"Five long years have we lived under the same roof, pursued the same studies, or rather the same studies pursued us;--engaged in the same dissipation, drank of the same sour wine, shed the same vinous tears, discussed the same dinners and suppers, enjoyed the same dances,--stag dances, I mean,--played the same music, belonged to the same society, and, I was going to say, fallen in love with the same nymphs; but that brings me to the subject of this letter. I am in for it! Yes, you may well look surprised! It is a fact! Who is the lady? you ask. I will tell you,--that is, if I can; her name is St. Clair. O! she is the most lovely, modest, weeping, melancholy, blue-eyed, fair-haired, and mysterious little creature you ever beheld. If you could only see her bend that white neck, and rest her head upon that small hand, her eye lost in profound thought, until the lower lid just overflows, and a tear steals gently down that most lovely cheek; and then see her start up stealthily to join again in the conversation, with the most innocent consciousness of guilt imaginable;--but what is it that brings these tears to sadden the heart of one so youthful and so innocent? 'There's the rub,' as Hamlet says. Yourself, Lamar, and I were unanimous, as you perhaps remember, that men generally suffer in proportion to their crimes, even in this world. I here renounce that opinion, with all others founded upon college logic. A half-taught college boy, in the pride of his little learning and stubborn opinions, is little better than an innocent. But, you ought to see this fair sufferer in order fully to appreciate the foregoing opinion. You would see child-like innocence--intelligence--benevolence; in short, all that is good, in her sad but lovely countenance. "But to return to college logic; what is it? Conclusions without premises, ends without means; and opinions adopted without any of the previous and inevitable pains and penalties attendant upon the acquirement of human knowledge, or, in other words, without _experience_! I would take one of our old break-of-day club to tell the flavour of a ham, or the difference between a bottle of Bordeaux and Seignette brandy, as soon as any one; but what else did they know? or rather what else did we know? Nothing! not literally nothing, but truly nothing. If I now wanted a judicious opinion upon any subject, I would go to an experienced man! one that had suffered in order to learn; an original thinker for practical ends.