“We would often gather on the steps of the chapel, a number of us incidentally, and if your father was in the gathering we always had much wit and sparkling repartee, and anecdote and description, all of which seemed to be infused by your father, and of which, indeed, he was the greater part. He always seemed full of health and hilarity, and yet, after all, there was a prevailing seriousness, an earnest purpose, a determination to be a good and true man. I never knew anything of him but what was good, and great, and orderly, and becoming a Christian. I have heard persons say he was wild in college. Nothing more untrue. I never heard him utter a word, and never heard of his doing a deed, that was contrary to the rules of morality and propriety. He would criticise some things in college studies, etc. I remember his maintaining very decidedly that the study of mathematics was not a good discipline for the mind, but he never set himself against college rules of order. He was a strong temperance man, and was very bold to rebuke his fellow-students in anything he thought to be wrong.” Of his social and humorous qualities Mrs. Stowe says: “In fact, Mr. Beecher was generally the centre of a circle of tempestuous merriment, ever eddying round him in one droll form or another. “He was quick in repartee, an excellent mimic, and his stories would set the gravest in a roar. He had the art, when admonished by graver people, of somehow entrapping them into more uproarious laughing than he himself practised, and then looking innocently surprised. “Mr. Beecher on one occasion was informed that the head tutor of the class was about to make him a grave exhortatory visit. The tutor was almost seven feet high, and as solemn as an Alpine forest. But Mr. Beecher knew that, like most solemn Yankees, he was at heart a deplorable wag, a mere whited sepulchre of conscientious gravity, with measureless depths of unrenewed chuckle hid away in the depths of his heart. When apprised of his approach he suddenly whisked away into his closet the chairs of his room, leaving only a low one which had been sawed off at the second joint, so that it stood about a foot from the floor. Then he crawled through the hole in that study-table which he had made after a peculiar plan of his own, and, seated meekly among his books, awaited the visit. “A grave rap is heard. ‘Come in.’ Far up in the air the solemn dark face appears. Mr. Beecher rose ingenuously and offered to come out. ‘No, never mind,’ says the visitor; ‘I just came to have a little conversation with you. Don’t move.’ “‘Oh!’ says Beecher innocently, ‘pray sit down, sir,’ indicating the only chair. “The tutor looked apprehensively, but began the process of sitting down. He went down, down, down, but still no solid ground being gained, straightened himself up and looked uneasy. “‘I don’t know but that chair is too low for you; do let me get you another,’ said Beecher meekly.