School-Life at Mount Pleasant—Mathematics—Elocution—Testimony of
Classmates—Religious Experiences—Troubles—A Romantic
Friendship—Another Kind—Letter of Reminiscence—A Royal School-boy.
It was in 1827, and Henry was fourteen years old, when he entered the
Mount Pleasant Institute. “He was admitted to the institution at a price
about half the usual charge, for one hundred dollars per year.” “His
appearance was robust and healthy, rather inclined to fulness of form,
with a slight pink tinge on his cheeks and a frequent smile upon his
face. In his manners and communications he was quiet, orderly, and
respectful. He was a good-looking youth.” This is the testimony of one
of his teachers, Mr. George Montague.
“I think he must have been fond of children, for he was always ready for
a frolic with me. I don’t remember how he spoke, except that he talked a
good deal and was full of life and fun.” So says a friend, in whose home
he boarded, in a letter written during the past year.
No place could have been better fitted to the condition of the boy, as
he then was, than the one chosen. He was tired of the city with its
brick walls, stone pavements, and artificial restrictions, and longed
for the freedom and the freshness of the country. Amherst at that time
was only a small village, fighting back with indifferent success the
country that pressed in upon it from every side, and offering this
city-sick lad, almost within a stone’s throw of the school, the same
kind of fields and forests that were around him at Litchfield, and
spreading out for him a landscape equal in beauty to that of his
childhood home.
Besides, he has an object in view that stirs his blood. He is to fit
himself for the navy; his father has promised his influence to get him
an appointment, if wanted, and Admiral Nelson and all other brave
admirals and commodores are his models. For the first time in his life
he takes hold of study with enthusiasm.
The institution was very popular in its day, and a great advance upon
the old academy. It was semi-military in its methods, and in its
government there was great thoroughness without severity. Its teachers
possessed superior qualifications, and all were men of great kindness as
well as of marked ability. Among them were two men who especially had
great influence in directing his energies and preparing him not only for
Amherst College but for the greater work beyond, and who were ever
remembered by him with the deepest gratitude.
The first of these was W. P. Fitzgerald, the teacher of mathematics at
Mount Pleasant school:
“He taught me to conquer in studying. There is a very hour in which a
young nature, tugging, discouraged, and weary with books, rises with the
consciousness of victorious power into masterhood. For ever after he
knows that he can learn anything if he pleases. It is a distinct
intellectual ‘conversion.’
“I first went to the blackboard, uncertain, soft, full of whimpering.
‘THAT LESSON MUST BE LEARNED,’ he said, in a very quiet tone, but with a
terrible intensity and with the certainty of Fate. All explanations and
excuses he trod under foot with utter scornfulness. ‘I want that
problem. I don’t want any reasons why I don’t get it.’
“‘I did study it two hours.’
“‘That’s nothing to me; I want the lesson. You need not study it at all,
or you may study it ten hours—just to suit yourself. I want the lesson.
Underwood, go to the blackboard!’
“‘Oh! yes, but Underwood got somebody to _show_ him his lesson.’
“‘What do I care _how_ you get it? That’s your business. But you must
have it.’
“It was tough for a green boy, but it seasoned him. In less than a month
I had the most intense sense of intellectual independence and courage to
defend my recitations.
“In the midst of a lesson his cold and calm voice would fall upon me in
the midst of a demonstration—‘_No!_’ I hesitated, stopped, and then went
back to the beginning; and, on reaching the same spot again, ‘_No!_’
uttered with the tone of perfect conviction, barred my progress. ‘The
next!’ and I sat down in red confusion. He too was stopped with ‘No!’
but went right on, finished, and, as he sat down, was rewarded with,
‘Very well.’
“‘Why,’ whimpered I, ‘I recited it just as he did, and you said No!’
“‘Why didn’t you say _Yes_, and stick to it? It is not enough to know
your lesson. You must _know_ that you know it. You have learned nothing
till you are _sure_. If all the world says _No_, your business is to say
_Yes_ and to _prove it_!’”
The other helper of this period was John E. Lovell.
