I found Jason fully established in the school, on my return from college. I remember we met very much like two strange birds, that see each other for the first time on the same dunghill; or two quadrupeds, in their original interview in a common herd. It was New Haven against Newark; though the institution, after making as many migrations as the House of Loretto, finally settled down at Princeton, a short time before I took my degree. I was consequently entitled to call myself a graduate of Newark,--a sort of scholar that is quite as great a curiosity in the country as a Queen Anne's farthing, or a book printed in the fifteenth century. I remember the first evening we two spent in company, as well as if the meeting occurred only last night. It was at Satanstoe, and Mr. Worden was present. Jason had a liberal supply of puritanical notions, which were bred in-and-in in his moral, and I had almost said, in his physical system; nevertheless, he could unbend; and I did not fail to observe that very evening, a gleam of covert enjoyment on his sombre countenance, as the hot-stuff, the cards, and the pipes were produced, an hour or two before supper,--a meal we always had hot and comfortable. This covert satisfaction, however, was not exhibited without certain misgiving looks, as if the neophyte in these innocent enjoyments distrusted his right to possess his share. I remember in particular, when my mother laid two or three new, clean packs of cards on the table, that Jason cast a stealthy glance over his shoulder, as if to make certain that the act was not noted by the minister, or the “neighbours.” The neighbours!--what a contemptible being a man becomes, who lives in constant dread of the comments and judgments of these social supervisors! and what a wretch, the habit of deferring to no principle better than their decision has made many a being, who has had originally the materials of something better in him, than has been developed by the _surveillance_ of ignorance, envy, vulgarity, gossiping and lying! In those cases in which education, social position, opportunities and experience have made any material difference between the parties, the man who yields to such a government, exhibits the picture of a giant held in bondage by a pigmy. I have always remarked, too, that they who are best qualified to sit in this neighbourhood-tribunal, generally keep most aloof from it, as repugnant to their tastes and habits, thus leaving its decisions to the portion of the community least qualified to make such as are either just or enlightened.