Perfect Behavior: A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in All Social Crises

Joe Chappell was with us that night and the two Dawes boys and, I think, Elmer Mitchell. One of the Dawes twins was, I believe, afterwards prominent in the Hayes administration. There were many men besides Will Dawes in that Harvard class who were heard from in later years. Ed Twitchell for one, and “Sam” Caldwell, who was one of the nominees for vice president in ’92. I sat next to Sam in “Bull” Warren’s Greek class. There was one of the finest scholars this country has ever produced— a stern taskmaster, and a thorough gentleman. It would be well for this younger generation if they could spend a few hours in that old classroom, with “Bull” pacing up and down the aisle and all of us trembling in our shoes. But Delenda est Carthago— fuit Ilium— Requiescat in pace. I last saw “Bull” at our fifteenth reunion and we were all just as afraid of him as in the old days at Hollis. But I digress. Tempus fugit,— which reminds me of a story “Billy” Hallowell once told at a meeting of the American Bar Association in Minneapolis, in 1906. Hallowell was perhaps the most brilliant after-dinner speaker I have ever heard— with the possible exception of W. D. Evarts. I shall never forget the speech that Evarts made during the second Blaine campaign. But I digress. Your critic, Mr. Heywood Broun, says on page 33 of the November issue of your worthy magazine that The Easiest Way is the father of all modern American tragedy. Sir, does Mr. Broun forget that there once lived a man named William Shakespeare? Is it possible to overlook such immortal tragedies as Hamlet and Othello? I think not. Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum. Sincerely, SHERWIN G. COLLINS.