Even a letter,
in many respects, is nothing, in comparison with it. It carries you
back to the spot, better than anything else. It is almost equal to
clairvoyance. The names of the streets, with the things advertised,
are almost as good as seeing the signs; and while reading "Boy
lost!" one can almost hear the bell and well-known voice of "Old
Wilson," crying the boy as "strayed, stolen, or mislaid!" Then there
was the Commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the
exercises at the graduating of my own class. A list of all those
familiar names, (beginning as usual with Abbot, and ending with W.,)
which, as I read them over, one by one, brought up their faces and
characters as I had known them in the various scenes of college
life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their orations,
dissertations, colloquies, etc., with the gestures and tones of
each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would handle his
subject, * * * * *,handsome, showy, and superficial; * * * *,with
his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession; * * * modest,
sensitive, and underrated; * * * * *, the mouth-piece of the
debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic; and so following.
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