In a column of the _Christian Union_ of July 14, 1880, devoted to
“Inquiring Friends,” appeared this question with the accompanying
answer:
“We heard Mr. Beecher lecture recently in Boston and found the lecture a
grand lesson in elocution. If Mr. Beecher would give through the column
of ‘Inquiring Friends’ the methods of instruction and practice pursued
by him, it would be very thankfully received by a subscriber and
student. / / / / / / E. D. M.
“I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising from a large palate,
so that when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had
pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst I was fortunate in passing
into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution, and a better
teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His system consisted in drill,
or the thorough practice of inflexions by the voice, of gesture,
posture, and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my
voice on a word—like ‘justice.’ I would have to take a posture,
frequently at a mark chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all
the gestures, exercising each movement of the arm and the throwing open
the hand. All gestures except those of precision go in curves, the arm
rising from the side, coming to the front, turning to the left or right.
I was drilled as to how far the arm should come forward, where it should
start from, how far go back, and under what circumstances these
movements should be made. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions
almost became a second nature. Now I never know what movements I shall
make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural to
me. The only method of acquiring an effective education is by practice,
of not less than an hour a day, until the student has his voice and
himself thoroughly subdued and trained to right expression.
H. W. B.”
Mr. Montague says: “Mr. Beecher submitted to Mr. Lovell’s drilling and
training with a patience which proved his interest in the study to be
great. The piece which was to be spoken was committed to memory from Mr.
Lovell’s mouth, the pupil standing on the stage before him, and every
sentence and word, accent and pronunciation, position and movement of
the body, glance of the eye and tone of voice, all were subjects of
study and criticism. And day after day, often for several weeks in
continuance, Mr. Beecher submitted to this drilling upon the same piece,
until his teacher pronounced him perfect.”
His dramatic power was displayed and noted at this early period. Dr.
Thomas Field, a classmate in the school, says: “One incident occurred
during our residence in Mount Pleasant which left an abiding impression
on my mind. At the exhibition at the close of the year, either 1828 or
1829, the drama of ‘William Tell’ was performed by some of the students,
and your father took the part of the tyrant Gessler. Although sixty
years have passed, I think now, as I thought then, that it was the most
impressive performance I ever witnessed.”
His love of flowers was so marked as to attract the attention of a
gardener in the village, who gave him the use of a plot of ground where
he might sow and plant what he chose; and here the boy spent many a
play-hour in digging, sowing, and weeding, that he might enjoy the
beauty which his own hand had been instrumental in producing. “In this
garden-corner the chaplain of Mount Pleasant Institute found him one day
lost in admiration for the opening buds and beautiful blossoms that were
unfolding under his culture, and could not forbear to improve the
opportunity and administer a gentle rebuke to the enthusiastic youth.
‘Ah! Henry,’ he said, ‘these things are pretty, very pretty, but, my
boy, do you think that such things are worthy to occupy the attention of
a man who has an immortal soul?’” The boy was abashed before so much
dignity, and, we may add, stupidity, and assuming the stolid look that
his bashfulness had made natural, at this time, under such
circumstances, went on with his work among the flowers; but he said
afterwards that he wanted to tell him that “since Almighty God had taken
time to make these trifles, it did not seem amiss for him to take time
to look at them.” So, now a youth, he is walking as when a child among
flowers, and the leader of the boys in their most venturesome sports is
kneeling in adoring silence over beds of pansies and asters, and feeding
the hunger of his soul with the beauty of their forms and colors.
In a letter dated December 24, 1828, addressed to his sister Harriet—the
first that has come to our hands from Mount Pleasant—he gives some
account of his manner of life at school, and various experiences:
“DEAR SISTER:
”... I have to rise in the morning at half-past five o’clock, and after
various little duties, such as fixing of room, washing, etc., which
occupies about an hour, we proceed to breakfast, from thence to chapel,
after which we have about ten minutes to prepare for school. Then we
attend school from eight to twelve. An hour at noon is allowed for
diversions of various sorts. Then dinner. After that school from
half-past one to half-past four. At night we have about an hour and a
half; then tea. After tea we have about ten minutes; then we are called
to our rooms till nine.
“Now I will tell you how I occupy my spare time—in reading, writing, and
playing the flute. We are forming a band here. I shall play either the
flute or hautboy. I enjoy myself _pretty_ well. In Latin I am studying
Sallust. As to ease, all I have to do is to study straight ahead. It
comes _pretty_ easy. My Greek is rather hard. I am as yet studying the
grammar and Jacob’s Greek Reader. In elocution we read and speak
alternately every other day.
