“An idle name Ye give to toys of fashion’s mould, And well ye scorn those guilty ones Who curl their smiles of pride to heaven. Oh, seek her not in halls of mirth, But in those calm dwellings of earth,” etc. Meanwhile, rumors of his idleness and dissipation began to reach Boston, and caused his family much distress. These reports were absurdly exaggerated, and were warmly denied by his friends, who asserted that the head and front of his offending were an occasional moonlight drive to “the Lake” and a supper, with a glass of ale at “Barney’s.” Willis was gay in college, but very far from dissipated. In the select circles where he was made at home nothing like dissipation was tolerated. The society of the little university town was as simple as it was refined. He was cordially welcomed in such families as the Whitings, the Bishops, the Hubbards, and the entire Woolsey, Devereux, and Johnson connection in New Haven, Stratford, and New York. His winter holidays were spent partly at New York with his classmates Rankin and Richards, partly at Stratford with the Johnsons, once at New London among the kinsfolk of his grandmother, Lucy Douglas; and once he traveled as far as Philadelphia. His “dissipations” in New Haven were picnics to East Rock, rehearsals of “The Lady of the Lake” at a seminary for young ladies, pie-banquets in Thanksgiving week,--paid for with verses,--and New Year’s calls with their accompaniments of a cooky and a glass of wine. That his head was a little turned by his literary and social successes is not wonderful. He had his share of vanity, and in his confidential letters to his parents and sisters he made no effort to conceal his elation. A passage from one of these, dated January 7, 1827, will give a good idea of his occupations and his frame of mind at this point in his senior year:--