nature to assert that we never really believed that "There is the
same difference between the learned and the unlearned as there is
between the living and the dead." We were also too fond of quoting
Carlyle to the effect, "'Tis not to taste sweet things, but to do
noble and true things that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs."

As I attempt to reconstruct the spirit of my contemporary group
by looking over many documents, I find nothing more amusing than
a plaint registered against life's indistinctness, which I
imagine more or less reflected the sentiments of all of us. At
any rate here it is for the entertainment of the reader if not
for his edification: "So much of our time is spent in
preparation, so much in routine, and so much in sleep, we find it
difficult to have any experience at all." We did not, however,
tamely accept such a state of affairs, for we made various and
restless attempts to break through this dull obtuseness.

At one time five of us tried to understand De Quincey's marvelous
"Dreams" more sympathetically, by drugging ourselves with opium.
We solemnly consumed small white powders at intervals during an
entire long holiday, but no mental reorientation took place, and
the suspense and excitement did not even permit us to grow
sleepy. About four o'clock on the weird afternoon, the young
teacher whom we had been obliged to take into our confidence,
grew alarmed over the whole performance, took away our De Quincey
and all the remaining powders, administrated an emetic to each of
the five aspirants for sympathetic understanding of all human
experience, and sent us to our separate rooms with a stern
command to appear at family worship after supper "whether we were
able to or not."