and men from all parts of the country. So it gave free play to
the development of individual talents, and its standard of
scholarship was already sufficiently high to ensure the
excellence of the best scholars it trained. One quality which we
probably took little note of, although it must have affected us
all, sprang from the fact that Harvard was still a crescent
institution; she was in the full vigor of growth, of expansion,
of increase, and we shared insensibly from being connected with
that growth. In retrospect now, and giving due recognition to
this crescent spirit, I recall that, in spite of it, Omar Khayyam
was the favorite poet of many of us, that introspection, which
sometimes deepened into pessimism, was in vogue, and that a
spiritual or philosophic languorous disenchantment sicklied o'er
the somewhat mottled cast of our thought.

Roosevelt took rooms at No. 16 Winthrop Street, a quiet little
lane midway between the College Yard and Charles River, where he
could pursue his hobbies without incessant interruption from
casual droppers-in. Here he kept the specimens which he went on
collecting, some live--a large turtle and two or three harmless
snakes, for instance--and some dead and stuffed. He was no
"grind"; the gods take care not to mix even a drop of pedantry in
the make-up of the rare men whom they destine for great deeds or
fine works. Theodore was already so much stronger in his health
that he went on to get still more strength. He had regular
lessons in boxing. He took long walks and studied the flora and
fauna of the country round Cambridge in his amateurish but
intense way. During his first Christmas vacation, he went down to
the Maine Woods and camped out, and there he met Bill Sewall, a
famous guide, who remained Theodore's friend through life, and