As for the Seniors, your admiration for them is entirely boundless. In
one or two individual instances, it is true, it has been broken down by
an unfortunate squabble with thick-set fellows in the Chapel aisle. A
person who sits not far before you at prayers, and whose name you seek
out very early, bears a strong resemblance to some portrait of Dr.
Johnson; you have very much the same kind of respect for him that you
feel for the great lexicographer, and do not for a moment doubt his
capacity to compile a dictionary equal, if not superior, to Johnson's.
Another man with very bushy, black hair, and an easy look of importance,
carries a large cane, and is represented to you as an astonishing
scholar and speaker. You do not doubt it; his very air proclaims it. You
think of him as presently--(say four or five years hence)--astounding
the United States Senate with his eloquence. And when once you have
heard him in debate, with that ineffable gesture of his, you absolutely
languish in your admiration for him, and you describe his speaking to
your country friends as very little inferior, if at all, to Mr. Burke's.
Beside this one are some half dozen others, among whom the question of
superiority is, you understand, strongly mooted.
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