was descended from the Greek poet Sophocles of the Periclean age. He was
much too honest himself to give countenance to this rumor, and if you
inquired of him concerning it, he would say that he should like very well
to believe it, and it was not impossible, although there were no surnames
in ancient Greece before the time of Constantine; he had not found any
evidence in favor of it. He was a short, thick-set man with a large head
and white Medusa-like hair; but such an eye as his was never seen in an
Anglo-Saxon face. It reminded you at once of Byron's Corsair, and
suggested contingencies such as find no place in quiet, law-abiding New
England,--the possibility of sudden and terrible concentration. His
clothing had been long since out of fashion, and he always wore a faded
cloth cap, such as no student would dare to put on. He lived like a
hermit in No. 3 Holworthy, where he prepared his own meals rather than
encounter strange faces at a boarding-house table. Once he invited the
president of the college to supper; and the president went, not without
some misgivings as to what his entertainment might be. He found, however,
a simple but well-served repast, including a French roll and a cup of
black coffee with the grounds in it. The coffee loosened Sophocles's
usually reticent tongue, and after that, as the president himself
expressed it, they had a delightful conversation. Everybody respected
Sophocles in spite of his eccentric mode of life, and the Freshmen were
as much afraid of him as if he had been the Minotaur of Crete.

The reason for his economy did not become apparent until after his death.
When he first came to the university he made friends with a gentleman in
Cambridge to whom he was much attached, but who, at the time we write of,
had long since been dead. It was to support the daughters of his friend,
who would have otherwise been obliged to earn their own living, that he
saved his money; and in his will he left them a competency of fifty
thousand dollars or more.