Johns Hopkins University - Hullabaloo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 17 text:

At a short distance from the old manse we passed tl1e plain square wooden house 'l which was Emerson's home from the time of his mar- riage in 1833 until his death, forty-seven years later-the house in which he wrote his Conduct of Life and the greater part of his poems and essays. The fallen roof, the blackened walls, told of the destruction that had taken place only the day before. After driving about half a mile we passed the W'ayside, once the home of Bronson Alcott, afterward the home of Hawthorne during the last twelve years of his life. On his return from Europe Hawthorne added to the house a tower modeled after one that he had admired in Rome g and in this tower he wrote Qur Old Home, and the unfinished Septimus Felton and The Dolliver Romance. From Concord to Lexington we followed the road traversed by the British soldiers in April, 1775. At several places along this road are memorial stones, erected in honor of fallen patriots. Beyond Lexington our route coincided in part with that of Paul Revere in his famous ride. Late in the afternoon we drove under the old elm that shadows the place where, on July 3, 1775, NV3Sl1lllgiCOI'l took command of the American troops 5 and as we drove slowly past Cambridge Common, I caught a glimpse of old Harvard's scholar-factories red, as Lowell calls the dull-red brick buildings that to an American seem old, though the oldest was begun as recently as 1719. Though my boyhood was spent within a few miles of Cambridge, my visits to that city must have been infrequent 3 for my first distinct recol- lection of the buildings of Harvard does not antedate that long July day. Among the books in my father's library was Duyckinck's Cyclopeedia of American Literature, over the pages of which I used to pore by the hour, making the acquaintance of Captain -Iohn Smith, of Cotton Mather, of Benjamin Franklin, and of numerous other worthies of colonial and of later times. Among the illustrations was a wood-cut of the Harvard Library, Gore Hall, the architecture of which emulates in a mild way that of the noble chapel of King's College at the mother university in Cam- bridge, England. Through this and other pictures, the buildings of Harvard had been familiar to me for so long that I cannot with certainty separate the first actual view from the pictured view. Indeed, I am pos- sessed by a haunting fear lest in my recollections I may have confused the events of more than a single day. It would be hazardous to assert that the experiences of that day were actually a turning-point in my life. Yet it is a fact that only the summer before I was disinclined to go to college. Fired by the military biographies and histories that were so numerous during the years immediately follow- ing the Civil XVar, by the stories of the war told by my uncle, by the sight of his uniform, and by the fact that one of his horses-a genuine war- horse-had come into my father's possession, my ambition had set II

Page 16 text:

N' i 3 W ' hi, 'Fx-. . ., 1 ' w n.,,, vw 'B -.4 ,V I 9' ', ,'.'WP? 1 I GV! ,-9 r. ,44 FOUR REAT UNIVERSJTIES, Recollections and Impressions. , , -2- nnmm-mi , . . ' ' l lla experiences ot boyhood and of youth, though they are precious and are deeply engraved in the memory, are apt to become confused in the retrospect. NVe recall events by the year, perhaps also by the season in which they occurred. The summer in which one learned to swim or to sail a boat, the year in which he began to study Latin, are readily recalled 1 but in the even tenor of a boy's life few . 35' days stand out distinctly. His days are so much alike, his experiences so often repeated. that one experience overlaps or covers up that which preceded itg so that ulliw Hi I rx ,glihq i, ,' V il . ulnl Q , 5' M ,. .gp L l , it 1 V-3 'M i K i W f' - l' ' if ' 9 '1',': -S ' MUN, Q! ,gg vhs' 'xx ' ' L! 'ni-i 42 Ai I' , will , i X if g ,L . , We, l -i 12' ,H f .I h Mi gf' , ' - i ,Qin , ,E . .a..i.....- - :ml . ,Q v , cu f I ll l ik ,lf , ' .. ' - I : ,pg- vf' 1 ,-,, 253'- a, I , X ., , i iii '- H . . 1. . A W, .iii s-1 .f, ina' :fill i .,,, juris' :j , .gl , If ff Eg! yf :iff Q ii! ' W-' Lhil' i LJ .A ,.,,-., M, , , C .-..-:. -1-:Lee . -I .,. . J A lg his impressions, though deep and lasting, are often, in -' CQ, i in point of time, blurred and indistinct. Seldom is he able, Wifi-ii at least from his own recollection, to date with accuracy an early A impression, unless it be connected with some external event. Across the space of twenty-six years one day in my boyhood comes to mind with great distinctness-the midsummer day in which we fa family partyj drove over thirty or forty miles of Massachusetts roads. Early in the morning we passed the old manse which had been built for Emerson's grandfather. ln an upper room in this house Emerson began his Nature, and in the same room, a few years later, Hawthorne wrote his Mosses from an Old Mansef' which began with a charming descrip- tion of this historic home. It was in this room that the clergyman who then dwelt in the manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two nations g he saw the irregular array of his parish- ioners on the farther side of the river and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He awaited in an agony of suspense the rattle of the musketry. lt came, and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke around this quiet house. The Reverend lYilliam Emerson had encouraged his parishioners to withstand the British troops who had been sent to Concord to destroy military stores 1 but when the time for the struggle came. his people would not permit him to leave his house. Sixty-one years later. at the completion of the monument commemorating the Concord lfight, his grandson read the well-known poem on the spot where once the embattled farmers stood, .Xnd tired the shot heard round the world. IO

Page 18 text:

strongly toward XX'est lfoint g during that summer I faced about, and turned collegeward. Tliencefortli, wherever I traveled, whether in this country or in liurope, colleges and universities had a strong attraction for me 3 whatever else might be omitted, these must not be passed by. XYith four great universities I have come into relations of special inti- macy g and some account of the impressions received at these universities it has seemed appropriate for me to offer to readers who are chiefly college and university students. Three years of hard study brought me again to Cambridge, this time to undergo the ordeal of three days of examinations. During the closing examination of the third day the air was astir with the clanging of bells and the repeated discharges of cannon. These sounds of jubilation were by no means helpful to youths who were struggling in the hottest part of a July day to despatch an examination paper in the short space of one hour. A few hours later we were more in sympathy, but were too tired and too much pre-occupied to realize very keenly that the one hundredth anniversary of VVashington's taking command of the American Army had just been commemorated with appropriate exercises, including the well-known poem by Lowell. Ki Historic town, thou holdest sacred dust, Once known to men, as pious, learned, just. And one memorial pile that dares to last: But Memory greets with reverential kiss No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, Touched by that modest glory as it past. O'er which yon elm hath piously displayed These hundred years its monumental shade. ,, In the autumn days that followed, many a new friendship was made during pleasant walks to places of historic interest. XYithin the college yard stands the old Presidents house, which was built in 1726, and which now bears the name of XVadsworth House, in memory of the first Presi- dent who occupied it. This house was given up to General XVashington, and was used by him as temporary headquarters during the summer of 1775. Indeed, all the college buildings then standing-Harvard Hall, Stoughton, Hollis, Massachusetts, and Holden Chapel--were given up to the army, chiefly for use as soldiers' quarters. During the winter of the siege of lloston, 1775-76, the college was transferred to Concord, and, though degrees were given as usual, public commencements were omitted for several years. It is said that during the occupancy of the soldiers the lead was stripped from the roof of Harvard Hall for the purpose of making bullets. Those were days when strict economy was necessary. ln August, 1777. the Corporation voted that the Steward I2