Chapter 14
With the discovery of certain books of ancient history, Plutarch, Euripides and Emerson's Essays there came an unexpected close to my student life at the Worcester Academy. Several of my classmates and myself agreed that we could be better fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, than where we were, and accordingly we put ourselves under the tuition of Dr. Samuel H. Taylor, at that time the most eminent school and drill-master in New England. Under him I just escaped becoming a classical scholar and also nearly lost the chance of ever acquiring a love for the classics; for it was drill, paradigms, rules, exceptions, scansion, in short, all that pertains to the external apparatus of the Greek and Latin tongues. Often we spent two hours on eight lines of Homer. The father of literature became a Procrustean, grammatical bed on which we were to be stretched, and it did nearly exterminate every one of us. For my own part, I was possessed with an intemperate haste to read Homer straight through as fast as I could; for I felt, without exactly knowing, that there was something in the epic I wanted, yes, I needed and must have. Checked in this by the rigors of the recitation room I lost much of my interest in study, and spent the time which was supposed to be given to text books in reading all the classic and English poetry I could find, and in valorous attempts at composition, both prose and verse. This I by no means now regret, and rejoice that my tuition escaped the Spartan discipline no less than the present pragmatical curricula.
At length I was fitted for college and admitted to Harvard. Misfortunes culminated at the same moment. I did not remain. I was too ill for study, and suddenly the bottom of my perfidious purse dropped out. Bitter was my disappointment. But in another year I began a new career which brought me happiness, new opportunities, new friends and dividends from Utopian investments. Health and hope, my natural inheritance, returned. Boyhood was gone, but not the invincible boy.
As in the Parable I had traveled far, uncertain of the road. My diet had been mostly husks, but how sweet! Arriving at last at hospitable doors, I could receive without penitence, without tears the welcome long prepared for me. Thenceforth I submitted myself with more patience and trust to the destiny which had been awaiting me throughout my apprenticeships. My destiny became my choice.
AVE ATGUE VALE
I shall not pass this way again; But near by is the town where I was born; I loved it well.
And near my heart my mother State; She wreathed her sword with freedom, learning, law When tyrants fell.
Three words from Athens held me long; Nothing-too-much, proportion, harmony; By these excel.
I never hurried for the goal, But like the tortoise travelled steadily, Sans band, sans bell.
Born when the star of Spring arose, Haply my auspices were cast for calm Of wood and dell.
Form I admired and sounds and scents; Motion of waters, silences of stars-- Mighty their spell!
No senate called me from the plow; No hundred thousand readers read my books-- They did not sell.
Many the friends when life was new Heaven sent to me, but now, alas, reclaimed; Sound, Muse, their knell.
You, who hereafter pass this way, Remember him who made this simple book And say farewell.