You tremble as the chapel-bell is rung; you profess to
be very indifferent, as the reading and the prayer close; you even stoop
to take up your hat, as if you had entirely overlooked the fact that the
old President was in the desk for the express purpose of declaring the
successful names. You listen dreamily to his tremulous, yet fearfully
distinct enunciation. Your head swims strangely.
They all pass out with a harsh murmur along the aisles and through the
doorways. It would be well if there were no disappointments in life more
terrible than this. It is consoling to express very depreciating
opinions of the Faculty in general,--and very contemptuous ones of that
particular officer who decided upon the merit of the prize-themes. An
evening or two at Dalton's room go still farther toward healing the
disappointment, and--if it must be said--toward moderating the heat of
your ambition.
You grow up however, unfortunately, as the college years fly by, into a
very exaggerated sense of your own capacities. Even the good, old,
white-haired Squire, for whom you once entertained so much respect,
seems to your crazy, classic fancy a very humdrum sort of personage.
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