and without a word of warning, he let out a loud, inarticulate, animal- 

 like roar that almost frightened me into a fit; not that I was in bodily 

 fear for myself, but, for a moment, I was really afraid that the old 

 gentleman had gone out of his mind. But he merely smiled and said: 

 "That is the way De Quincey went on the last time I saw him; it was 

 in the postoffice in Edinburgh." 



A second club, which Osborn got up, was the Sketch Club, composed 

 of both instructors and undergraduates, and of this, despite my very 

 limited artistic abiHties, I was a member. Our teacher was a young 

 artist, who afterwards attained very high distinction both in Paris and 

 New York, John W. Alexander, and he made the work very interesting 

 and enjoyable. We made charcoal studies from life and a series of old 

 men sat for us, much surprised that any one should want to reproduce 

 their features. Two artists, Tom Clarke, of '82, and Harry Hall, of '84, 

 graduated from this class and, at the end of the year, we held an ex- 

 hibition of our work, which attracted much admiring comment. Even I 

 succeeded in catching likenesses. Alexander was fascinated by the pic- 

 turesqueness and historic interest of Princeton and he was insistent that 

 I should write an article for Harper's Magazine on "Colonial and Revo- 

 lutionary Princeton," while he would illustrate it. 



Alexander's suggestion appealed strongly to me and I made a lot of 

 preliminary studies, which I found delightful, in old books and 

 pamphlets, finding the Witherspoon collection of eighteenth century 

 pamphlets in the library particularly useful. I got so far as to write an 

 outline sketch and spent a morning going about with Alexander and 

 selecting spots for him to draw. The plan came to nothing, however, for 

 I soon saw that to prepare such an article in any but the most super- 

 ficial v/ay would demand far more time and labour than I possibly 

 could devote to it. I abandoned the scheme with regret, for I should 

 have enjoyed doing it, had it been feasible. 



All the spare moments of that spring, or so it seems in retrospect, were 

 devoted to the task of raising funds for another expedition to the West. 

 A number of students came to me to ask whether I should not be will- 

 ing to conduct such a party, on the understanding that they would con- 

 tribute a substantial proportion of the expenses. I hesitated to assume 

 the responsibility and should probably have decHned altogether, had I 

 known how heavy those responsibilities were to prove. The decision of 

 this question was one of the turning points in my life, though, of course, 

 I had no suspicion of that; how seldom one does have! My final de- 

 cision to accept the ofFered leadership was due to several considerations, 



C 147 ] 



