May 1832

Tuesday May 1, 1832 Prof. Reed is a young well-looking man but almost universally unpopular among the students. His ways appear proud and haughty and the station he holds seems to puff him up, which are things never to be shown by an instructor, much less partiality of which he is also accused. For my part he has used me as a gentleman should and as a gentleman and therefore I accuse him not of the last.

Wednesday May 2, 1832 Cold weather has held its rule longer than we had expected and still shows no signs of change. Wood is a very pleasant article especially when well kindled. Some fellows for some time have been playing at ball back of the college and have thrown it through our window twice but have had the little honor not even to offer to pay us the price of putting it in again. I know of many such persons, who call themselves honorable and gentlemanly but who when a little money is demanded even in such a proper and honorable occasion as the above will sneak off like dogs who have been whipped; whose honour if for a moment you should question they would instantly kindle into a flame and feel the sting “at the quick,” but I have seen and said enough about such worthless, unmannerly fellows.

Thursday May 3, 1832 From the making of brick and other preparations by the college I should naturally infer that some grand undertaking was designed and it is generally thought [to] be a chapel. Such an edifice we really need, for the college is much crowded and straightened for rooms, while if the present chapel and recitation rooms were made into these, such inconvenience would probably no longer exist. Classes are increasing fast, especially the two lower; ours numbers sixteen while last term it was only seven; sophomore between forty and fifty. The celebrity of Dr. Nott seems to be the chief attraction of students.

Friday May 4, 1832 Our lessons are uncommonly easy this term thus far owing to the inability of the new students to get them. It is often the case and too frequent that young men think that if only they get into College it matters not how they are prepared that, if they get so far as to say “hic haec hoc” and “o y vo” and translate Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris &c into bad English, they have nothing to fear father [sic] , but their disappointment is often great. Some come here from academies where among their dumpist [dumbest] companions they took a conspicuous and enviable stand, featured by the false hope that they are prodigies and shall do great wonders in their class. Such most commonly stand near the foot with some honorable exceptions.

Saturday May 5, 1832 Very pleasant weather. To see the traveling from and to Albany and the West is astonishing, the most of which passes through this city. Four or five trips are performed daily from this place to Albany and as many back, when sometimes twelve cars well loaded are dispatched. Add to this those who pass down the canal and by stages on different routes and we shall form some calculation of the business of N. York.

Sunday May 6, 1832 Moderate weather is most pleasant. A stranger preached at the Baptist with a good degree of spirit and fervour. At noon the solemn and interesting service of baptising six was performed at the river side where in a forcible and plain manner Mr. Gillet addressed the congregated assembly on that theme, which is of great interest to them. In the afternoon I for the first time partook of the Lord’s Supper with the church here, under a humiliating sense of my manifold and abominable sins; before God and men I again bound myself by a covenant renewed to be God’s not living after this world, but to separate myself from time and lay hold on eternal good. Strange it is that the allurements of this fleeting world will so infatuate even a Christian as to draw his mind far off from all the beauties of religion and the excellencies of its enjoyments, will cause him to forget his first love whom he once desired above all others and whose presence was joy inexpressible, and will almost wholly smother his regard for this holy religion. This day’s experience is enough to draw me back to my christian duties and delights if I were not wholly bent upon following the sinful desires of my own natural and depraved heart, from whence flow all manner of sin and pollution. Did not rank ****** gnawing upon my conscience eat up all that holy joy which the communion inspires into every devout and humble Xn? Was not my thoughts like the fool’s eyes wandering to the ends of the earth seeking some carnal gratification? The house was crowded by an attentive and respectable audience. Prof. Potter delivers lectures on the Gospel of St. John during this term to the students in the Chapel every Sunday eve.

Monday May 7, 1832 May has began very cold and unpromising; we have had much rain. Morality and religion in this College is now deplorable, especially the latter. The exertions of Xns seem to be entirely palsied; for fear of losing their popularity they converse not on religion before ungodly companions, but on trivial and common topics and even those who think to proclaim its everlasting gospel shrink from the undertaking and dread, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to risk their good name on so dangerous ground. The Breth[ren] now begin to be a little more aroused than usual, are forming frequent prayer meetings and talking of having a revival of religion.

Tuesday May 8, 1832 How little affliction casts me down and deprives me of comfort! I look upon myself as one of the meanest of God’s creatures, as one of the vilest of his rebels and most guileful of hypocrites, and often when I pass a poor vagabond in the streets, say within myself, “What better am I than he? The same food nourishes his body that nourishes mine. The same apparel warms him that warms me. What injures or profits him has the same effect on me. His body is formed and soul constituted like mine. Yes there’s no mental or bodily power which one has and the other has not. Perhaps he commits crime in deed, I in thought. God looks at the thoughts and intents of the heart. His mind perhaps is not so enlightened, that is owing only to instruction.” So I go on bringing queries and answers which at last bring the result that the man is as good as myself.

