CHAPTER XIII 



MY LAST YEAR AT HARVARD 



THUS far, I have said little of my life as a closet student, so 

 that the effect of this writing may be to give the impression 

 that my days were spent in divagations. I find no students in 

 this day who work at anything like the rate the better part of 

 Agassiz's following did in that time. It was my custom to get 

 to my work by eight in the morning, and to keep at it until one 

 o'clock; we then had dinner, and expected to be again at our 

 desks by half -past two, working there usually until dark, or at 

 least until five o'clock. We then went to the gymnasium or had 

 boxing-matches, as we fancied, for half an hour. At six we 

 supped, and then got to work in our rooms. We managed to 

 get about seventy hours a week of pretty solid business. Once 

 a week, or oftener, we had our club-meetings, and after them 

 they usually ended about midnight we had dance-music 

 from an old piano in our common room and a Virginia reel with 

 shouts to wake the dead. These midnight uproars sometimes 

 brought us near to trouble. There was no proctor in our build- 

 ing, for we ranked as graduates, but across the way, in Divinity 

 Hall, proctored Mr. Sibley, the Librarian of the College, the most 

 proper and irascible of good fellows. He often reported us for 

 disorder, but fortunately there dwelt in a cottage much nearer a 

 dear old gentleman, a Mr. Charles Sanders, who happily slept 

 marvellously well and who, moreover, had not forgotten what it 

 was to be a boy. He was always ready to testify that we were 

 the best-behaved lot of youngsters that ever were in college. 

 As the College had expectations from the old man, in part real- 

 ized by the bequest which built the theatre, his evidence had 

 full weight. Besides, we managed to work up the theory that 

 Sibley was subjected to nightmares combined with somnam- 



