the great
conflicts in which he took part in after life. He never wrote out his
speeches beforehand.

Speaking of his feelings at the end of his college life, he sadly said:

"My father's death had embittered the last days of the year 1836,
and left me without a counsellor. I knew something of books,
nothing of men, and I went forth like Adam among the wild beasts of
the unknown wilderness of the world. My father had dedicated me to
the ministry, but the day had gone when such dedications determined
the lives of young men. Theology as a grave topic of historic and
metaphysical investigation I delighted to pursue, but for the
ministry I had no calling. I would have been idle if I could, for I
had no ambition, but I had no fortune and I could not beg or
starve."

All who were acquainted with his temperament can well imagine what a
gloomy prospect the future presented to him, when its contemplation
wrung from his stoical taciturnity that touching confession.

The truth is, that from the time he entered college he was continually
cramped for want of money. The negroes ate everything that was produced
on the farm in Anne Arundel, a gastronomic feat which they could easily
accomplish, without ever having cause to complain of a surfeit. His
aunt, herself in limited circumstances, by a careful husbandry of her
means, managed to keep him at college. Kenyon was then a manual-labor
institution, and the boys were required to sweep their own rooms, make
their own beds and fires, bring their own water, black their own boots,
if they ever were blacked, and take an occasional turn at grubbing in
the fields or working on the roads. There was no royal road to learning
known at Kenyon in those days. Through all this Henry Winter Davis
passed, bearing his part manfully; and knowing how heavily he taxed the
slender purse of his aunt, he denied himself with such rigor that he
succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in bringing his total expenses,
including boarding and tuition, within the sum of eighty dollars per
annum.

His father left an estate consisting only of some slaves, which were
equally apportioned between himself and sister. Frequent applications
were made to purchase his slaves, but he never could be induced to sell
them, although the proceeds would have enabled him to pursue his studies
with ease and comfort. He rather sought and obtained a tutorship, and
for two years he