Dream Life: A Fable of the Seasons

by Donald Grant Mitchell

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. It puzzles you to think, what an avalanche of talent will fall upon the country at the graduation of those Seniors!

You will find however that the country bears such inundations of college talent with a remarkable degree of equanimity. It is quite wonderful how all the Burkes, and Scotts, and Peels, among college Seniors, do quietly disappear, as a man gets on in life.

As for any degree of fellowship with such giants, it is an honor hardly to be thought of. But you have a classmate—I will call him Dalton—who is very intimate with a dashing Senior; they room near each other outside the college. You quite envy Dalton, and you come to know him well. He says that you are not a "green-one,"—that you have "cut your eye-teeth"; in return for which complimentary opinions you entertain a strong friendship for Dalton.

He is a "fast" fellow, as the Senior calls him; and it is a proud thing to happen at their rooms occasionally, and to match yourself for an hour or two (with the windows darkened) against a Senior at "old sledge." It is quite "the thing," as Dalton says, to meet a Senior familiarly in the street. Sometimes you go, after Dalton has taught you "the ropes," to have a cosy sit-down over oysters and champagne,—to which the Senior lends himself with the pleasantest condescension in the world. You are not altogether used to hard drinking; but this you conceal—as most spirited young fellows do—by drinking a great deal. You have a dim recollection of certain circumstances—very unimportant, yet very vividly impressed on your mind—which occurred on one of these occasions.

The oysters were exceedingly fine, and the champagne exquisite. You have a recollection of something being said, toward the end of the first bottle, of Xenophon, and of the Senior's saying in his playful way, "Oh, d—n Xenophon!"

You remember Dalton laughed at this; and you laughed—for company. You remember that you thought, and Dalton thought, and the Senior thought, by a singular coincidence, that the second bottle of champagne was better even than the first. You have a dim remembrance of the Senior's saying very loudly, "Clarence—(calling you by your family name)—is no spooney;" and drinking a bumper with you in confirmation of the remark.

You remember that Dalton broke out into a song, and that for a time you joined in the chorus; you think the Senior called you to order for repeating the chorus in the wrong place. You think the lights burned with remarkable brilliancy; and you remember that a remark of yours to that effect met with very much such a response from the Senior as he had before employed with reference to Xenophon.

You have a confused idea of calling Dalton—Xenophon. You think the meeting broke up with a chorus, and that somebody—you cannot tell who—broke two or three glasses. You remember questioning yourself very seriously as to whether you were, or were not, tipsy. You think you decided that you were not, but—might be.

You have a confused recollection of leaning upon some one, or something, going to your room; this sense of a desire to lean, you think, was very strong. You remember being horribly afflicted with the idea of having tried your night-key at the tutor's door, instead of your own; you remember further a hot stove,—made certain indeed by a large blister which appeared on your hand next day. You think of throwing off your clothes by one or two spasmodic efforts,—leaning in the intervals against the bedpost.

There is a recollection of an uncommon dizziness afterward, as if your body was very quiet, and your head gyrating with strange velocity, and a kind of centrifugal action, all about the room, and the college, and indeed the whole town. You think that you felt uncontrollable nausea after this, followed by positive sickness,—which waked your chum, who thought you very incoherent, and feared derangement.