be ashamed to be called poor or to be thought poor, to resort to shifts, not for the sake of being comfortable or elegant, but of seeming to be above the necessity of shifts, is an indication of an inferior mind, whether it dwell in prince or in peasant.  The man who does it shows that he has not in his own opinion character enough to stand alone.  He must be supported by adventitious circumstances, or he must fall.  Nobody, therefore, need ever expect to receive sympathy from me in recounting the social pangs or slights of poverty.  You never can be slighted, if you do not slight yourself.  People may attempt to do it, but their shafts have no barb.  You turn it all into natural history.  It is a psychological phenomenon, a study, something to be analyzed, classified, reasoned from, and bent to your own convenience, but not to be taken to heart.  It amuses you; it interests you; it adds to your stock of facts; it makes life curious and valuable:  but if you suffer from it, it is because you have not basis, stamina; and probably you deserve to be slighted.  This, however, is true only when people have become somewhat concentrated.  Children know nothing of it.  They live chiefly from without, not from within.  Only gradually as they approach maturity do they cut loose from the scaffolding and depend upon their own centre of gravity.  Appearances are very strong in school.  Money and prodigality have great weight there, notwithstanding the democracy of attainments and abilities.  If I live a thousand years, I do not believe I shall ever do a more virtuous deed than I did long ago in staying at home for the sake of a quarter of a dollar when the rest of the school went to see Tom Thumb, the late bewritten bridegroom.  I call it virtuous, because I had the quarter and could have gone, and could not explain the reason why I did not go.  And though a senior class in Harvard College may reasonably be supposed to be beyond the eminent domain of Tom Thumb and quarter-dollars, the principle is precisely the same,—­only the temptation, I suppose, is much stronger, as the stake is larger.  Have they self-poise enough to refrain from these festive expenses without suffering mortification?  Have they virtue enough to refrain from them with the certainty of incurring such suffering?  Have they nobility and generosity and largeness of soul enough, while abstaining themselves for conscience sake, to share in the plans and sympathize without servility in the pleasures of their rich comrades? to look on with friendly interest, without cynicism or concealed malice, at the preparations in which they do not join?  Or do they yield to selfishness, and gratify their own vanity, weakness, self-indulgence, and love of pleasure, at whatever cost to their parents?  Or is there such a state of public opinion and usage in college that this custom is equally honored in the breach and in the observance?

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When the feasting was over, the most picturesque part of the day began.  The college green put off suddenly its antique gravity, and became