IK MARVEL'S PORTRAITS 



as bland as if the years had all been playthings ; and had 

 I seen him in his lecture-room, I daresay I should have 

 found the same suavity of address, the same marvellous 

 currency of talk, and the same infinite composure over 

 the exploding retorts. 



" Near him was the silver-haired old gentleman * 

 with a very astute expression who used to have an 

 odd habit of tightening his cloak about his nether limbs. 

 I could not see that his eye was any the less bright ; nor 

 did he seem less eager to catch at the handle of some 

 witticism, or bit of satire, to the poor student's cost. 

 I remembered my old awe of him, I must say, with some- 

 thing of a grudge; but I had got fairly over it now. 

 There are sharper griefs in life than a professor's talk. 



" Farther on, I saw the long-faced, dark-haired manf 

 who looked as if he were always near some explosive, 

 electric battery, or upon an insulated stool. He was, I 

 believe, a man of fine feelings ; but he had a way of re- 

 ducing all action to dry, hard, mathematical system, with 

 very little poetry about it. I know there was not much 

 poetry in his problems in physics, and still less in his half- 

 yearly examinations. But I do not dread them now. 



Over opposite, I was glad to see still the aged head 

 of the kind and generous old man J who in my day pre- 

 sided over the college; and who carried with him the 

 affections of each succeeding class, added to their re- 

 spect for his learning. This seems a higher triumph to 

 me now than it seemed then. A strong mind, or a culti- 

 vated mind, may challenge respect ; but there is needed a 

 noble one to win affection. 



" A new man now filled his place in the President's 

 seat ; but he was one whom I had known, and had been 

 proud to know. His figure was bent, and thin the 

 very figure that an old Flemish master would have 

 chosen for a scholar. His eye had a kind of piercing 

 lustre, as if it had long been fixed on books; and his ex- 

 pression when unrelieved by his affable smile was that 

 of hard midnight toil. With all his polish of mind he 

 was a gentleman at heart ; and treated us always with a 

 manly courtesy that is not forgotten." 



* Prof. J. L. Kingsley. | Rev. President Jeremiah Day. 



f Prof. Denison Olmsted. Rev. President Theodore D. Woolsey. 



157 



