“He seemed to have a passion for dress.  But as in everything else, so in this, his fancy was a fitful one.  At one time he would excite our admiration by the splendor of his outfit, and perhaps the next week he would seem to take equal pleasure in his slovenly or careless appearance.”

It is not very difficult to reconcile these two portraitures.  I recollect it was said by a witty lady of a handsome clergyman well remembered among us, that he had dressy eyes.  Motley so well became everything he wore, that if he had sprung from his bed and slipped his clothes on at an alarm of fire, his costume would have looked like a prince’s undress.  His natural presentment, like that of Count D’Orsay, was of the kind which suggests the intentional effects of an elaborate toilet, no matter how little thought or care may have been given to make it effective.  I think the “passion for dress” was really only a seeming, and that he often excited admiration when he had not taken half the pains to adorn himself that many a youth less favored by nature has wasted upon his unblest exterior only to be laughed at.

I gather some other interesting facts from a letter which I have received from his early playmate and school and college classmate, Mr. T. G. Appleton.

“In his Sophomore year he kept abreast of the prescribed studies, but his heart was out of bounds, as it often had been at Round Hill when chasing squirrels or rabbits through forbidden forests.  Already his historical interest was shaping his life.  A tutor coming-by chance, let us hope—­to his room remonstrated with him upon the heaps of novels upon his table.

“‘Yes,’ said Motley, ’I am reading historically, and have come to the novels of the nineteenth century.  Taken in the lump, they are very hard reading.’”

All Old Cambridge people know the Brattle House, with its gambrel roof, its tall trees, its perennial spring, its legendary fame of good fare and hospitable board in the days of the kindly old bon vivant, Major Brattle.  In this house the two young students, Appleton and Motley, lived during a part of their college course.

“Motley’s room was on the ground floor, the room to the left of the entrance.  He led a very pleasant life there, tempering his college duties with the literature he loved, and receiving his friends amidst elegant surroundings, which added to the charm of his society.  Occasionally we amused ourselves by writing for the magazines and papers of the day.  Mr. Willis had just started a slim monthly, written chiefly by himself, but with the true magazine flavor.  We wrote for that, and sometimes verses in the corner of a paper called ‘The Anti-Masonic Mirror,’ and in which corner was a woodcut of Apollo, and inviting to destruction ambitious youths by the legend underneath,—­

          ‘Much yet remains unsung.’