I have helped to wear these stairs into
hollows,--stairs which I trod when they were smooth and level, fresh from
the plane. There are just thirty-two of them, as there were five and
thirty years ago, but they are steeper and harder to climb, it seems to
me, than they were then. I remember that in the early youth of this
building, the late Dr. John K. Mitchell, father of our famous Dr. Weir
Mitchell, said to me as we came out of the Demonstrator's room, that some
day or other a whole class would go heels over head down this graded
precipice, like the herd told of in Scripture story. This has never
happened as yet; I trust it never will. I have never been proud of the
apartment beneath the seats, in which my preparations for lecture were
made. But I chose it because I could have it to myself, and I resign it,
with a wish that it were more worthy of regret, into the hands of my
successor, with my parting benediction. Within its twilight precincts I
have often prayed for light, like Ajax, for the daylight found scanty
entrance, and the gaslight never illuminated its dark recesses. May it
prove to him who comes after me like the cave of the Sibyl, out of the
gloomy depths of which came the oracles which shone with the rays of
truth and wisdom!
This temple of learning is not surrounded by the mansions of the great
and the wealthy. No stately avenues lead up to its facades and
porticoes.
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