Cambridge Sketches | Page 7

had long since been dead. It was to support the
daughters of his friend, who would have otherwise been obliged to earn
their own living, that he saved his money; and in his will he left them a
competency of fifty thousand dollars or more.
On one occasion a Freshman was sent to him to receive a private
admonition for writing profane language on a settee; but the Freshman
denied the accusation. Sophocles's eyes twinkled. "Did you not," said
he, "write the letters d-a-m-n?" "No," said the boy, laughing; "it must
have been somebody else." Sophocles laughed and said he would report
the case back to the college faculty. A few days later he stopped the

youth in the college yard and, merely saying "I have had your private
admonition revoked," passed on. Professor Sophocles was right. If the
Freshman had tried to deceive him he would not have laughed but
looked grave.
The morning in April, 1861, after President Lincoln had issued his call
for 75,000 troops, a Harvard Senior mentioned it to Sophocles, who
said to him: "What can the government accomplish with 75,000
soldiers? It is going to take half a million of men to suppress this
rebellion."
He was a good instructor in his way, but dry and methodical. Professor
Goodwin's recitations were much more interesting. Sophocles did not
credit the tradition of Homer's wandering about blind and poor to recite
his two great epics. He believed that Homer was a prince, or even a
king, like the psalmist David, and asserted that this could be proved or
at least rendered probable by internal evidence. This much is morally
certain, that if Homer became blind it must have been after middle life.
To describe ancient battle-scenes so vividly he must have taken part in
them; and his knowledge of anatomy is very remarkable. He does not
make such mistakes in that line as bringing Desdemona to life after she
has been smothered.
How can we do justice to such a great-hearted man as Dr. Andrew P.
Peabody? He was not intended by nature for a revolutionary character,
and in that sense he was unsuited, like Everett, for the time in which he
lived. If he had been chosen president of the university after the
resignation of Doctor Hill, as George S. Hillard and other prominent
graduates desired, the great broadening and liberalizing of the
university, which has taken place since, would have been deferred for
the next fifteen years. He had little sympathy with the anti-slavery
movement, and was decidedly opposed to the religious liberalism of his
time; but Doctor Peabody's interest lay in the salvation of human souls,
and in this direction he had no equal. He felt a personal regard in every
human being with whom he was acquainted, and this seemed more
important to him than abstract schemes for the improvement of the race
in general. He was a man of peace and wished all others to be at peace;
the confusion and irritation that accompanies reform was most
disagreeable to him. Many a Harvard student who trembled on the
brink of an abyss, far from home and left to his own devices, afterwards

looked back to Doctor Peabody's helping hand as to the hand of a
beneficent providence held out to save him from destruction; and those
whom he was unable to save thought of him no less gratefully.
In the autumn of 1864 a strange sort of student joined the Sophomore
class. He soon proved that he was one of the best scholars in it; but to
judge from his recitations it was long since he had been to school or
received any regular instruction. He lived chiefly on bread and milk,
and seemed not to have learned how to take exercise. It is feared that he
suffered much from loneliness in that busy hive, where everyone has so
many small affairs of his own to attend to. Just before the annual
examinations he was seized with brain-fever and died. Doctor Peabody
conducted the funeral services at the boarding-house of the unfortunate
youth, and the plainness of the surroundings heightened the eloquence
of his address. His prayer on that occasion was so much above the
average character of his religious discourses that it seemed to come
from a secret fountain of the man's nature, which could only be drawn
upon for great occasions.
With all his tenderness of feeling Doctor Peabody could be a very
vigorous debater. He once carried on a newspaper argument with Rev.
Dr. Minor, of Boston, on the temperance question, in which he took the
ground that drinking wine and beer did not necessarily lead to
intemperance,-- which, rightly considered, indicates a lack of
self-control; and he made this point in what his friends, at least,
considered a satisfactory