Jesse Lynch Williams

“ Passing the silent shops, whose blinds had long since been drawn and doors bolted for the night, the little band soon found itself in the neighborhood of homes, some placed at a distance from the street, with shrubbery and dark trees intervening, and others pressing close to the sidewalk—but all of their dark and silent, bespeaking well-earned rest and repose. ”

“ Meanwhile the storm got so bad that the coach people decided not to push on to Princeton until the next day, but there was one passenger, a fat old bloke—a Major or something—who seemed to be in a great hurry, so, as he couldn't get the coach to take him he hired a wagon—an open wagon was the only thing he could get—and swore that he would push on alone with only his servant with him. ”

“ Not so many relatives of the fellows came, because there weren't so many relatives, and because it was such a job to get here, but the people, the country people, gathered from miles around, as well as the fashion from Trenton and Elizabethtown, and even some from New York and Philadelphia. There were horse-races up and down Nassau Street in front of old North; fakirs had tents, strewn here and there; gypsies told fortunes and played the devil ”

“ Alone to wait for morning with his dead father.
might. But they had climbed that hill there in a foot of mud, and besides, two men were holding their heads. "'Your wallet or your life!' cried my ancestor, leaning over into the wagon. The servant dropped down on his knees to reach for the wallet. David thought it was for a pistol. 'No, you don't,' said he, and let the servant have it in the side of his head, and over he flopped. With the flash of the pistol the old gentleman reached out toward David, crying 'My God!' 'Bang!' went my ancestor's other pistol. ”

“ They used to take it more seriously than we do now in these times of brutal athletics. There's a portrait of my ancestor, as he was as a student, in our dining-room at home, by Peale; went all the way to New York in the stage-coach to pose for it during the Christmas holidays when he was visiting that New York pal I spoke of. ”

“ The Freshmen procs. generally came later and said—I've forgotten what, but very much what last year's Freshmen said. Nowadays there are no such things as Rakes or procs.—and yet some old grads. maintain that college life is degenerating. ”