”... I find it hard to keep as a Christian ought to. To be sure, I find
delight in prayer, but I cannot find time to be alone sufficiently. We
have in our room only two, one besides myself, but he is most of my
play-hours practising on some instrument or other. I have some time, to
be sure, but it is very irregular, and I never know when I shall have an
opportunity for private devotions until the time comes. I do not like to
read the Bible as well as to pray, but I suppose it is the same as it is
with a lover, who loves to talk with his mistress in person better than
to write when she is afar off....
“Your affectionate brother,
“HENRY.”
His religious experience, of which we have heard nothing since he left
Litchfield, the life in Boston apparently not being very favorable to
it, again attracts our attention at this point. He says:
“When I was fourteen years of age I left Boston and went to Mount
Pleasant. There broke out while I was there one of those infectious
religious revivals which have no basis of judicious instruction, but
spring from inexperienced zeal. It resulted in many mushroom hopes, and
I had one of them; but I do not know how or why I was converted. I only
know I was in a sort of day-dream, in which I hoped I had given myself
to Christ.
“I wrote to father expressing this hope; he was overjoyed, and sent me a
long, kind letter on the subject. But in the course of three or four
weeks I was nearly over it; and I never shall forget how I felt, not
long afterward, when a letter from father was handed me in which he said
I must anticipate my vacation a week or two and come home and join the
Church on the next Communion Sabbath. The serious feelings I had were
well-nigh gone, and I was beginning to feel quite jolly again, and I did
not know what to do. I went home, however, and let them take me into the
Church. A kind of pride and shamefacedness kept me from saying I did not
think I was a Christian, and so I was made a church-member.”
In an editorial in the _Independent_, written in 1862, upon the
disbanding of this old church, the Bowdoin Street—originally Hanover
Street—Church, Boston, he describes this event:
“If somebody will look in the old records of Hanover Street church about
1829 they will find a name there of a boy about fifteen years old who
was brought into the Church on a sympathetic wave, and who well
remembers how cold and almost paralyzed he felt while the committee
questioned him about his ‘hope’ and ‘evidences,’ which, upon review,
amounted to this: that the son of such a father ought to be a good and
pious boy. Being tender-hearted and quick to respond to moral sympathy,
he had been caught and inflamed in a school excitement, but was just
getting over it when summoned to Boston to join the church! On the
morning of _the_ day he went to church without seeing anything he looked
at. He heard his name called from the pulpit among many others, and
trembled; rose up with every emotion petrified; counted the spots on the
carpet; looked piteously up at the cornice; heard the fans creak in the
pews near him; felt thankful to a fly that lit on his face, as if
something familiar at last had come to break an awful trance; heard
faintly a reading of the Articles of Faith; wondered whether he should
be struck dead for not feeling more—whether he should go to hell for
touching the bread and wine, that he did not dare to take nor to refuse;
spent the morning service uncertain whether dreaming, or out of the
body, or in a trance; and at last walked home crying, and wishing he
knew what, now that he was a Christian, he should do, and how he was to
do it. Ah! well, there is a world of things in children’s minds that
grown-up people do not imagine, though they too once were young.”
Unsatisfactory in many respects as was his religious experience, it
seems to have been powerful enough to change his whole ideal of life. We
hear no more of his becoming a sailor. He appears to have yielded to the
inevitable, and henceforth studies with the ministry in view.
That there was awakened in him a strong sense of duty and a deep
earnestness of purpose appears from a letter written from the school to
his brother Edward:
“_Mount Pleasant_, July 11, 1829.
”DEAR BROTHER:
“I have been expecting a letter from you all the time; but I suppose you
have too much to do to write letters. Mr. Newton has set up a
Bible-class on Sabbath morning for the larger boys, and a Sabbath-school
on Sabbath afternoon for the smaller boys. The Bible-classes are very
interesting indeed. He first began with the 73d Psalm; then he commenced
the New Testament and is going through it in course. The boys generally
are very much pleased with the lecture.