Wednesday May 9, 1832 I think if the soft air and mild breezes of this day would not raise the heart in gratitude to the Author and Giver, ungrateful and hard must indeed be the natural feelings, and blunted the finer sensibilities which entwine about the heart of such an one. Yet we have reason to believe that there are those who, as vain as the gaudy butterfly that sports on a summer’s day, revel and banget [banquet] in the midst of abundance and nature’s blessings regardless and unthinking, from whose liberal hand these blessings flow or else with the cold and freezing belief of the Sceptic, attribute all to fatal chance. Great God! Can men who inhabit these frail tenements with impunity rob thee of thy right and glory? and insult thee at thy face?

Thursday May 10, 1832 Yesterday I walked up the brook behind the college to a dam which the students have erected for the purpose of bathing and there I went into the water for the first time this year, cut my heal [sic] on the stones which I fear will be very sore. The grove through which the brook runs is indeed delightful, having been improved by art.

Friday May 11, 1832 Fine pleasant weather we now have after some cold and rainy. Religious state of things is now wearing a more lovely appearance and improved reality. The meetings of the Brethren are frequently well attended and fervent to a much greater degree than usual, yet I fear [lest?] this feeling be suffered to wear off and they relapse into their former state. I know my unbelief is great and that it arms my heart against conviction and hinders my prayers from being answered. My old disease Indigestion which for six or eight months has troubled me is now quite relieved and cured, I know not whether to attribute this relief to the plaister which is now on my side or not; whatever it is I feel rejoiced to have a little respite from this troublesome disease.

Saturday May 12, 1832 Very warm day. I was this day initiated into the Philomathean Soc. an old literary club which has existed as long as the college. Three literary Soc[ietie]s are now in operation among the students and flourishing, having excellent libraries of which the Philo. is by far the largest. In my opinion more than one half a man’s usefulness attained from a collegiate education depends upon these socs. where the first germ of literature buds and flourishes and where the latent spark of genius is fanned to a flame which is to enlighten and astonish mankind. If experience profits and practice makes perfect, if others’ good examples invite to imitation or failings warn, these socs. cannot fail to be of eminent service to their members. I would hold them up being without their attendent [sic] faults nor would I extol them without merit but taking them as they are no better substitute can be made. The Philo. meets twice every Sat. This afternoon a company of us took a pleasant boat ride about three miles up river although it cost us some hours of hard rowing against the almost unconquerable current of the Mohawk. From what I have already seen I should think it to be a rapid and shoal stream. I had a gratifying sight of the twenty-sixth lock which is the first which I have ever seen on this canal. It is built of huge blocks of hewn granite and put together so firmly that one would think it would withstand the waste of ages. The locks on the canal which are more than fifty in number raise the water from eight ft. to eleven ft. each and are mostly on this end of it, surmounting an elevation of almost six hundred ft. in the whole. From this day’s excursion I am somewhat fatigued and covet some refreshing rest.

Sunday May 13, 1832 Very pleasant May day. I go to God’s house today with carelessness and indifference. The enlivening sun, the singing of birds, spring’s sweet breezes and Nature’s universal charms and gladness produce no lasting impression, in my languid mind, that I ought to worship the Author of these “good things” in spirit and in truth.

Monday May 14, 1832 This college commenced its operations, I understand, first in an old brick building at the corner of Union and Ferry Sts; after that it was removed to a long building in College St. Then to the Court House and lastly to the present situation, so after all its changes from small beginnings to more important and permanent increase it has become the first college in the state. While the others are but just began as it were and are struggling for existence and to merit public confidence, Union under its present president has arrived to maturity and high popularity.

Tuesday May 15, 1832 I never saw a more beautiful landscape than that which agreeably strikes the eye from the College towards the Mohawk and city. Nature is dressed in living green. The trees are budding and blossoming. The silvery Mohawk rolls his waters through the midst in solemn silence while here and there busy boats are seen passing and repassing on the Canal. There is no glaring fault in the scene which, contrasted with its beauty, destroys the effect upon the mind, nor is art too apparent, but the two, nature and art, are so happily blended and connected so inseparably that no prospect could hardly be prettier.

