Belmont College - Milady in Brown Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer Lytton — were unwritten, not to mention the delightful productions of the present living authors. There is absolutely no limit to the opportunities of the present day, and let ' s not be forced to admit, with Sir Henry Taylor, in after years, that the retrospect of life swarms with lost oppor- tunities. We should grasp every opportunity now that we are standing face to face with the grim realities of life. Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author of Philobiblon, the earliest English treaty on the delights of literature, says: Books are masters who instruct us without rods and without anger. If we approach them they are not asleep; if investigating we interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if we mistake them, they never grumble; if we display ignorance, they never laugh. Indeed, books are charming friends. They dispel cares and produce the most delightful exhilaration. They are companionable in solitude, in happiness, in sorrow, and in sickness. They open up to us the various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and we can confidently rely upon such information, for in choice literature we have the richest thoughts of the most brilliant men. We can easily find entertainment for our variable moods, if we do not wish to confine ourselves to a systematic course of reading. If we would be soothed by charming verse and fairly intoxicated by the delightful rhythm of the serious poets, we have but to read the works of Longfellow, Tennyson, Whittier, Byron, Milton, Burns, or J. Whitcomb Riley. If we would be thrilled with oratory or inspired with patriotic eloquence, we should consult Wesley, Luther, Parker or Calvin; or if we would investigate the theories of more liberal religious thought we should turn to Voltaire. We may travel around the world with Kingsley or Ruskin, Herschel and Humboldt accompanying us on a trip to the mysterious nebulae beyond the sun and even the stars. The geologists will carry us back a million of years before the creation of humanity, even to the origin of this vast universe. After the disastro us defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, Plutarch tells us that the Sicilians spared those who could repeat any of the poetry of Euripides. There is no possibility that any of us will owe our lives to poetry, yet we owe it a debt. How often, when tired out physically and mentally we take down Milton, Homer, Horace, Shakespeare or Pilgrim ' s Progress and feel a sense of rest and repose. John Quincy Adams, when closing his final lecture on resigning his chair at Boston, said: In your strug- gles with the world, should a crisis occur when even friendship may deem it prudent to desert you — when priest and Levite shall come and look on you and pass by on the other side — seek refuge, and be assured you will find it in the friendship of Laelina and Scipio; in the patriotism of Cicero, Demosthenes and Burke, as well as in the precepts and example of Him whose law is love and who taught us to remember injuries only to forgive them. In conclusion, memento mori. May our years be many, and may the world be the better for our living in it, and may we, when the lamp of life is extinguished, be prepared to enter the pearly gates where angel mothers are waiting us, and join the angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. ■ ■ LoLLiE Morris.

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BooKs And this our life, exempt from public haunt. Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, And good in everything. — Slmkespeare. ARLYLE has very wisely said that a collection of books is a real university. Indeed, it is a fact that books are the reser ' oir of inexhaustible wisdom. It is probably super- fluous for me to give Belmont girls advice on this subject, but as our school-days will soon be over, and we will then be occupied with society ' and affairs d ' amour, resulting in our becoming queens of a kingdom called Home, it certainly cannot be amiss to offer some suggestions on reading. An old philosopher has said: The firefly only shines when on the wing. So it is with the mind. When once we cease cultivating the mind, to which the fountains of knowledge are opened, we wiU deteriorate. Therefore education must not cease when we leave college walls, so it would be advisable for us to pursue a systematic course of reading. What incalculable comfort and pleasure there is in a well-selected library. Macaulay, who had wealth and fame, position and talents, often said he derived his greatest happiness from his books. How fortunate that we live in the present century, when books are inexpensive and accessible. Our ancestors experienced the greatest diffictilt} ' in obtaining books, and a hundred years ago many of the most charming productions —

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