trunk-room in Merion, helping Alice Marston write the _Professor_?"
"Dear me, I had forgotten," sighed Louise, "and I don't think anything
has ever seemed really funny since that."
"The sad part of it is," continued Evelyn, "that the warning in the
motto we used would now be a necessity. Who but ourselves would
understand those jokes? What was the motto?" to an inquiring freshman,
"Quae jocum suspiciet, eam oportet ridere;
Quae non, oportet aliis ridentibus ridere.
Ne lacrima!
Quot intellixistis?"
"Don't apologize for talking Latin, Evelyn," said Marjorie, with a
comical glance at the group, "it's like our mother tongue."
"That was the way the Latin lecture used to begin," explained Ellen, for
the benefit of the undergraduates. "You see we used to have lectures in
Latin as a sort of elective."
"That sounds impressive; it did to me when I first heard it," responded
Marjorie, "but those Latin lectures were the most humorous things you
could imagine. You watched the Polyglot's face, and you knew when to
laugh and when to weep, and you were a little dull if you didn't
understand enough to raise your hand when he called out 'Quot
intellixistis?'
"Do you remember the one on Irish bulls? In your honour wasn't it, Pat?"
turning to Beatrice O'Hara, whose vaunted Irish blood was evident in her
speech.
"I wish I'd kept a record of Pat's bulls," remarked Susan. "I often feel
as though one of them was just the tonic I needed."
"Never mind," answered Beatrice, good-humouredly, "I once saw through
one all by myself. That time I told you I was carrying a stool with me
because I had to stand up."
"I often think of the way the Gifted chuckled, because you would say
'whenever a man died,'" added Ellen.
"I didn't deserve his ridicule; for I was the only person capable of
understanding what he meant by his favourite 'on a mutual hand,' or of
appreciating the beautiful idea of his 'tell all that you don't know
about this subject.'"
"Oh, Marjorie," exclaimed Edith, "have you forgotten how you disgraced
yourself just because you thought you noticed the joke introducing
expression on a learned lecturer's face? You would go to the German
lecture on Ulfilas, thinking it wise to make the most of all
opportunities for getting up your German for your orals."
"Not a bit of it," interrupted Marjorie, "I came to myself to find the
distinguished guests and the members of the Faculty gazing at me as
though I were crazy, and you pinching me black and blue. And all because
I had worked myself into hysterics of laughter over the Lord's Prayer in
Gothic."
"Wasn't it queer in those days when everything was new?" inquired one of
the audience.
"My dear child there never was a time when everything was new, and I
know what I'm talking about, for I was the first freshman that ever
spent a night in Bryn Mawr, and I then learned that Bryn Mawr already
had a history that was venerable, customs that were inviolable. That
first night I learned the Manus Bryn Mawrensium and the Maid of Bryn
Mawr. I was early taught the tradition of the sacredness of the Harriton
family cemetery, taken there by two sponsors, who felt the necessity of
impressing us, the newcomers, with the past.
"In that stretch of woodland," here her voice took on a sentimental
tone, "known as the Vaux woods, and still frequented by Bryn Mawr
students, there lies nestling among the trees a secluded burying
ground. Grey walls of ancient date bound it within narrow compass. The
masonry sturdily defiant of time, has been mellowed by a growth of moss
and lichen. To any eye a picturesque spot! In its calm but cheerful
solitude, no inhospitable resting-place! You feel in a sense possessors
of that place; you are aware that in some subtle manner it belongs to
you; but fully to comprehend your own feelings you must hear the droll,
though sentimental reminiscence of the first class of Bryn Mawr; you
must picture to yourselves a group of students on the worn steps and the
nervous, enthusiastic figure of that 'learned doctor,' as he walks up
and down in front of them, declaiming ore rotundo and with all possible
expression, the parting of Hector and Andromache. Yes, he taught us
Horace," answering a question from one of the groups on the grass. "Oh,
you have no such classes now. I couldn't imagine college without his
Horace class."
"How we had to work in it, though," sighed Louise.
"Oh yes, but you know we always had his permission to shirk all other
work that we might do his," came from Beatrice.
