The members of the society in rotation presided over its
deliberations. On a particular occasion it was the duty of young Burr
to take the chair. At the hour of meeting he took his seat as
president. Dr. Smith had not then arrived; but, shortly after the
business commenced, he entered. Burr, leaning on one arm of the chair
(for, although now sixteen years of age, he was too small to reach
both arms at the same time), began lecturing Professor Smith for his
non-attendance at an earlier hour, remarking that a different example
to younger members was expected from him, and expressing a hope that
it might not again be necessary to recur to the subject. Having
finished his lecture, to the great amusement of the society, he
requested the professor to resume his seat. The incident, as may well
be imagined, long served as a college joke.
FROM TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
New-Haven, March, 1772.
DEAR AARON,
By a poor candle, with poor eyes and a poorer brain, I sit down to
introduce a long wished-for correspondence. You see how solicitous I
am to preserve old connexions; or, rather, to begin new ones.
Relationship, by the fashionable notions of those large towns, which
usurp a right to lead and govern our opinions, is dwindled to a formal
nothing--a mere shell of ceremony. Our ancestors, whose honesty and
simplicity (though different from the wise refinements of modern
politeness) were perhaps as deserving of imitation as the insincere
coldness of the present generation, _cousin'd_ it to the tenth degree
of kindred.
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