Long before I went to college I had an attack of Irish antiquities, which
I relieved by reading O'Brien, Vallancey, the more sensible Petrie, and
O'Somebody's Irish grammar, aided by old Annie Mooney, who always
remained by us. In after years I discovered an Ogham inscription and the
famed Ogham tongue, or _Shelta_, "the lost language of the bards,"
according to Kuno Meyer and John Sampson.

During my first half-year a college magazine was published, and I, a
Freshman, was requested to contribute to the first number. I sent in an
article on the history of English poetry. Before I wrote it, the great
man among the senior students asked leave to be allowed to write it with
me. I did not quite like the idea, but reflecting that the association
would give me a certain prestige, I accepted his aid. So it appeared;
but it was regarded as mine. Professor Dodd said something to me about
the inexpediency of so young a person appearing in print. I could have
told him that I had already published several poems, &c., in
Philadelphian newspapers, but reflecting that it was not kind to have the
better of him, I said nothing. From that time I published something in
every number. My second article was an essay on Spinoza, and I still
think it was rather good for a boy of sixteen.

There was the College and also a Society library, out of which I picked a
great deal of good reading. One day I asked Professor John MacLean, the
college librarian, for the works of Condorcet. His reply was, "Vile
book! vile book! can't have it." However, I found in the Society library
Urquhart's translation of "Rabelais," which I read, I daresay, as often
as any mortal ever did. And here I have a word to say to the wretched
idiots who regard "the book called Rabelais" as "immoral" and unfit for
youth. Many times did I try to induce my young friends to read
"Rabelais," and some actually mastered the story of the goose as a
_torche-cul_, and perhaps two or three chapters more; but as for reading
through or enjoying it, "that was not in their minds." All complained,
or at least showed, that they "did not understand it." It was to them an
aggravating farrago of filth and oddity, under which they suspected some
formal allegory or meaning which had perished, or was impenetrable. Learn
this, ye prigs of morality, that no work of genius ever yet demoralised a
dolt or ignoramus. Even the Old Testament, with all its stores of the
"shocking," really d