262
THE FORTNIGHT.
specimen of the substance is before them. And perhaps they are right.
The lecture on "Modern Shams," by Miss Emily Faithful, drew the best house of the year. The lecturer spoke in a very forcible manner against the vice of the times that makes money the one thing needful, and sets up a money standard by which to judge all worth and excellence. She accused society and the church of neglect of duty in permitting the existence in our cities of such suffering and misery, and the vices inseparably connected with these. She censured severely shams in society, in government, in literature, in art, in religion. Much of the lecture, no doubt, seemed commonplace, because it is a subject upon which moralists have spoken in all times. But it never loses interest to thinking men and women. If for no other reason than her great and noble deeds of charity and humanity, every student should be glad to have seen and heard Emily Faithful.
Only two Juniors in the student's parquet at the Sea of Ice. What has come over the spirit of '85's dream?
The performance of the Sea of Ice, by the Kate Claxton company, had a full house. The play is a melodrama without the songs, that is, there is some shooting and drowning, and it winds up with a suicide. The play is well constructed, as are the productions of most French playwrights, the action is accelerated toward the close, there is not a great amount of useless talk, but one feels when it is all through as if, on the whole, it did not amount to much. Not so much praise may be given Miss Claxton's acting. She lays on too much stress in unimportant places; she is eternally on a strain; she seems ever
ready to go into hysterics; in a word, she is too "intense." This is well enough, and what is needed, when she comes to the passion and fire of her denunciation of Del Monte in the last scene; but when she plays the mother, Louise de Lascour, she overdoes it; she strains after effect and exagerates emotion.
The support was fully up to the average. Mr. Stephenson is not an actor, he only pretends to be one, and he succeeds so well because the part of the conventional stage villain is one of the easiest to play. The others all did well enough. A cut was made somewhere, for it was not shown whether Horace marries Diane or Ogarita.
The scenery was quite good. While some fault might be found with the costumes on the field of ice, yet the close of the scene, showing the block of ice afloat on the waves, was very effectively managed.
We are glad to see that our occasional howls on the subject have taken some effect and an athletic association is organized. We hope it will not go the way of the gymnasium organization. There is talk of a rowing club. This may be well but we think it will be a rather hard matter to obtain men and money sufficient to enable us to compete with other colleges.
The Sophomores have acted upon our recommendation regarding a yell. If the Juniors would only adopt one for themselves, they might also succeed in getting one generally adopted by all students. We say the Juniors, because of the custom elsewhere of considering the Seniors as out of the question in matters regarding the lower classes, and putting the Juniors forward as the actual leaders in all public demonstrations of undergraduates.