nd never stop reading till it is time to return, I will send
you there."

My parents were then absent with my younger sisters in New England, but I
had unlimited credit at Congress Hall Hotel, which was kept by a Mr. John
Sturdevant, and where I was greatly respected as the son of the owner of
the property. So I went there, and fared well, and, as Professor Dodd
prophesied, read all the time. One night I went into an auction of
delightful old books. My money had run low; there only remained to me
one dollar and a half.

Now, of all books on earth, what I most yearned for in those days were
the works of Jacob Behmen. And the auctioneer put up a copy containing
"The Aurora or Morning Rednesse," English version (_circa_ 1636), and I
bid. One dollar--one dollar ten cents--twenty--twenty-five; my heart
palpitated, and I half fainted for fear lest I should be outbid, when at
the very last I got it with my last penny.

The black eyes of Professor Dodd twinkled more elfishly than ever when I
exhibited to him my glorious treasure. He evidently thought that my
exile had been to me anything but a punishment, and he was right. For a
copy of _Anthroposophos Theomagicus_ or the works of Robert Fludd I would
have got up another rebellion.

It was quite against the college regulations for students to live in the
town, but as I never touched a card, was totally abstemious and "moral,"
and moreover in rather delicate health, I was passed over as an odd
exception. Once or twice it was proposed to bring me in, but Professor
Dodd interfered and saved me. While in Princeton for more than four
years, I never once touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee,
which was a great pity! Exercise was not in those days encouraged in any
way whatever--in fact, playing billiards and ten-pins was liable to be
punished by expulsion; there was no gymnasium, no boating, and all
physical games and manly exercises were sternly discouraged as leading to
sin. Now, if I had drunk a pint of bitter ale every day, and played
cricket or "gymnased," or rowed for two hours, it would have saved me
much suffering, and to a great degree have relieved me from reading,
romancing, reflecting, and smoking, all of which I carried to great
excess, having an inborn impulse to be always doing something. That I
did not grapple with life as a real thing, or with prosaic college
studies or society, was, I can now see, a _disease_, for which, as my
peculiar tast