“On Wednesday evenings he is a-going to deliver doctrinal sermons. All
with whom I have conversed on the subject are very desirous that he
should commence them.
“There has been a boy named Forsyth who has since the revival been very
active in the cause of religion, and promised to be a man of great
usefulness; he is a boy of great influence, and he has gone back. He
does not oppose religion, but wishes that he had it. His going back has
caused a great deal of sorrow here among the boys who profess to be
pious.
“I room with Homes at present; he is, I think, very amiable and pious.
We have prayers together every evening. Then he has an hour in the
morning and I an hour in the evening for private devotions. I find that
if I neglect prayer even _once_ that I do not desire to pray again as
much as I did before, and the more I pray the more I love to do it.
“At present I am comparing the Evangelists together, and looking up the
passages in the Old which are referred to in the New Testament.
“Charles and I correspond regularly. In order to make it profitable as
well as interesting, we have in every letter some difficult passage for
one another to explain. I like the plan very much.
“Our examination is over, and exhibition also. I send you one of our
papers (published at the institution), which has a scheme of the
exhibition. I got through my examinations very well. I hope that you
will find time to answer this soon. Give my best love to any of the
family who may be in Boston, and Aunt Homes’s family.
“Your affec. brother,
“H. W. BEECHER.“
In another one to the same, dated August, 1829, he says:
”MY DEAR BROTHER:
“I received your letter Sabbath eve. I expect father received a letter
from me about the same time that you did this one, in which I asked him
to explain some things from the Bible to me.... While I think of it, Mr.
Newton explains the Bible twice a week now instead of once. He presses
the boys to the study of the Bible and to prayer more than any minister
I ever knew, and I believe it to be not without effect. I, for one, have
read my Bible more and studied it more. Father recommended me to keep a
little book in which I should put all my loose thoughts. I got one about
a month since and have filled a good deal of it already. My studies go
pretty well. At present I am studying Cicero and the Greek reader. I
expect next term (in about five weeks) to take up the Greek Testament,
and Virgil, and mathematics. I intend to stay here another year, almost
for no other purpose than to learn mathematics, it is taught so well
here! I exercise three hours in a day. One of the questions which I
wished to ask you is this, Matthew ii. 23: ‘That it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophets: He shall be called a Nazarene.’ Mr.
Newton gave one explanation, but it did not satisfy me. I have been and
am still reading Dr. Gregory’s letters on the evidences, doctrines, and
duties of the Christian religion.
“I intend to spend a part of my vacation (which will commence soon) in
Hartford. I do not exactly understand the doctrine of predestination,
and several boys have been to me and asked me to explain it to them, but
I could never do it to my own satisfaction. I am paying a considerable
attention to elocution, reading, etc.
“I wish to ask you concerning _novel_-reading. I know that to read much
of any such thing is bad, but do you think that it would injure me to
read now and then those of Scott and Cooper? Write soon as possible.
Your affec. brother,
“HENRY.“
The following letter, written near the close of his school-life, affords
a view of some of his troubles, and is given entire:
”MOUNT PLEASANT, Mar. 1, 1830.
