taught. In the classics I was much the strongest, particularly in the
quantities, but Jason had the best of it in mathematics. In spite of his
conceit, his vulgarity, his English, his provincialism, and the awkwardness
with which he wore his tardily acquired information, this man had strong
points about him, and a native shrewdness that would have told much more in
his favour had it not been accompanied by a certain evasive manner, that
caused one constantly to suspect his sincerity, and which often induced
those who were accustomed to him, to imagine he had a sneaking propensity
that rendered him habitually hypocritical. Jason held New York in great
contempt; a feeling he was not always disposed to conceal, and of necessity
his comparisons were usually made with the state of things in Connecticut,
and much to the advantage of the latter. To one thing, however, he was much
disposed to defer, and that was money. Connecticut had not then, nor has it
now, a single individual who would be termed rich in New York; and Jason,
spite of his provincial conceit, spite of his overweening notions of moral
and intellectual superiority, could no more prevent this profound deference
for wealth, than he could substitute for a childhood of vulgarity and
neglect, the grace, refinement and knowledge which the boys of the more
fortunate classes in life obtain as it might be without knowing it. Yes,
Jason bowed down to the golden calf, in spite of his puritanism, his
love of liberty, his pretension to equality and the general strut of his
disposition and manner.

Such is an outline of the character and qualifications of the man whom I
found, on my return from college, at the head of Mr. Worden's school. We
soon became acquainted, and I do not know which got the most ideas from the
other, in course of the first fortnight. Our conversation and arguments
were free, almost to rudeness, and little mercy was shown to our respective
prejudices. Jason was ultra leveling in his notions of social intercourse,
while I had the opinions of my own colony, in which the distinctions of