S. R. Crockett

“ But of all others, the divinity student is perhaps the most misunderstood. He is wilfully misrepresented by those who ought to know him best. Nay, he misrepresents himself, and when he doffs tweeds and takes to collars which fasten behind and a long-skirted clerical coat, he is apt to disown his past self ”

“ GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY Naturalists have often remarked how little resemblance there is between the young of certain animals and the adult specimen. Yonder tottering quadrangular arrangement of chewed string, remotely and inadequately connected at the upper corners, is certainly the young of the horse. ”

“ Gilbert Denholm, Master of Arts, Scholar in Theology—to his class-fellows more colloquially and generally known as "Gibby the Eel."
At college we all loved Gilbert. He was a merry-hearted youth, and his mere bodily presence was enough to make glad the countenances of his friends. His father was a minister in the West with a large family to bring up, which he effected with success upon a stipend of surprising tenuity. So it behoved Gilbert to keep himself at college by means of scholarships and private tuition. ”

“ Only sometimes, when he has got his Sunday sermons off his mind and two or three of the augurs are gathered together, will the adult clerk in holy orders venture to lift the veil and chew the cud of ancient jest and prank not wholly sanctified.
Now there ought to be room, in a gallery which contains so many portraits of ministers, for one or two Students of Divinity, faithfully portrayed. ”

“ There is, perhaps, more continuity above the legal profession, but even there it is a notable fact that the older and more successful a lawyer is, the more modest you find him, and the more diffident of his own infallibility. ”

“ As for the Eel, he became a man from that day, and, to a limited extent, put away childish things—though his heart will remain ever young and fresh. His story is another story, and so far as this little study goes it is enough to say that when at last the aged Professor of Hermeneutics passed to the region where all things are to be finally explicated, it was Gilbert Denholm who got up the memorial to his memory, which was subscribed to by every student without exception he had ever had. ”

“ Denholm, you construed vairy well last time. Be good enough to continue at the place you left off. Mr. Denholm—where is Mister—Mister Den—holm?"
And the moon-like countenance rose from its eclipse behind six volumes of Owen (folio edition) , while the two smaller moons in permanent transit directed themselves upon the vacant place in Bench One, from which Gibby the Eel had construed so glibly with the efficient aid of "Bagster." ”

“ In like manner the young of the learned professions are by no means like the full-fledged expert of the mysteries. If in such cases the child is the father of the man, the parentage is by no means apparent. ”

“ The Professor had never been known to call up a man thrice in one day. So, finding Nick McFeat obdurate in the matter of the dress suit, Gilbert announced his intention of visiting Kenneth Kennedy, who, he said pointedly, was not a selfish and unclean animal of the kind abhorred by Jews, but, contrariwise, a gentleman—one who would lend dress clothes for the asking. ”