and neat, With a prospect Mark Tapley right jolly would call;-- Two churches, one graveyard, one bulging brick wall, Where, raven-like, Science gloats over its wealth, And the skeleton grins at the lectures on health.

The tree by the window has twice hailed the Spring Since we circled its trunk our last chorus to sing.

Maidens laughed at our shouts, they knew better than we; And the world clanked its chains as we cried, "We are free."

On the wall hangs a Horseshoe I found in the street; 'Tis the shoe that to-day sets in motion my feet 'Tis a comfort, while Europe to freedom awoke Is peeping like chickens just free from their yolk To think Pope and Monarch their kingdoms may lose; Yet I hang my subject wherever I choose.

He goes on in a more serious strain to sketch the history of superst.i.tion and ends with an eloquent aspiration for a day of universal peace:

As now my thoughts like cl.u.s.tering bees have clung To thee, my Horseshoe, o'er the lintel hung, The future bard, with song more richly fraught,-- Some reverenced wrong the nucleus of his thought, Some relic crown or virtuoso's gun, Some nation's banner when all earth is one,-- Back through the past in mournful strain shall wind Where demon fancies vex the darkling mind, Where light but faintly streaks the dappled sky, Nor Morn has shot his glittering shafts on high; Trembling with grief and hope, his lyre shall thrill To twilight times of blending good and ill, Where whizz of bullets, and the clanking chain, Jar on the praise of Peace and Freedom's reign.

In louder strains shall burst the exulting close, That sounds the triumph o'er the struggling foes,-- The slave unbound, War's iron tongues all dumb,-- His glorious Present, our all hail To Come, All hail To Come, when East and West shall be-- While rolls between the undividing sea-- Two, like the brain, whose halves ne'er think apart, But beat and tremble to one throbbing heart!

He took what was then an unusual method of making himself a good lawyer. That was to begin to deal with a legal principle in historic order, going back to the first case where it was announced and tracing it down through the reports, making no use of text-books. That was the way the old lawyers before Blackstone got their training. I have been told, though that happened after I left Cambridge, that he and Professor Langdell, the eminent teacher at Harvard who had introduced that method with so much success, studied together. Whether it was Felton's plan or Langdell's I do not know.

John Felton died suddenly in May, 1877. Everybody who comes to Was.h.i.+ngton from California who is old enough speaks with pleasure of his knowledge of Felton and is full of stories of his brilliant wit. He had probably the largest fees ever received by an American lawyer. He is said by his biographer to have received a fee of a million dollars in one case. His death was received with universal sorrow. All the places of business and amus.e.m.e.nt were closed and the flags displayed at half mast on the day of his funeral.

Another rather interesting figure among the men of the cla.s.ses above me was Thomas Hill, afterward President of the College.

He was a good mathematician and a good preacher. But he was not as successful in the Presidency as his friends hoped.

The only thing I remember about him of any importance is highly to his credit. One winter's day a little gaunt-looking and unhappy pig that had strayed away from a drove wandered into the College Yard just as the boys were coming out of evening prayers. The whole surface of the yard was covered with a sheet of thin and very slippery ice. It was rather hard to stand up on it. The boys came across the pig, which was frightened and attempted to run. After running a little, he would slip on the ice and slide and tumble over, and then gather himself up again and try once more. There was a general shout and a general chase. Poor piggy strove to elude his pursuers.

His own tail was a little slippery, so that if a boy caught it he did not hold it long. The whole college, pretty much, engaged in the pursuit, which certainly seemed to be great fun. But, on a sudden, there was a loud, angry shout from a stentorian voice as Tom Hill jumped in among the pursuers, who were just on the point of conquering the bewildered animal.

"For shame. Take one of your size." The boys saw the point, were filled with mortification, desisted, and allowed the poor creature to go in peace.

The boys generally boarded in the College Commons, where they could board for $2.25 a week on one side, and on the other called "starvation commons" for $1.75 a week. In the latter they had meat only every other day. A few of the sons of the wealthier families boarded in private houses where the rate of board varied from $3 to $3.50 a week. The rooms were furnished very simply, almost always without carpets, though in rare instances the floors would be covered with a cheap carpet which did not last very well under the wear and tear of boyish occupation. The students generally made their own fires and blacked their own boots and drew their own water.