Wednesday May 16, 1832 Mr. Foot preached in the Chapel last evening, a gentleman from Massachusetts. Any man who aims at following all the changes of custom and capers of fashion will find them more than sufficient to draw upon his time and purse. He may as well pursue the fabled ***** who changed his form so often as he was about to be caught, as this fashion eternally changing and forming a composition of nonsense and folly without the least degree of essential good. But so it is [that] the disposition of man, being naturally inclined from the same old path to novelty and change, ever covets that which is least worthy of his attention but of those ignorant and frivolous-minded tailors, hatters &c from whom the most renowned and learned indirectly obtain all the different fashions. Is it not strange that our most worthy ladies and of good ability should be thus swayed and tickled with these changes in dress which almost always originate in some petty milliner or mantua maker for the sake of sustaining her falling custom? I was reminded of this by seeing two ladies last sabbath dressed most fashionably with unbounded sleeves and three **** bonnets. They were wofully [sic] discommoded from fear of jaming [sic] their sleeves which from their size wholly precluded the idea of more than three such sitting in a slip where five ordinary men could fit with comfort. A [wo]man and boy besides the above two sat in the slip and the boy being rather drowsy kept up continual nodding against one of the ladies sleeves and she was in agony for it—what could she do? She could not move because if she did she would injure the others likewise. Why, she moved forward and sat only on the edge of the seat and let the boy lay behind her and doze.

Thursday May 17, 1832 I dont know what good all this folderal which I write is going to do me at last—perhaps amuse, perhaps improve. Yes, I know ‘twill if proper attention is paid. If I cannot write for others to read, perhaps these few scribblings will some day remind me of some “by-gone” days and adventures which otherwise I should have forgotten, or will show what I have been doing or where I have been. If so I shall be repaid for my trouble.

Friday May 18, 1832 Students at this college have got into a very bad way in respect of their intercourse. Sometimes they will bow and talk pleasantly, ask you to their rooms and such like, while at another time they hardly know you, dont bow and as if you were an entire stranger hardly look upon you. It is not probably as it appears to be that they despise you but there is that selfishness and carelessness so predominant that true politeness and desiring of pleasing are secondary objects.

Saturday May 19, 1832 I have been reading the Spectator as a book for relaxation and amusement after the more dry and uninteresting studies of the day. The styles, subjects, manner of treating them and sentiment are good and calculated to engage and instruct the thinking mind in those pursuits which are laudable. It is not the most difficult subject, treated with profound and persuasive reasoning, high sounding language and charming eloquence, which always most attracts and wins the attention, but the simple and intelligible language of nature exerted on an appropriate theme. This last is the principal reason why I so much admire the writings of Steele in the Spec[tator], Johnson in the Advn. and Addison. But perhaps I have not sufficiently read either to become a complete judge as to their merits.

Sunday May 20, 1832 Dark and lowering clouds have portended rain but it yet holds up. I this after noon for the first time heard Dr. Proudfit preach in the Baptist church and, although he exhibited not the eloquence and bluster of some of our modern ministers, did justice and honour to the subject which he investigated and interested every reflecting and good man. There is a something in his looks which at first sight pre[dis]poses one in his favour, and I am certain by further acquaintance he will not suffer in any man’s estimation. So good natured so easy, and so unwilling is he to disoblige that every student loves him.

Monday May 21, 1832 Prof. Yates is undoubtedly the greatest gentleman in College. He is very urbane and easy towards the students and at the same time retains his official dignity and authority uninjured. His general knowledge is great, having traveled some years in Europe and having been conversant with the great men which it now has and visited the most remarkable cities and renowned places on the continent. Add to this also his classic knowledge, which by no means is small, and we can safely call him an able and erudite man. This College can with no propriety be called sectarian or as favouring one Sect more than another. Its patron is the state and object, the promotion, not of the interests of a particular body of men but of the literature of the public.

Tuesday May 22, 1832 How faithful is memory to the scenes and acts of early life. In imagination I am often carried back with the friends who studied and played with me to Pembroke, N. Hampton, and Waterville and again act over my past life there. Where’s Woodbury who used to be so lazy at P.? We were often in some strife and although he was stronger than me, yet I sometimes threw him. I prophesy that he will never make such a man as his father. It is needless to pass encomiums on Dickey for he is my most peculiar and dear friend and will make a noble fellow in private life, if he figures not in public. Edward St. John Neally, now in Bowdoin College, is a fellow of good talents and will I think be an author. Daniel I. Noyes, my old classmate, is now about to take the first honours of Dartmouth where also Bean stands high.

