An appalling sense of the fearful struggle which separates the soul from the body.” The college man Ludlow began his studies at the College of New Jersey, today's Princeton University. Entering in 1854, he joined the Cliosophic Society, a literary and debating club. When a fire gutted Nassau Hall, the College of New Jersey's main building, a year later he transferred to Union College. There he joined the Kappa Alpha Society, the nation's first purely social collegiate fraternity, and lived with its members. Ludlow evidently took some intensive courses in medicine at Union. As early as 1857, he writes of having been an anesthesiologist during minor surgery, and being asked by surgeons for his opinions on the actions of various courses of anesthesia. A class in which Ludlow always got the highest marks was one taught by famed Union College president Eliphalet Nott based on Lord Kames’ seminal 1762 literary work, Elements of Criticism – although it essentially became a course on Nott's own philosophy. The eccentric polymath Nott would have an influence on Ludlow, but perhaps more immediately his assertion that “[i]f I had it in my power to direct the making of songs in any country, I could do just as I pleased with the people.” In a testimony to Nott’s feelings towards Ludlow's philosophy and writing talent, he asked the young man to write a song for the commencement ceremony of the Class of 1856. College legend holds that Ludlow was so unhappy with the late night lyrics he composed to the tune of the drinking song Sparkling and Bright he threw away the manuscript. Fortuitously, his roommate discovered it and brought the work to Rev. Nott’s attention. Song to Old Union became the school's alma mater, and is sung at commencement to this day. Ludlow wrote several college songs, two of which were considered the most popular Union College songs even fifty years later. In The Hasheesh Eater he says that “[h]e who should collect the college carols of our country… would be adding no mean department to the national literature… [T]hey are frequently both excellent poetry and music… [T]hey are always inspiring, always heart-blending, and always, I may add, well sung.” The Hasheesh Eater Ludlow is best known for his groundbreaking work The Hasheesh Eater, published in 1857. When, in the Song to Old Union, today’s graduates sing that “the brook that bounds through Union’s