"And at last we had to protest," continued Edith. "Had we done all that
was expected of us, we should never have gone to bed. Our protests
passed seemingly unheeded, till one day just before Thanksgiving, the
Polyglot entered the room, one shoulder heaved on high with the great
pile of books he held under his arm. Having as usual begun his lecture
in the corridor, he was saying as he came inside the door, 'I have with
me a most interesting find, a manuscript Latin poem, unexpectedly come
into my possession. I shall write it on the board and then ask some one
to volunteer with a translation.' Then standing on tiptoe, at times
jumping so that he might write at the very top of the blackboard, he
began to copy some verses, but long before he had finished, the class
was convulsed with laughter. For it was a graceful little apology for
overworking us."
"When I think of Bryn Mawr," said Marjorie, "few things have left so
vivid an impression on my mind as his class-room. I was under the spell
of literature from the moment I heard him give out his first parallel
passage. There was in his classes a magical exhilaration never to be
forgotten. And to think you poor things don't know anything about it!
"It must seem very different to you now," put in a senior,
sympathetically.
"To be sure it does, and I think nothing strikes me more than the
light-hearted way in which you do things that we didn't dare to do for
fear of bringing down rules on our heads. Like our ancestors we were
constantly 'snuffing tyranny.'"
"Hadn't you self-government then?" asked a freshman in amazement.
"We had no government of any sort, and no despotism could have been more
compelling than the nameless fear that hung over us, that we might some
day do something that would lead some one to take away our liberty."
"I have always regretted the establishment of self-government," said
Elizabeth Gordon, a graduate who was to receive her Ph. D. the next day.
"Not at all, not at all," Marjorie hastened to declare. "You were always
so immersed in work that you never bothered with other people; but those
of us that thought it our duty to keep an eye on the freshmen found our
hands full. Why the trips that I have made with my Memorabilia under my
arm to administer sugar-coated pellets of college-spirit have cost me
many a good mark."
The reminiscences had filled the afternoon, and now the college-bell
rang out, warning the various groups that dinner-time was at hand. With
an apologetic laugh Marjorie started up, saying as she walked along,
"Six o'clock, and I've talked almost all afternoon! Well! Well! 'Tis but
a sign of age."
"Age, you goose," laughed Edith, "weren't you always the 'garrulous
particle'?"
"Well, weakness then, and a mistaken notion that there is no place like
Bryn Mawr."
IV
The beauty of the long June evening was not to be resisted, and as soon
as dinner was over, the students hurried out of doors. An air of
relaxation was everywhere noticeable. Those fagged out by examinations
gained cheer and liveliness from the more careless, or loitered about in
unregarded lassitude not disturbed by any sense of obligation as
contributors to the brimming talk of their companions. It was the
perfection of easy intercourse where every sentence is a free-will
offering.
However far the little knots of good company might wander, they sooner
or later gathered about the steps of Taylor Hall to listen to the senior
singing. The effect was almost like a stage setting in its perfection,
the grey buildings, the intense green of the grass, the blossoms on the
trees, the dresses of the girls, the group upon the steps, with the
rays of the setting sun falling full upon it. This custom of singing on
the steps was an innovation on the manners of the first years, but an
innovation picturesque and pathetic. Its pathos touched the group of
alumnæ standing at a little distance from the steps. Throughout the
afternoon they had almost fancied themselves students again; now they
had stepped aside and had become mere spectators, while the seniors were
making the most of their last days.
Before the singing stopped darkness had crept upon the scene. Taking
advantage of it Ellen slipped away unnoticed and wandered down the
hillside. As she heard the strange voices singing the old songs, she
suddenly perceived how far she had drifted away from her college
days--from all that had been revived by the chatter of the afternoon.
She could not but feel that Marjorie's power of awakening those trifling
memories, and Edith's quick response to her whims and sallies, her
humorous allusions indicated not a less, but a greater share in all that
was vital and permanent than any she could claim for all her
seriousness. A passionate regret rushed over her, aware now that in her
hurry, her business, her very faithfulness, she had lost, almost past
recovery, many of the privileges that had been hers; that, in her
pursuit of ends, worthy enough to be sure, she had made no demands on
the really precious things in her experience at college. For in this
moment of reflection, those trivial and petty reminiscences, mere
accidents in their student-life, became for her the summons to an act of
recollection.
