Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

No drill is more highly intellectual, more conducive of fine taste, good judgment, and accuracy, than the study of the Greek; and this he had under the master-hand.

To Prof. Richard Henry Lee may be traced the training of power so brilliantly displayed in Mr. Blaine’s forensic efforts and on the stump.

To renew acquaintance with these men, and a multitude of other friends, was a part of his great pleasure. He was fresh and full as ever, taller by an inch, and larger every way. He no longer seemed to them a boy, but had the air and manners of a man, and yet his laugh was as merry and hearty, his shake of the hand as vigorous and friendly as ever.

The sunny South shone full upon them in the fresh report he brought. It was a goodly land, and he had made it a study, bringing to bear all his power of close observation.

He had taken his course at college principally for the sake of study, simply, and the knowledge he gained; but the prominent thought in his mind had been journalism. This had not been his purpose in education, but simply a chief idea in his mind rather than a chosen aim in life. So that with this thought within him, and the habit of seeing everything on him, but little escaped the wide range of his vision during his southern journeyings.

Of course when home he did not ignore the old college-library. It was a resort so greatly loved, and almost sacred.

But when the hour struck he was eager to be off for his post of duty,—Kentucky. Promptness and despatch were ever elements of power with him. He reached Georgetown ahead of time, and was rested and in readiness when the new year of work began, and it was a year of hard, steady, constant work with him. He not only had now a reputation to sustain, but to be greatly advanced. That a man stops growing when he is satisfied, was a thing perfectly understood by him. A man without ambition is dead while he lives, and the one content to live with his head over his shoulder may as well be turned into a pillar of salt. It is the men who look ahead, and who look up who have a future. A backward look is a downward look to them.

Competition was strong at the academy. Enthusiasm was great. Professor Blaine had done much to arouse it, but all unconsciously. He had held steadily to his fixed habits of study, preparing carefully for each recitation himself, permitting no shams in his class-room. The military discipline at the institution aided greatly its matter of discipline. Life and energy were everywhere manifest.

And so the year passed with nothing special worthy of note, except the amount of real work performed, and the large measure of success achieved.

Acquaintance with his lady friend was early renewed and pleasantly continued. It had much to do with the inspiration of the present and in shaping his future. Of course it was kept a profound secret, and no one in Kentucky permitted to know that they were aught to each other except chance friends, and indeed in point of formal fact they were not until near the close of the year, when the crisis came; but the young professor was a gallant knight, and had occasion required might readily have performed some thrilling act of knighthood that would have set the neighborhood agog, for none can doubt he had it in him even then. Milder methods have ever been his rule, except emergency arise, and then he arises with it.