.

BYLES GRIDLEY, A.M.
The old Master of Arts was as notable a man in his outside presentment as one will find among five hundred college alumni as they file in procession.

His strong, squared features, his formidable scowl, his solid-looking head, his iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him a very decided individuality.
He had all the aspects of a man of books.

His study, which was the best room in Mrs.Hopkins's house, was filled with a miscellaneous-looking collection of volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his long life as a scholar.

Classics, theology, especially of the controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult and overt, general literature,--almost every branch of knowledge was represented.