e to college education, on the
state of things which existed in the previous generation. The intense
political excitement of the Revolutionary period seems to have unsettled
the minds of men from the quiet pursuits of life."

Reminiscences like these of his own lead one to speak of his memory,
which was of all kinds, and wonderful in all. His memory for things was
as remarkable as that for words,--a parallel I have known in very few
men. In this double memory lay his power, which often excited the
surprise of other speakers, of introducing into a discourse which he had
written out, and, as men said, committed to memory, a passage purely
extempore, so precisely that no patch could be observed at the
junctures. The truth is, that it was not a matter of much account with
him whether he had written out a statement of a fact or not. He was sure
of the fact. And in simple narrative he was as willing to use extempore
language as language prepared. Mr. Emerson says, in some not very
flattering criticisms on him,--"It was remarked, for a man who threw out
so many facts, he was seldom convicted of a blunder." I do not think he
had any system of training memory, beyond that of using it and calling
on it pitilessly, which is, I believe, the central rule regarding it.

Here is a curious story of a feat of memory, in his sketch of his
Sophomore year.

"I have mentioned Metaphysics as a study in which I succeeded. I mean,
of course, only that I prepared myself thoroughly in the text-books.
Watts's Logic was the first book studied in this branch,--not a very
inviting treatise, compared with that of Archbishop Whately, but easily
comprehended, and not repulsive. The account of the syllogistic method
amused me; and the barbarous stanza describing the various syllogistic
modes and figures dwelt for a long time in my memory, and has not wholly
faded away. Locke's 'Essay concerning Human Understanding' came next.
This was more difficult. I recollect we used to make sport of the first
sentence in the 'Epistle to the Reader,' which was, 'I here put into thy
hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours: if
it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half
so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little
think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed.' I cannot say that we
any of us derived much diversion from it; but I overcame its difficulty
by the resolute purpose to ac