She had strolled across the daisy field and was standing on the brow of
the hill looking out toward the west. The moon had risen. Seen in its
light the sweep of landscape seemed to her more picturesque, fuller of
appeal to the imagination. Details were lost sight of, contrasts of
light and shade emphasized. The slope before her lay in the full
moonlight. Beyond it a clump of trees showed dark against the lucent
sky. In the farther distance the hills were wrapped in a soft mist,
brightened here and there by the gleams from the clustered houses. The
familiar scene was full of remembrances, but remembrances for the most
part of her friendship for Marjorie and Edith. Long tramps across those
hills had been their favourite exercise through the winter. The daisy
field, the haunt of idle moments in the warm days of spring or autumn,
had also been for them a special sort of study, reserved for choicest
reading. Toward it too they had always wandered after the Sunday evening
meeting. As they walked along their talk would drift from the subject
of the evening to things more personal, closer to their hearts, their
individual perplexities, their individual faiths. Each one was then at
her best, in the light of sympathy, showing herself as good or as noble
as she really was. Those conversations, assumed to her kindled
imagination, an actuality, a power, hitherto unperceived, becoming not
only the record of their preferences in all matters great or small,
their criticism of the activities and the thoughts of their own little
world, but also the measure of their share in it. The little world thus
recalled to her, had, she was beginning to remember, its care for
holiness, for truth, for courage, and it had too its care for
orderliness and beauty in its very frivolities--and there had been a
discipline really stimulating even in that. The genius of the place
expressing itself in this care showed itself in light-hearted frolic no
less than in scholastic endeavor, for it determined the way in which
things were done rather than actual achievements, thus uniting in
voluntary submission to its influence those whom individual powers
separated from one another, informing them with its spirit, till it
became a part of them, not to be changed without the loss of something
individual.
How vivid it all was, how persistent, yet how baffling its secret! Why
could she not penetrate this secret and possess it? But as before she
could neither arrest nor depict the ideas that were passing to and fro
in her mind. Her thoughts flew to her speech. In it she had ignored
everything but the definite, the tangible, and in so doing she had
failed. Yet, even if she could seize the sentiment and translate it into
words, she dreaded misapprehension--she could not forget her audience.
"Oh, here you are, Ellen," Marjorie broke in on her reverie, "I've just
been singing your praises. It seems there are difficulties in the way of
self-government, and I thought I'd help them by giving them a bit of our
experience. So I told how you brought us through that bitter time, when
we so nearly lost our liberties. As I told them I realized as never
before how impossible it is to pass on experience. I could see before me
the faces of the girls so drawn, so stern, with that pitiful sternness
that only young faces catch; and then I seemed to hear Dr. Rhoads in
chapel that next morning, reading to us that chapter about Grace and
Law; and I could remember just how he stopped and looked at us after he
read the words,--'_For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are
not under the law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we
are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid_,'--and then went on
to tell us that he believed that those words expressed our spirit and
that as long as that spirit guided us we could be trusted to govern
ourselves. It seems strange that while the impression of that time will
never fade from our minds, we can pass on nothing but the tradition.
There is no Dr. Rhoads now," she continued after a pause, "and I think I
miss him more than I do any one else. He always used to gather up the
events of our life here and put them into their proper relations."
"Yes, he entered with all his heart into the college spirit just as
though he were one of us," agreed Edith.
"And for that very reason," said Ellen, "no part of his influence is
lost. That spirit is the touchstone for all of us. However variable it
is the one thing that persists and, so far, it has been as he understood
it. Each student, whatever her gifts, must make it her own if she is
ever to be anything but an alien here."
"It always needs Ellen to give the finishing touch," said Edith.
"If it had not been for you and Marjorie," insisted Ellen, "I should
still have taken counsel of the cynical outsiders."
"Listen a moment," interrupted Marjorie, "that's it after all."