But there was a family of negroes named Lewis who performed those services for such boys as desired, at a compensation of $5 or $6 a term. The patriarch of this race was a very interesting old character. He was said to be one hundred years old. He was undoubtedly very near it. One morning, just as we were coming out of the morning prayers, shortly after six o'clock, old Mr. Lewis drove by with a horse which he was said to have bought for $5, and a wagon of about the same value. He had a load of all sorts of vegetables which he had raised in his little garden near where the a.r.s.enal stood and was carrying into Boston to market. One of his old wheels broke and the wagon came down, spilling the old fellow himself and his load of vegetables. He lay there flat on his back, unable to get up, surrounded by turnips and squashes and onions and potatoes, etc. As he lay with his black face and his white, grizzled poll, he was a most ludicrous spectacle. One of us asked him: "Why, Mr. Lewis, what is the matter?" "Well," he said with a mournful tone, "I laid eaout to go into Boston."

I suppose there was more turbulence and what would be called rowdyism in my day than now. At any rate I do not hear of such things very often nowadays. But it was usually of a harmless character. There were very few instances indeed of what would be called dissipation, still fewer of actual vice. The only game which was much in vogue was foot-ball.

There was a little attempt to start the English game of cricket and occasionally, in the spring, an old-fas.h.i.+oned, simple game which we called base was played. But the chief game was foot-ball, which was played from the beginning of the September term until the cold weather set in, and sometimes, I believe, in the spring. It was very unlike the game as at present carried on. After evening prayers, which were over about five or ten minutes after six, the boys repaired to the foot-ball ground and ranged themselves on sides nearly equal in number. If one side thought they were not fairly matched they would shout, "More, more," until enough went over to them from the other side to make it about equal. Then one of the best kickers gave the ball a kick toward the other side of the field, and there was a rush and an attempt to get it past the goal. n.o.body was allowed to pick up the foot- ball, or to run with it in his hand. A fast runner and good kicker who could get the ball a little outside of the line of his antagonists could often make great progress with it across the field before he was intercepted. It was allowable to trip up one of the other side by thrusting the foot before him. But touching an opponent with the hand would have been resented as an a.s.sault and insult. The best foot-ball players were not the strongest men but the swiftest runners, as a rule.

The practice of hazing freshmen during a few weeks after their entering was carried on sometimes under circ.u.mstances of a good deal of cruelty. One boy in my cla.s.s was visited by a party of soph.o.m.ores, treated with a good deal of indignity, and his feelings extremely outraged. He was attacked by a fever shortly afterward of which he died. During his last hours, in his delirium, he was repeating the scenes of this visit to his room. His father thought that the indignity caused his death. Another was taken out from his room in his night clothes, tied into a chair and left on the public commons in the cold. It was a long time before he was discovered and rescued. A heavy cold and a fit of sickness were the consequence.

There was an entertaining custom of giving out what were called mock parts when the real parts for the exhibitions or Commencement were announced. They were read out from a second-story window to an a.s.semblage of students in the yard, and after the real parts had been given some mock parts were read. Usually some peculiarity of the person to whom they were a.s.signed was made the object of good-natured ridicule in the selection of the subject. For example, one boy, who was rather famous for smoking other fellows' cigars and never having any of his own, had a.s.signed to him as a subject, "The Friends.h.i.+ps of this Life all Smoke."

When the parts were a.s.signed for the Commencement, which were given usually to the first half of the cla.s.s, there was a procession of what was called the Navy Club and an a.s.signment of honors which were in the reverse order of excellence to that observed in the regular parts. The Lord High Admiral was supposed to be the worst scholar in the cla.s.s,--if possible, one who had been rusticated twice during the college course.

The laziest man in the cla.s.s was Rear Admiral. Then there was a Powder Monkey and a c.o.xswain, and other naval officers, who were generally famous for what used to be called demerits.

The members of the cla.s.s to whom parts were a.s.signed were called "digs" and marched in the procession, each with a spade on his shoulder, the first scholar, who in our cla.s.s was Child, as the "dig of digs," having a spade of huge dimensions.

I believe James Russell Lowell was the Lord High Admiral in his cla.s.s. The Rear Admiral in mine was borne about on a couch or litter, supported by four men, having another one marching by his side to carry his pipe, which he was supposed to be too lazy to put into his mouth or take out of his mouth himself. The procession had banners bearing various devices and went around to take leave of the President and the different professors, giving them cheers at their houses. President Everett, who was a serious-minded person, was much offended by the whole proceeding. He sent for some members of the cla.s.s and remonstrated; told them he had been obliged to apologize to his English servant-girl for such an exhibition. I believe our cla.s.s was the last one which performed this harmless and highly entertaining ceremony.