“MY DEAR SISTER:
“I received your letter yesterday and have got up about an hour earlier
this morning in order that I may have time to answer it. My studies are
growing more and more difficult, for I am preparing for examination, and
most of the Greek which I am reviewing I have never been over, and I
have to learn something like _ten_ pages. Sometimes I feel almost
discouraged, and if I was studying for _myself_ alone I should have
given up long ago; but when I think that I am preparing myself to bear
the commands of Him who is my Master, I can go with renewed strength
from day to day. A little time spent here in performing our duty, and
then our toil and trouble will be rewarded with double and eternal
happiness. I feel just as you do while writing or thinking of these
things—I feel drawn up toward heaven, my home, and am enabled to look
upon the earth as a place of pilgrimage and not an abiding city. Those
are moments of true happiness, which the world knows not; but when I mix
with the boys I forget these things, and do talk and act unworthy of a
disciple of Christ. I find this to need much watchfulness and prayer,
for I believe that I take to light trifling more than people generally
do. I find much trouble with _pride_. I am afraid every day that I shall
get into some difficulty with my instructors. I feel more at liberty
when I write to you than any other of my sisters; not because I do not
love them, but because you are nearer my age. I notice many things in
reading your letter which struck me as exactly like my own feelings. I
feel when in meeting, or when reading any book, as if I should never
cease serving Christ, and could run with patience the race which is set
before me. Oh! then I have such thoughts, such views of God, and of His
love and mercy, that my heart would burst through the corrupt body of
this world and soar up with angels. Oh! how happy the thought that we
may in all the ages of eternity serve and enjoy the _presence_ of that
God, the very glimpses of whom fill us with such joy here. I believe
that if I had not somewhere to lay my troubles, if Christ had not
invited all those that are ‘weary and heavy laden’ to come unto Him,
that I should have long since been discouraged, for I do not think that
my instructors do right with me; for although they know that my lessons
are double those of any other boy, still they scold and ridicule me
during recitation, and, what is worse, the principals will at the close
of the week, when the reports are read, read off my reports and all the
remarks which are made of me by the under-instructors, and yet will not
even say (_I_ can say it with my whole heart) that I exert myself all in
my power. And the deficiency is not for want of study. Nevertheless, if
it will do me any good, if it will break down my proud spirit, if it
will make me depend more upon help from above than earthly help, I will
suffer it—yes, rejoice in it.
“I _write_ to you, Harriet, just as I would _speak_ with you; and if it
seems to you that I am childish in feeling thus, I can say perhaps I may
be, but there are feelings which I have long had, and have wished to
relate to some one whom I loved and who could advise me. I have said
little or nothing to any of my schoolmates concerning these things. You
inquired something concerning card-playing, etc. I don’t know what to
think about it. I believe that there are little societies which meet at
certain places for the purpose of playing. It is not among the large
boys only, but among those of ten or twelve years of age, and most all
the boys say ‘they would not _play, because_ it is _forbidden_ by Mr.
Colton; but they don’t _think_ there is _any harm_ in it _any more_ than
there is in playing _chess_.’ Mr. Colton knows that the boys play, and
all that he has found out he has punished in some way or other; but
there are many that he has not found who still continue to play in
secret places, and it is not uncommon to hear little boys of eight or
nine years old swearing most shockingly.
“The bell is ringing and I must begin my studies now. Write _soon_.
Your most affectionate brother,
“HENRY.
“P. S. Will you send me a few questions that will be good for a debating
society? We wish to get the best one we can for a public debate.”
Occasionally in some moment of frolicsome reminiscence he would tell one
of his grandchildren of another kind of experience that belonged to
these days. Bashful as he was and retiring by nature, he was not by any
means proof against the tender passion—in fact, such a nature as his was
just the one that its arrows would reach the earliest, and into which
they would strike deepest.
She was the sister of a schoolmate, and her name was Nancy. All this
vacation he had developed great fondness for this school friend; was
often at his house. “And there,” he said, “I would lean against the
window and watch Nancy sew, she had such little pink fingers—how I
wanted to take hold of them! And then once in a while she would just
glance up, and I would be covered with hot and awkward confusion.”
On one evening in particular he had spruced up his dress and screwed up
his courage preparatory to making an evening call, when, as the family
sat around the fire, “Lyman,” said the mother, without looking up from
her lace knitting, “Mount Pleasant is an excellent school. Henry is
improving very much. He has grown tidy, blacks his boots and brushes his
hair, and begins to pay a proper attention to his clothes.”
“At this point,” says Mr. Beecher, in telling the story, “Charles gave
an explosive giggle and punched me slyly. Father lowered his newspaper;
glancing over his glasses in our direction, seeing me covered with
confusion and Charles full of suppressed laughter, said dryly:
“‘Oh! it is the school, is it? Humph! I guess the cause is nearer
home.’”
“How did it turn out, grandpa?”
“Oh! she was older than I, and married another fellow soon after. A
short time ago, after a lecture in Boston, a little old lady introduced
herself to me as ‘Nancy ———.’ But the charm was gone. I shook the once
tempting hand and felt neither awkward nor hot.”
To some of his letters of this school-boy era he signs the initials H.
_C._ B. instead of H. W. B. The adoption of this letter C came about
from that enthusiasm of friendship which was always one of his marked
characteristics. The following is the history of the matter:
On the back of a sheet of letter-paper which we have before us, folded
as if for filing, is written:
“HENRY W. BEECHER
&
CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL,
Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institution,
Amherst, Mass.”
