The Days of a Man C1869 



Once in his shirt sleeves lying in the grass, 

 Under the shadow of a chestnut tree, 

 I saw James Russell Lowell face to face, 

 And the great poet rose and spoke to me! ^ 



Not long after, attending service at the Unitarian 



church, I was ushered into the same pew with 



Lowell — "a seat among the gods," it seemed 



to me. 



rayior Bayatd Taylor gave a most interesting and in- 



^^^ structive course on Early German Literature. An- 



"^ " other delightful visitor was Thomas Hughes, author 



of the famous "Tom Brown" books. At the Cas- 



cadilla reception which followed his address, I first 



helped pass around strawberries, ice cream, and cake, 



after which I put my apron in my pocket and became 



a guest. 



In the field of History — which deeply interested 

 me, not as a record of battles and intrigues but as 

 the "biography of man" — we had excellent in- 

 struction. Ancient History was taught by William 

 Channing Russel, the vice-president, whose lectures 

 Whites were both effective and well planned. More appeal- 

 lectures jj^g ^q j^g^ however, were White's courses in Medieval 

 and Modern History. These covered particularly 

 the later years of France, including the French 

 Revolution; they were accompanied by an exten- 

 sive syllabus, with bibliography. White, as I have 

 indicated, used language in a noble fashion, choosing 

 words of dignity and strength, and leaving sentences 

 to finger in the memory. His lectures I therefore 

 took down very fully, writing them out so that the 



^ It is hardly necessary to add that his companion was George William 

 Curtis. 



: 90 ;] 