Wednesday May 23, 1832 Collins with whom I first became acquainted at N. Hampton is a most clever, tall and funny fellow. A good writer (of Poetry), scholar and friend. Brabrook who is now in Georgetown Coll., Kentucky is a warm hearted Xn and strives hard to be something, but I fear he never will make a great preacher. He is naturally a very dull scholar and every lesson which he has to learn costs him double the labor which it costs an ordinary man, but he tries hard and studies almost incessantly. He has my good wishes and prayers for his advancement. I roomed with him and Hutchinson.

Thursday May 24, 1832 Burbank now at Wat[erville] Coll. is a good scholar and a man whom I like; he was generally at the head of our class and probably continues so. I dont think his natural talents are so splendid as is his industry [in] persevering to supply the want of natural aptness. He is a very uncouth fellow especially in his gait which is very awkward.

Friday May 25, 1832 Hutchinson is a good-hearted old-fashioned kind of a fellow, always pleasant, and has a way with him which a little inclines one to laugh. He is so blunt and so peculiarly odd in his speech that he is often ridiculed by the students. He is a middling scholar, devoted Xn. and warm friend. Farnum is a “first-rate” scholar and by his manners shows that he is ambitious and somewhat inclined to be thought well of in every respect. But with his foibles he is a good fellow and agreeable companion especially in conversation. He was a tutor at N.H. Institution and acquitted himself handsomely and with honour while in that station. He is of middling stature, fair complexion and “good-looking,” although his gait is not the most graceful that could be conceived. In my humble opinion he will make his name known in whatever place he is, if possibly he can, because I think him particularly desirous of the praise of men.

Saturday May 26, 1832 This week’s list of weather is one so cold that I need a good fire to read by and so wet that the sun’s rays seem never to have fallen upon it. It is the wonder of every one that we have had an uncommonly cool and stormy May when we were expecting the opposites. At the end of every storm we all say now we are going to have warm weather but before our expectations are at all confirmed a real storm of rain perhaps will pour upon us. Attended Soc. but had no other duty to perform except composition, the subject of which was the Character of Catiline. I think I have very ordinary abilities and that the burts [bursts] of my genius will never astonish the world nor lead them to admire. Is it by nature or education that one man can attain to such an exalted station above another in the world? Would to God I could believe it depended on the latter altogether, but as it is evident that nature makes the man, so also that education in some degree molds, polishes and smooths his rough mind. The true poet is born so in my view but much aided by art, to polish his yet uncultivated mind and to bring forth those productions which are the wonder of the nations.

Sunday May 27, 1832 I heard two sermons in the P.M., one in the Baptist Church from Mr. Gillet’s brother and the other at the Pres[byteria]n from Mr. Backus, a young man who has been sent on trial. Mr. G[‘s] brother is a “7th day Bapt” as they call him and an ordinary preacher. “Pray without ceasing” was his text but he no more made that a subject for his discourse than any other precept, for he would go on with a long exhortation to the audience and then, to remind them what his text was, he would say, Pray without ceasing. As for myself I did care but I thought the congregation not like [sic] very well. Mr. Backus is a fine looking man, not more than twenty-five perhaps, tall and spectacled. His sermons are written in the most polished language, and show much studied style and ideas. His sermon applied to the purpose for which it was intended and did not end till it brought to view what his text plainly showed he wanted to prove. Undoubtedly he is a fine preacher and a promising genius but the great fault with many of our preachers nowadays is that they too much study to please and therefore disgust their hearers with their overacted parts. I have seen those who were so stiff and affected in the pulpit their preaching would do no more service for God than the babbling of geese. I like to hear a sermon delivered which has been studied upon with eloquence but simplicity and with propriety without affectation.

Monday May 28, 1832 I will tell you Philos what I am. I am not what I appear to be often, light and bouyant [sic] in my feelings. I am not blessed with that peace of mind which stills all the rough passions of the soul. I am not he who delights in the fun, nonsense, the eternal “boning” which is found in this college. I am not pleased to be worried and tormented by envious classmates and be called a “poler” because I study rather than play. I am not pleased to be called a “Boot-licker” if possibly a “prof.” speak to me and I reply. I am not one who thinks himself above the meanest of God’s creations, nay not above the black negro who walks the streets. But this is what I am not—now I am a misanthropos—a poor fellow without money, friends, abilities, without anything but a thick head, uncultivated mind and manners. I am a soul which is struggling within this breast and destroying the little peace which I ever had. I am ambitious without hopes and aspiring without talents. I am one who in the midst of these mean opinions of himself has a distant hope gleaming through his imperfections which, as the dim light streaming through the lattice of some lone cottage rejoices the desponding spirits of the wandering and way-worn traveler, sometimes flatters me with happier days.