A band of girls was coming toward them through the moonlight and as they
came they sang:
"_Thou Gracious Inspiration
Our Guiding Star,
Mistress and Mother, All Hail Bryn Mawr._"
V
One morning some days later, Ellen was looking out upon a delightful
garden in Indianapolis. The day was fine, if warm, and in the garden the
roses were in full bloom. She was in the highest spirits; but her gayety
of mood was a thing of the past five minutes and had nothing to do with
the sunshine or the flowers. She was reviewing the occurrences of the
last week and entertaining herself greatly.
Her speech had been made the day before with really brilliant success.
It had been the most important event in a series of notable meetings and
had been received in a way that might well have roused her to fresh
endeavour. Yet in the moment of her greatest success she had shown
herself strangely indifferent to her manifest duty. This was the result
of her having discovered, just as she had begun to accept the fact of
her triumph and the rewards that lay before her, that it was all due to
a surprising mishap, something altogether beyond her control. She
showed that she felt the importance of the occurrence by thinking of it
steadily for the rest of the day and well on into the night. This was
not because she wanted to think of it particularly; indeed she had made
every effort to dismiss her preoccupation; but she could not rid herself
of the idea that an accident was responsible for her triumph. In her
perplexity she went over the whole thing time and again.
There had been an inspiring audience, so much she acknowledged, casting
her mind over it. She had observed it in the moments before the meeting
was called to order. Looking at the impressive throng she had been
annoyed to think that she might have to use her notes. As she rose and
moved toward the desk there had been a sudden hush and concentration of
attention upon the platform, of so much she had been distinctly
conscious. She had felt too that after she laid her notes on the table
and began to speak, the intelligent interest which had greeted her
opening sentences soon gave way to an eager, fixed intentness and
breathless silence. Then all was a blank, till the restrained enthusiasm
broke forth.
As soon as the meeting was over she had been overwhelmed by
congratulations. Her one desire had been to escape, and she felt it
difficult to be gracious to her admirers. She had managed at length to
get away, and handing her notes to a reporter, had hurried to the door.
There she had been stopped by an old gentleman, who, though an utter
stranger to her, greeted her as an old friend.
"Now, Miss Blake, you'll come home with us. You'll not stop another
minute at the hotel. No, I'll not hear a word. I won't take a refusal.
Nobody has as good a right to you as I, your father's old friend, Ned
Cartwright." Then he had grasped her warmly by the hand, exclaiming
delightedly,--"My dear young lady! My dear young lady! It was your
father over again, Harry Blake, Prince Hal we used to call him. And is
that the way you girls feel about college? Bless me, I'd never have
believed it. I have heard so much solemn nonsense talked about what you
do and say and think. But I'll never believe it again. Why, you might
have been talking about my own college days, and your father's
too,--Prince Hal we used to call him. I'll never forget how we stole the
clapper, he and I. And they do it still, my dear, just as we used to,
and you steal your clappers too, and, bless me,--I'll send every girl I
can to college, if that's the way you all feel about it. That's
education! It isn't all books,--never was and never will be. Just ask
your father and he'll tell you so too. Yes, I give you my word, every
one of them shall go. I'll see to it. I'd as soon shut them off from
fairy stories and Walter Scott, and falling in love, because they were
girls. It's romance, that's what it is and they've a right to their
romance; for I'm an old man, my dear, and perhaps you'll take my word
for it, it's the romance of life that counts,--for the girls as well as
the boys."
While he was still talking Mrs. Cartwright had come up with a welcome as
hearty as his. Their hospitality had been irresistible, and Ellen,
powerless before it, was soon walking with them to the carriage. But
just as she had been about to get in she had been stopped once more.
"Pardon me, Miss Blake," some one had said, and there had stood the
reporter with her manuscript.
"I think there must be some mistake," he had gone on to say, "the paper
you gave me deals with the practical value of college life and you
talked this morning on what you called 'the Poetry of College Spirit.'"
