doubtless, "his stubborn independence," mingled somewhat with lassitude, caused failure to maintain his usual rank. Reference to this is in a letter from President Quincy to Emerson, quoted in Mr. Sanborn's life of Thoreau. Despite the complaints of his instructors regarding his indifference, his president reiterates his "respect for and interest in him." There seems scanty reason for the hint that the faculty may have "had other grounds for distrust in Thoreau's case," based merely on a surviving letter from his classmate, Peabody,—a characteristic collegian's account of the excitements of those days, riots in the classrooms of lax or unpopular tutors. Peabody would probably recite such frolics in detail to his sick friend, for they formed his "news," but one can scarcely infer that the recipient of the letter "had a mind too ready towards such things to please the learned faculty of Cambridge." No one familiar with Thoreau's traits as boy or man can reconcile complicity in such pranks with his serious, reserved nature. Mr. Weiss distinctly emphasizes the withdrawal of Thoreau from such college adventures: "Thoreau disappeared while our young absurdity held its orgies, stripping shutters from the lower windows of the buildings, dismantling recitation rooms, greeting tutors and professors with a frenzied and
