Such being our Fictitious Bloduplex, can any critic say,
a priori, what will be suitable action? Perhaps, the popular
inductive method had better been followed, and the
ascent to the character taken place from the actions a posteriori:
and that would have sorted with our President's
favourite English use of that backsided logical phrase.
Let none, here, exclaim, Mystery! We live in a mysterious
age. Is it not the era of Animal Magnetism?—of

[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]

Phreno, or Phrensy-magnetism?—of Transubstantiation?—
Repudiation?—Wax Candles?—Holy Vestments? Is
there not a laying, all through the pomps and vanities of
the world, clear up to heaven, a Spiritual Rail Way, by
which a vile sinner, touched and started by the proper persons,
or their deputies and proxies, shall be in glory in a
jiffey?—and that whether puritanically converted and sanctified
or not! But—

Dislike was, in due time, expressed by the President
for his Cabinet, conjectured to spring from—1. His jealousy
of equals, and suspicious and untrustful temper:
2. His determination for a very low grade of studies—especially
in Mathematics, and even in Classics,—he being resolved
to level down and not up: 3. His love of ease, and
wish to get along with a relaxed, or rather no discipline:
4. His using discipline as an instrument of avenging himself
on students disliked by him: 5. His domineering and
tyrannical temper: 6. His prying disposition, by which
he was led to have spies in the professors' classes, and to
watch when they came and went to and from duties, &c.:
7. His desire to make room for former pupils and relatives:
8. His erroneous theology.

Hence, without consulting his peers, nay, contrary to
the known wishes and earnest remonstrances, he tried to
discipline students at will, and to suspend and dismiss; he
permitted some to be graduated, and who now hold imperfect
diplomas, signed with his sole name: and he commanded
what the Professors should and should not do,
and what teach, and how, answering their arguments with
insult and derision, and threatening to stamp them and the
trustees also under his feet! He pretended to think, and
dared to assert, that the discipline of a College was of
right a President's special duty,—and teaching, the Professors'.
And, therefore, he rudely, on several occasions,
contradicted his Faculty in public, and aimed to consider

[figure description] Page 280.[end figure description]

and treat them as boys! Nay, once, after permitting a
young gentleman openly and grossly to insult a member of
the Faculty, he stated in public, that unless that member
and that pupil could make it up! the student or Professor
must leave the College!! He was the master of the
school,—his Professors mere ushers! He arbitrarily prescribed—
first, their duties, and then, dared enter their recitation
rooms to ascertain in person if they were competent
and faithful teachers: where, after asking questions
of the students, showing always his impertinence and insolence,
and not rarely his ignorance of the subjects, he
said to those pupils, and in the very presence of their Professors,
that if not fully satisfied with the teachers' explanations
and instructions, they would come to his study, he
would supply the deficiencies!!!

“Mr. Carlton! — were your Professors men? Why,
Professor Spunk, of our place, would have kicked him
out!”

Softly: Clarence was a Clergyman, and Harwood good
natured. For a while, too, amazement kept them speechless:
and after that they were inclined to take, as a perpetual
apology for the President's rudeness, what he once offered
as such to the students themselves, for a hasty act of discipline,
viz.:—“that his nerves had been disordered by a
cup of strong tea the night before, taken incautiously with
a guest, and that in such cases he was sometimes forgetful
and hasty!”

Clarence, indeed, always insisted that the poor Doctor
was, at times, partially deranged; and that, even after receiving
the following anonymous letter: — — —

(Note:—The Editor is unwilling to print the letter, and
so he always told Mr. C.)

This letter, Clarence, on opening his pocket Virgil, left

[figure description] Page 281.[end figure description]

as usual on the mantel of his recitation room, found in the
book: and, not suspecting its character, he thought he
would run it over before commencing the lesson. The
hand-writing being apparently the President's, Clarence,
conceiving that his master had chosen this way to lecture
for some over-sight, looked for no signature. And, therefore,
he read till the ending, when the absence of all signature
so perturbed him, that he got through with the recitation
mechanically and by instinct!

Great was his distress:—could it be that Bloduplex was
so cowardly and vile to write such a letter! ordering him
to resign, and threatening if he would not! Yet, his was
the hand-writing!—the style!—the very expressions!—
the every thing!—but the signature, and that was wanting!

When this letter was thus found, it was a time of restored
peace and renovated confidence—for, Clarence, being then
a man of implicit faith and trustfulness of spirit—(having
faith in man! according to the modern doctrine of Lyceums)—
had, child-like, looked over the past, and hoped
afresh for the future; * * * Down went he, after
recitation, as usual, to the Doctor's study—but, accidentally,
the door was locked! Then called he Harwood
from his room, and, without uttering a word, put the letter
into his hand. That gentleman read, and trembled as he
read,—and, when Clarence asked—

“Who do you think wrote it?” he answered—

“I am afraid to say! but it seems like the Doctor,—the
style—the hand-writing—the expressions—are so like
his!”

Hastening home, Clarence handed the letter to his wife,
and without word or comment. She read; but, soon bursting
into tears, she voluntarily exclaimed—

“Oh! Charles!—the Doctor must have written this!”