Opening it we read:
“We do, in the presence of God and his holy angels, by our signatures,
mutually pledge ourselves to be and perform all things subjoined:
“(1) We do pledge ourselves to be _real_, lawful, and everlasting
_brothers_; and that we will perform toward each other _all the duties_
of brothers, whether present or _absent_, in health or in _sickness_, in
wealth or in _poverty_, in prosperity or adversity; and that we will
love and watch over one another, seeking by all means in our power to
aid and make each other happy.
”H. C. BEECHER,
“CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL.
“(2) If parted hereafter we pledge ourselves to write to one another
once in two months, provided we are both in the United States. But if
either shall remove or reside in any foreign land, we will write _four_
times each year, that is, once in three months, unless we shall alter
the arrangement.
”H. C. BEECHER,
“CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL.
“(3) If we hear one another’s character evil spoken of, we pledge
ourselves fearlessly to defend it and shield it from reproach.
”H. C. BEECHER,
“CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL.
“(4) We will pass over the little faults which we may observe in each
other, nor will we reproach one another of any little misstep.
[Signatures omitted here.]
“(5) Our sorrows and joys shall be common, so that we may rejoice in
mutual prosperity and assist one another in adversity.
”H. C. BEECHER,
“CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL.
“And now we consider ourselves as _brothers_, and we are bound together
by ties and obligations as strong as can be placed upon us. But we
rather rejoice in the relationship, as now it has converted our former
friendship into brotherly love. As formerly we were connected by nothing
save voluntary friendship, which could be broken off, so now we are
connected by a love which _cannot_ be broken; and we have pledged
ourselves before God and his angels to be as written above. But we do
not sorrow on this account—far from it, we greatly rejoice—for we have
not done this thoughtlessly, but being convinced by _three years’_
friendship that we mutually love one another; and from this time are now
assumed new duties and obligations. And to all the foregoing we
cheerfully and voluntarily subscribe our names. And now may God bless us
in this our covenant and in all our future ways, and receive us both at
last in heaven.
“H. C. BEECHER,
“CONSTANTINE F. NEWELL.
“AMHERST, April, 1832.”
The explanation of this singular paper is found in a very romantic
history and friendship.
Constantine Fontellachi was a Greek from the island of Scio, in the
Grecian Archipelago. His parents were killed by the Turks in that
terrible massacre of the Sciotese which horrified the world in 1822.
Constantine, who was six or eight years old, escaped and hid among the
rocks upon the coast until he was discovered and taken off by a coasting
vessel. He made his way to the New World and was adopted by Mrs. Newell,
of Amherst, as her own, and sent to the Mount Pleasant school. His
romantic but sorrowful history, his great beauty and grace of person,
captivated Henry Ward; as he said: “He was the most beautiful thing I
had ever seen. He was like a young Greek god. When we boys used to go
swimming together I would climb out on the bank to watch Constantine
swim, he was so powerful, so beautiful.”
The brightness of his intellect and his kindliness of heart were equal
to the beauty of his person, and the admiration excited deepened into
the warmest and most sincere affection. It was like that between David
and Jonathan, and appears to have been mutual.
When they separated at the close of their school-days, one to enter
college and the other to go into business in Boston, the above covenant
was written, admirable only as it illustrates what has been called Mr.
Beecher’s genius for friendship. Returning to his native land in 1842,
Constantine died very suddenly of cholera. But even then the old
friendship was not forgotten. Years after Mr. Beecher gave to one of his
sons “Constantine” as a middle name, that he might have in his family
one who should always remind him of the friend so greatly beloved.
We close this chapter with a letter of reminiscence of Mount Pleasant
days.
“AMHERST, MASS., May 17, 1849.
”MY DEAR EUNICE AND VERY DEAR WIFE:
“Here am I in this memorable place. It is now fifteen years since you
received a letter from me dated as is this one. It is twenty-three years
since I first put my foot on the village sod! It gives my head a whirl
to look back so far, or to hear myself, with my young-looking face and
younger-acting one, talking of things that happened to me at such long
distances of time.... Arrived at Northampton about four o’clock; took
stage for Amherst, mounted on top for sight-seeing. Rode through the old
town along by the ploughed fields to the bridge of memorable history.
