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UNIVERSITY COURIER.
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Solemn Senior and brassy Prep come in and sit down together, the lion with the lamb. Some hard-worked students find it necessary to study in chapel—these the Chancellor prays for now and then, much to their consternation.
Some one reads the morning psalm, then the choir (?) begins to sing. While this goes its weary way, I look, for perhaps the hundredth time, over at the bust in the farther corner. I remember how long I was in finding out the name of that bust. I was diffident in asking, being fearful of showing my ignorance, but felt sure from its lofty place that it must be some one worthy to be known. Now gazing upon it I exclaim: "Speak, marble lips! Wert thou one here amidst us, thou wouldst open thy firm-cut mouth to—— probably to ask about the Commencement appointments, or to swear at the Analytics."
All this while the choir keeps pegging away at something or other. Soul of the Prophet!—that was discordant enough to turn a Chinese band green with envy. Most hymn-writers seem to think it makes no difference how nonsensical the words, if only they fit the tune moderately well; or how commonplace the tune if only it be vaguely melodious. This morning the hymn is particularly flat and unmeaning.
The second door opens and many more come in, among them one of the speakers. Now three scared Freshmen sit on the platform. I rejoice within me that I have safely passed that ordeal, and remember how I felt when I saw "X.Y.Smith" blazoned on the bulletin board.
I suppose this work is a good thing for the doers thereof, but it is sometimes a fearful bore to the hearers. Mere declamation seems such profitless work. But praised and exalted be commonplace, and glorified be patriotism; for we have here platitudes enough to load a cart, and enough patriotic enthusiasm to found several Republics. "Our country'tis of thee, etc.," is all right now and then, but one gets tired of even that after about six hundred times. Three-fourths of the chapel speeches are either displays of rhetoric on abstract subjects, or personal eulogies, or are, as the vulgar tongue has it, "patriotic bust." The first kind one simply yawns over, the second is once in a while of interest, the third is commonly cant.
Let us see what Miss X., the first speaker has to say. Words, words, mere words, a string of rhetorical commonplaces out of the prose works of some inspired idiot. Miss X., does not Jeremiah (revised edition) say: "Woe unto him who shall speak commonplace before the people, for men shall lay the finger of Scorn upon the nose of Derision, and shall yawn upon him with the jaws of Weariness." You are applauded,not for that speech, but because the students think it a shame for a lady to leave the stage without a cheer; and quite right they are.
The second speaker is a patriotic soul. So soon as I catch his drift I turn my attention to something else; but occasional phrases, "Fathers of our country"—"extend a welcoming gesture to the universe"—"Jacksonian policy"—"the Occidental Continent one great and glorious, all-respected and awe-inspiring Republic," force themselves into my ears. At last he stops, but whether he has come to the end of his "bust" or of his mind no man knoweth.
As the other fellow is a friend of mine I rouse me to
listen. But of whom is he speaking? Oh yes,—one of Ingersoll's heroes—though that is nothing against him. Somewhat too rhetorical this declamation; with now and then good sentences; but my friend spoils them with his delivery. He is too cold, too constrained; he seems as if frozen; has had too little training. There—he has broken down—poor devil, I know how he feels; have been there myself. After a long stop he goes on, but is plainly much shaken, and hurries through. I wonder if he wants to be complimented, hardly think I should in such a case. So it sometimes seems that we all fail oftener than we succeed, but perhaps we are educated by defeat and disappointment.
The attendance at chapel is not, perhaps, all that could be desireed, for a full assembly of even the Faculty is quite rare. As for the students, a great many care nothing about it, or are, as I am, too drowsy of mornings. And I think the Friday-morning half-past-eight rule is a fearful fraud; one is always forgetting to come earlier than usual. It may be well to have it so, but the student, who, leaving his breakfast half-eaten, toils up the hill with a noble resolution of punctuality wilting his shirt-collar, then on his arrival finds the second door closed, is likely to use expressions theological but not orthodox, expressions, which, if heard by the Chancellor, would cause his hair to resemble the tail of a Nancy cat, that, unsuspiciously turning a corner, has suddenly come face to face with a yellow dog. But all things have an end, and we live in hope that this practice will end right soon.
Now the Chancellor rises and comes forward; we listen expectantly, but this morning he has nothing to say; he bows, the doors open, and we go to our classes.
X. Y. S.
MY BOOKS.
They dwell in the odor of camphor,
They stand in a Sharraton shrine,
They are 'warranted early editions,'
These worshipful books of mine;—
In their cream-colored 'Oxford vellum,'
In their redolent 'crushed Levant,'
With their delicate 'watered linings,'
They are jewels of price, I grant;—
'Blind-tooled' and 'morocco-jointed,'
They have Zachndorf's daintiest dress,
They are graceful, attenuate, polished,
But they gather the dust, no less:—
For the row that I prize is yonder,
Away on the unglazed shelves,
The bulged and the bruised octavos,
The dear and the dummy twelves,—
Montaigne with his sheep-skin blistered,
And Howell the worse for wear,
And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace,
And the little old cropped Moliere.
And the Burton I bought for fourpence,
And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd,—
For the others I never have opened,
But those are the ones I read.
FRA ANGELICO.
Vicchio is a lofty castellated village, crowning one of the spurs of the Appennines. and looking out over the