Harwood had now joined them: when the anonymous
letter was compared with several letters written by

[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]

Bloduplex to Clarence, and the most remarkable similarity, as to
the hand—the style—the words—the expressions—was
apparent: nay, in some things, was an identity. And
all this, even Dr. Sylvan afterwards acknowledged; although
with characteristic caution, he expressed no opinion
as to the authorship.

“Do not resign —”

“I must, Harwood: external enemies and mistaken
men, I could and can resist, and face;—but this domestic
traitor —”

“Perhaps, after all, it is not he.”

“Perhaps so; yet, I cannot endure the suspicion. And,
suppose he learns or guesses our suspicion—mutual confidence
can never be again after that. No. I am now
awake: and let me say, dear Harwood, that that man has
some plan for you when he is rid of me.”

“Oh! you are too much alarmed—he cannot be meditating
that;—we shall be too strong for him —”

“Depend on it, I am right. What we have heard of his
character is true: and he that has, by indirect means,
gained victories over ecclesiastical courts, will, by the
same, gain them over us. I must and will resign.”

“At least, see the Doctor first.”

“I will—but I know the result:—it will end in my resignation,
and in your final overthrow.”

Clarence accordingly, taking the letter, waited on the
President, who, meeting him at the door of his dwelling,
did himself thus begin:—

“You received an anonymous letter, Mr. Clarence, I
hear?”—(Who told him?)

“Yes, sir; and I have come to you for advice.”

“Let us walk up the lane. Have you the letter with
you?”

“Here it is.”

The letter was taken by the President, but not read all

[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]

carefully and indignantly over, as by the others! And yet,
at a glance, he learned all its items, and that so well, as
to talk and comment on them! But still, after what he designed
should pass for a searching scrutiny, in a moment
he exclaimed,—“I know the hand writing—it is Smith's!”

“How you relieve me, Doctor Bloduplex,” said Clarence;
“Harwood was right to prevent me from sending
in my resignation.—I shall continue —”

“Mr. Clarence,” replied the President, “Smith, I know,
is your bitter enemy; and I am told you have many more,
and especially among the young gentlemen that came with
me: now, this letter shows a state of great unpopularity,
and I do candidly advise, all things considered, that you
had better resign!!”

“Doctor, pardon me, my first belief is returned—I know
the author of this letter, and it is not Smith.”

“Who then, sir?”

“Come with me, Dr. Bloduplex, and I will satisfy you
in my study.”

“I cannot now, sir, but will call in the course of the
day.”

After a while the President called, when Clarence, conducting
him into the study, said:

“Dr. Bloduplex, from my inmost soul I do hope you
may remove my suspicion;—but I much fear that you
yourself are the author of this letter!”

“I!—the author! how could you ever entertain so unjust
a suspicion?”

“God grant, sir, it be unjust—but I will now give you
the grounds of my suspicion.”

“Name them, sir,—I am curious and patient.”

Here Clarence went over all that the reader has been
told, but to a much wider extent, and with many arguments
and inferences not now narrated; and then spread out the

[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]

Doctor's own letters, to be compared with the anonymous
one. Upon which the Doctor said:

“Well, Mr. Clarence, there is no resemblance between
them, or but very little.”

“But is there not some? Has not the writer tried to
imitate your hand—your style—your very grammatical peculiarities?”

“It does, maybe, seem a little so —”

“It does, indeed, Doctor Bloduplex; and now look
here!—the seal is stamped with the key of your desk!”

Here the President coloured; of course in virtuous indignation
and surprise at such roguery, and in some little
confusion exclaimed:—

“The wicked dogs! they have stolen the key of my
desk!”

Clarence was here affected to tears; that one the other
day almost loved and trusted as a father could be by him no
longer so regarded. Ay, hoping against hope that the man
could not be so fallen from high honour, and looking towards
him with streaming eyes, he said:

“Only assure me, Doctor, on your word of honour and
as a Christian that you did not do this base action, and even
now will I burn this letter in this very fire—(it was a cold
day)—before your face.”

“Mr. Clarence,” said he “I solemnly declare I did not
write the letter; but stay, do not burn it—let me have it
and I will try and find the writer.”

The worthy President then carried away the letter and
retained it three days in his surtout pocket; after which
he returned the paper—but alas! the friction of the pocket,
or something else, had so worn away the seal that the impression
of the desk-key was no longer visible!

Of course, then, the letter was not written by the Reverend
Constant Bloduplex, d. d.—for he had the best right
to know; and he said, solemnly, that it was not. Yet

p111-620 [figure description] Page 285.[end figure description]

Clarence, “all things considered,” did that very week send
his resignation to Dr. Sylvan; offering, however, to remain
till the meeting of the Board. At that the Board offered
him nearly double salary to remain some months longer till
a suitable successor could be found; to which proposal
Clarence acceded. When that gentleman leaves the stage,
our history, dear reader, is concluded.

Meanwhile pass we to the next chapter and refresh ourselves
with the Guzzleton Barbecue.