All _our_ experiences came very freshly back. I thought I could tell the
very places where I kissed you in our ride home....
“After emerging from this old town (Hadley) the colleges shone out from
afar; then Mount Pleasant gradually, and one by one the various
prominent dwellings in the village. I put up at the Baltwoods’ old
tavern.... I first went to the college; walked up and down and around in
the various entries, in the grove, by the well, in the chapel, in each
recitation-room. Then I went to each of the rooms which I occupied in
college. I sought out the spots which had a very melancholy interest
from events in my morbid religious history. I then turned my steps to
Mount Pleasant. I cannot tell the emotions that I had when I once more
trod the grassy ascent where my opening manhood first fairly dawned. As
I walked up the long slope I almost thought that I should see the crowd
of boys break forth from some door. I stopped on the terrace where for
three years I mustered with more than a hundred boys, and whence we
marched to chapel, to meals, to church, etc. As I stood there
Constantine seemed to rise up to greet me, as he never will greet me;
Hunt, Pomeroy, French, Burt, Thayer, Tilghman, Dwight, Van Lennep,
Fitzgerald, and scores of others. The wings of the building, the chapel,
the kitchen, etc., were all taken away, so that the places where most I
roomed, and the veranda in which I used to sit and muse and feel the
rise and swell of yearnings the meaning of which I did not know, are all
swept away. Here I spent the half-ideal and half-emotive, dreamy hours
in which I used to look across the beautiful Connecticut River valley,
and at the blue mountains that hedged it in, until my heart swelled and
my eyes filled with tears; why, I could not tell. Then I would push out
into the woods and romp with the wildest of them. I visited the grove,
once beautiful, now meagre and forlorn. I went into the rear building;
each room brought up some forgotten scene, some face remembered for good
or ill. I went to the room where I roomed early in my course. The boys
were at supper, and so I sat down and meditated awhile. The room in
which I lived with Fitzgerald was not to be found, some changes in the
interior of the house having shut it out from the entry where I formerly
found it. It was a strange mixture of old things found again and old
things not to be found—of surprise and disappointment, of things painful
and of things joyful. All my favorites, the little fellows that I used
to love and cherish, their faces looked out at me at every turn. I tried
to find the trees, growing three from a root, on which I made steps and
built a slat house up among the branches; where I used to sit
wind-rocked and read or muse, cry and laugh, just as the fancy took me.
It was gone. There are twenty-five boys here at a select school. They
were playing down on the old football ground, and the voices and shouts,
quips and jokes, were so natural that I could hardly help plunging down
the hill, catching up a club, and going into the game of ball with all
my old ardor. But they would have no remembrances to meet mine. I should
not have been _Hank_ Beecher to them.... Good-by, dear wife.
“Truly yours,
“H. W. B.
“Love to all the children, big and little.”
For the benefit of all school-boys we call attention to some of the
most marked features of this period in the life of H. W. Beecher, as
they appear from the extracts given and from other papers for which we
have no space. He was healthy and robust, a favorite among the boys
upon the play-ground, who called him “Hank” Beecher. He was a leader
in their sports, and at the same time a champion of the younger and
weaker boys. He learned to master his work, and by drill in
school-room and gymnasium gained control of his own powers of body and
mind. He kept his eyes open to the beauty of the world around him, and
was very susceptible to the attractions of fair faces as well. He was
open and manly in following his religious convictions, clean-mouthed
and pure-hearted in his morals. He pondered big matters, and asked
large questions, and sought out satisfactory conclusions for himself
and for his companions. He looked for information in all directions,
and took great pains to store it away for future use. He read good
books and a great many of them, and the novels he read were of the
best kind. Withal he was a “hail-fellow-well-met” companion and a most
devoted and faithful friend. Upon the authority of every word of
testimony we have been able to get from teachers, classmates, and old
residents of the town, we declare him to have been a royal school-boy,
whose manly faithfulness, kindly service, stalwart morality, and
loving, cheerful friendliness prepared him for the grand life which he
afterwards lived and the great success which he achieved, and make him
a worthy example for all the ingenuous, aspiring youth of our land.