The youth did not much effect social accomplishments. He had a
passion for music and learned to play the violin. With this
instrument he was wont to entertain himself in the intervals of
study. Sometimes he would play for company. It was one of his
habits to break off suddenly and rather capriciously in the midst
of what he was doing. Thus did he with his music. It is
narrated that on a certain occasion while playing by invitation
for some friends, he suddenly put aside the instrument, saying in
a sort of declamatory manner as was his wont--

"So fiddled Orpheus and so danced the brutes."

He then ran into the garden, and could not be induced to play the
violin again.

Young Otis passed through the regular classes at Harvard and was
graduated in 1743. On that occasion he took part in a
disputation which was one of the exercises of his class.
Otherwise his record at the college is not accented with any
special work which he did. At the time of his graduation he was
in his nineteenth year. It had been his father's purpose and his
own that his profession should be the law. It does not appear,
however, that his college studies were especially directed to
this end. At any rate, he did not devote himself at once to the
law, but assiduously for two years (1743-45) to a general course
of study chosen and directed by himself with a view to the
further discipline of his mind and the widening of his
information. It was an educational theory with Otis that such an
interval of personal and spontaneous application should intervene