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The diversions of those days were few and tame --
An occasional lecture -- the Wednesday evening
prayer meeting in town & college -- the ladies'
sewing-society once a fortnight -- the clergyman
and gentleman coming in to tea -- the College and
village were one in this -- tea-drinking among
neighbors -- with knitting in hand -- occasional
lectures -- one in calling any day in the week
was in no danger of disturbing a club of any sort --
a fact hardly believable in those days when
man woman and child are so listed for clubs
of all sorts the command to "Enter into thy closet"
seems an old time irony -- In midwinter there
was usually a six weeks "protracted meeting held
All clergyman in the region preaching and
holding prayer-meetings according to the habit
of those days resulting in many admissions to
the churches -- as the snow lay two or three feet
deep on the ground at in those wintry days
Amherst with no street light -- no trolleys -- no
cars seemed to my youthful and perverse mind
animal spirits and vigorous habit a staring
lonely hopeless plain enough to make angels
homesick -- The poet Dana father of Richard H. Dana
gave a course of six lectures on Poetry in the old