Then, as in a flash, Ellen had seemed to understand the sense of
something strange and bewildering in the experience of the past hour,
for she then remembered that when she had stood facing her audience in
the moment before she began to speak, she had seemed to forget her
notes, her listeners and herself, and to apprehend the meaning of her
four years at Bryn Mawr so clearly that it came to have for her a sort
of personal identity. Carried beyond herself by her delight in the
assurance of something actual, she had spoken unpremeditated thoughts.
One might almost say, she thought, that the memories revived by the
visit to Bryn Mawr, then crowded out by her intense preoccupation in the
business of the convention had, as in revenge, taken possession of her,
forcing all other thoughts from her--had almost as it were expressed
themselves. Much that had puzzled her in Major Cartwright's criticism
was now explained. A trick of memory accounted for all--even her
triumph. But she could recall nothing of her speech. The words were
forever lost.
She had been overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all, and, do what she
would, she could not keep her thoughts from wandering from the Major's
eager questions of her father's doings to her own perplexing experience.
At one moment she had seemed to be on the point of remembering the
speech, to have the words on the tip of her tongue; the next to lose
them more surely than ever. Though the Major was constantly bringing it
to mind she was none the wiser for his references. That he had thought
well of it she could not doubt, but she wanted to know what she had
said. Long after she had gone to her room that night she had sat
thinking. The poetry of college spirit! What had she said about it?
Perhaps she had said something absurd, had made her subject ridiculous.
It hardly seemed so from what she had heard. And yet,--could she think
that the inspiration of that moment of discovery had lasted through an
hour of unconsciousness? How much more probable that the shadowy
something she had tried to define had been so real to the memory or the
imagination of her hearers that the mere mention of it had for them an
instant fascination.
And now this morning, finding herself the first downstairs, she had
picked up the paper. She would find out at last. A few moments ago she
had finished reading, and throwing the paper aside with the impatience
of disappointment, had stepped out on to the porch. In those five
minutes she had come to view the whole thing with a lively enjoyment.
There was a column about it in the paper, but no outline, nothing but
praise and the hope that she would make her speech fully effective by
publishing it. Was there perhaps a touch of malice in that suggestion?
Had the reporter grasped more of the situation than she had chosen to
tell? With that thought amusement overpowered her,--amusement at herself
above all. That she of all persons should be at a loss to know how she
had done precisely what she desired to do--please everybody--seemed to
her the perfection of irony. Her comic imagination, once kindled, swept
everything before it, her self-importance, her views, even her
curiosity. Then a delightful feeling of irresponsibility came upon her.
The speech was none of hers.
"Well now, what an early riser you are. I hope you are not used up by
the excitement of yesterday," came in cordial tones from the doorway and
Major Cartwright came out to bid her good-morning.
"What, all alone!" looking about him. "Haven't you seen Mrs. Cartwright
yet? She's been down a long time. I suppose she's out among the roses.
We'll go on without her if you don't mind. She likes to take her time
and cut all the roses before the sun gets hot, but it worries her to
think she is keeping me waiting. So I humour her and myself too."
"Well, you'll not be asked to wait this morning, my dear Edward, I've
got them all gathered." And Mrs. Cartwright came up from the garden with
a basket of roses on her arm. "Come away to breakfast now. I'll arrange
these afterward," leading the way to the dining-room.
The Major picked up the paper in passing, and looked at it.
"Oh here's all about your speech!" he cried, "I hope they didn't garble
it very much."
"Far from that," laughed Ellen, "they don't attempt to tell what I
said."
"What? You don't mean it. Nothing at all about it?"
"Oh, yes, compliments enough to turn my head. But the thought was
evidently too much for----"
"Just listen to this, Lucy!" interrupted the Major after a glance at the
criticism. "I don't believe you know what a distinguished young lady we
have with us this morning,--'Indianapolis has heard much of the
eloquence of Miss Blake, but Indianapolis was not prepared for the
glowing words of yesterday.'" He read to Ellen's great amusement. "'It
would be folly to attempt an abbreviated report of that splendid piece
of oratory. Instead we take pleasure in printing extracts from an
article on a more practical phase of college life, confident that any
words on woman's education from so able an exponent will be of the
highest interest to our readers.