Kansas University Weekly.
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close study of the poem, and, in the nature of the subject. Tennyson says in his own defense, "If women ever were to play such tricks, the burlesque and the tragic would go hand in hand." Is not this true? What more absurd, yet pathetic spectacle today, than a woman who flings her destiny, her womanhood, away and spends a lonely and loveless life, riding her hobby horse astride to prove that she is a man.
Mr. Dawson can hardly be right in saying that the Princess is to Tennyson's other poems as Gray's Elegy was to his lesser ones. It is not greater than the Idyls of the King, if it is, indeed, superior to Maud or In Memoriam; but it has matchless beauty and fascination, and it has, above all, a noble purpose. It makes the jangling discords of the "Woman Question" into music; it brings home to the heart what Emerson says—"For nature is everywhere having her will and cannot be baffled;" and it makes us sure that the millenial prophecy is true which says that Heaven shall one day be to men in this earth, and into it "a little child shall lead them."
BERTHA B. SCHAFER.
The Soliloquy of A Waste Basket.
On a certain day of Indian Summer, a Sophomore was seated at his desk wrapped in deep meditation. His appearance showed perplexity. Soon, mechanically, he picked up his hat and left the room. In deep abstraction he crossed South Park and walked down Massachusetts street. He greeted none of his friends, for he saw them not; and at last oblivious to all around him, he seated himself in the shadow of the old wagon bridge.
The rumbling of wagons and the "cling- clong" of the street-cars were lost to him, lost in his deep consideration of the theme that was due on the following day. Scarcely an hour had passed when a small, shrill voice sounded from the pier. Our Sophomore bent his ear to listen; and again the voice spoke. "What a change invisible Time, in his onward march, has wrought in the past few centuries. There were formerly no bridges over this river and no University students sat upon its banks, racking their brains over the preparation of their themes.
"In fact, there is little here to remind me of my early days. This stream has drawn into its bed as a turtle into its shell, since I left here in my youth. It used to swell out above all these low-lands. There was no bottom to the river water, and one could not see across it,when I
was young."
As the voice made this statement concerning the Kaw River, doubt flashed through the mind of the Sophomore and was as quickly indicated by his mien. Noting the cynical air of his hearer the voice continued. There can be no mistake about it. The courses of streams do not change, even if they shrink from rivers to brooks. I spent my youth in this vicinity, and for many years lived on a large hill that rose out of the water south west yonder, and which you students now call MountOread.
"What a contrast the present picture of high civilizations presents, when compared with the scenes of my youth. I well remember being tossed about in my infancy upon the turbulent waters in this neighborhood. With my ill fateed companions I spent many days in this sad plight; and it was with most grateful hearts that we welcomed the sight of beloved Mount-Oread, at whose foot we were wafted ashore.
"In those days the land was fertile and it was not long until we attained luxuriant growth. Not only was there nothing to mar our happiness; but everything was conductive to enjoyment. With ease we could bathe our foreheads in the water at our feet, or warm our waving hair in the sunlight overhead. Many pleasant hours we spent in watching the black bass sport and play, and in listening to the singing of the birds. All nature was given over to the pleasant pursuit of happiness. Man had not yet appeared upon the scene to encroach upon our rights.
"Years rolled on, and we were still undisturbed, except by the receding of the water, which caused our habitations to be moved down the slope. One day one who was a relative, as we afterwards ascertained, paused at our dwelling place to rest. He had been paddling down the river for days and had startling tales to tell us of his adventures with the Red Man. These were to us new; but it was not many years before the copperhued man, killing the deer with his arrow, or catching fish with his crooked stick, was a common sight.
"The Indian boy not long pursued his roaming habits, before he was displaced by the encroachment of the white man". At this moment the sranger who had been soliloquizing upon the changes time had wrought, was carried from the abutment by the current, and passed over the dam just as the Sophomore awoke to find staring him in the face a "Waste paper Basket."