with which he did his day's
studies. He never dreamed of taking his social moments frivolously. He
did not recognize that society is very much like a bee colony--stinging
those who approached it shyly and quietly, but to be mastered by a bold
beating of tin pans. He neither danced nor talked, and so he was shunted
by the really pleasant girls and clever women, and passed his time with
wall-flowers and unbearables, who, in their normal sourness, regarded
and, perhaps, unconsciously made him feel, hardly to his encouragement,
that his companionship was a sort of penance. If he had been asked, at
the end of his senior year, what he thought of young women and society,
he would probably have stigmatized them, as he himself had been
formerly: "not nice." All of which, again to apply Mr. Pierce's theory,
merely meant that the phases which his own characteristics had shown
him, had re-acted on his own mind, and had led him to conclude that
girls and society were equally unendurable.

The condition was a dangerous one, and if psychology had its doctors
they would have predicted a serious heart illness in store for him. How
serious, would depend largely on whether the fever ran its natural
course, or whether it was driven inwards by disappointment. If these
doctors had ceased studying his mental condition and glanced at his
physical appearance, they would have had double cause to shake their
heads doubtingly.

Peter was not good-looking. He was not even, in a sense, attractive. In
spite of his taking work so hardly and life so seriously, he was
entirely too stout. This gave a heaviness to his face that neutralized
his really pleasant brown eyes and thick brown hair, which were his best
features. Manly the face was, but, except when speaking in unconscious
moments, dull and unstriking. A fellow three inches shorter, and
two-thirds his weight would have been called tall. "Big" was the
favorite adjective used in describing Peter, and big he was. Had he gone
through college ten years later, he might have won unstinted fame and
admiration as the full-back on the team, or stroke on the crew. In his
time, athletics were but just obtaining, and were not yet approved of
either by faculties or families. Shakespeare speaks of a tide in the
affairs of men. Had Peter been born ten years later the probabilities
are that his name would have been in all the papers, that he would have
weighed fifty pounds less, have been cheered by thousands, ha