when he heard
the book-worm flap its wings.

Here sit the scholars at great desks with ingenious shelves and racks,
and they write all day and copy excerpts from the older authors. If
one of them hesitates and seems to chew upon his pencil, it is but
indecision whether Hume or Buckle will weigh heavier on his page. Or
if one of them looks up from his desk in a blurred near-sighted
manner, it is because his eyes have been so stretched upon the distant
centuries, that they can hardly focus on a room. If a scholar chances
to sneeze because of the infection, let it be his consolation that the
dust arises from the most ancient and respected authors! Pages move
silently about with tall dingy tomes in their arms. Other tomes, whose
use is past, they bear off to the shades below.

I am told that once in a long time a student of fresher complexion
gets in--a novitiate with the first scholastic down upon his cheek--a
tender stripling on his first high quest--a broth of a boy barely off
his primer--but no sooner is he set than he feels unpleasantly
conspicuous among his elders. Most of these youth bolt, offering to
the doorman as a pretext some neglect--a forgotten mission at a
book-stall--an errand with a tailor. Even those few who remain because
of the greater passion for their studies, find it to their comfort to
break their condition. Either they put on glasses or they affect a
limp. I know one persistent youth who was so consumed with desire for
history, yet so modest against exposure, that he bargained with a
beggar for his crutch. It was, however, the rascal's only livelihood.
This crutch and his piteous whimper had worked so profitably on the
crowd that, in consequence, its price fell beyond the student's purse.
My friend, therefore, practiced a palsy until, being perfect in the
part, he could take his seat without notice or embarrassment. Alas,
the need of these pretenses is short. Such is the contagion of the
place--a breath from Egypt comes up from the lower stacks--that a
youth's appearance, like a dyer's hand, is soon subdued to what it
works in. In a month or so a general dust has settled on him. Too
often learning is a Rip Van Winkle's flagon.

On a rare occasion I have myself been a student, and have plied my
book with diligence. Not long ago I spent a week of agreeable days
reading the many versions of Shakespeare that were played from the
Restoration through the eighteenth century. They are well known to
scho