“That day came.  I remember it was a cloudy day.  There was a dull shadow over everything.  Yes, even over my heart.  I didn’t want to go to college.  I knew I hadn’t been allowed to learn anything I wanted to learn out of it; and I knew I should n’t do any better shut up within its old dingy, musty, brick walls.  I knew I should n’t learn anything there.  I had rather be out in the world.  I had rather be studying in Nature’s great college.  I had rather graduate with a diploma from God, written on my heart, than to waste years of life away from the great school of human life; to be told by another how I should go, what I should believe, and how I should act, in the great drama of life.  But I had to go, sir,—­go to college; for I was an Automaton.

“As I before said, the day was cloudy.  Mother dressed me up.  For a week preparations had been making for my exit, and finally I went.  I was put in a stage where three men were smoking.  I objected, and intimated that it would be much better if those who smoked rode on the outside; but my father said, ‘hush,’ and told me that smoking was common at college, and I must get used to it.  When the stage stopped to change horses, the men got out, and swore, and drank brandy; and I asked whether such things were common at college, and whether I had got to get used to them too.  But I could n’t get any answer.

“The wind blew cold, but my coat was made so small that I could n’t button it together.  I would have had it loose and easy, and warm and comfortable; but ’t was n’t fashionable to have it so.  Father followed fashion, and I suffered from the cold.  I had a nice, soft cap, that I used to wear to church at home; but father thought that, as I was going to the city, I must have a hat; so he had bought me one, and the hard, stiff, ungainly thing was stuck on my head.  I had as lieves have had a piece of stove-pipe there.  It made my head ache awfully.

“If I had n’t been what I was, I should have worn a nice, easy pair of shoes; but I was an Automaton.  I was n’t anybody; so I was made to wear a pair of thin boots, that clung to my feet a great deal closer than my skin did,—­a great deal, sir.

“Well, we reached Cambridge.  It’s a pretty place, you know; and I rather liked it until I arrived at the college buildings.  Then I did n’t like the looks of anything, except the green trees, and the grass, and the shady walks.  And I wondered where I could learn the most useful knowledge, within or without the college.

“I was ushered in, and my college life began.  To narrate to you all that made up that life, would be irksome to me and tedious to you.  I was taught much that I didn’t believe then, and don’t believe now, and don’t think I ever shall.  I was made to subscribe to certain forms, and with my lips to adopt certain views, which my heart all the time rebelled against, and reason told me were false.  But I said I believed, and I did believe after the fashion of the times; for I believe it’s fashionable to believe what you don’t know anything about, and the more of this belief you have the better you are.  So I believed what my teachers told me, because-why, because I was an Automaton.