Stevens Institute of Technology - Link Yearbook (Hoboken, NJ)

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oe eee bit eee LY ERC, tee We have simply to intermix a suicide, a murder or two, a pawnbroker, a maiden radiantly beautiful, a youth haggard with love, a gallows, some Zulus, a few of the latest discoveries of science, a little materialism, the jail-fever, a new interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, a heartbroken wife, a sprinkling of orthodoxy, a repentant convict, a mesmerized baby and a parricide; we shroud the whole in an atmosphere of mysterious gloom, stir the seething mass with infinitesimal analysis until a scum appears or the odor becomes insupportable; then with a dextrous twist we bring the young man and maiden to the surface, clean them, clap on their wedding garments, fetch in a surplice and tie them eternally together. . Now we have the plot complete; and by the aid of it I shall be delivered of a most vivid. and thrilling tale, the like of which is not to be found in the world present or the world to come. But I know you will pardon me if I interrupt for a moment the progress of this story (that it has made progress you can see for yourself; I began it nearly two pages back) while I enter into a synopsis of my reasons for writing it. In the first place, I am well fitted to be its author because I am receiving a scientific education ; not that I am being educated scientifically, you understand—that is a different matter; but 1 am having a prodigious number of facts drilled and tapped into me. Consequently I can write this story better than anyone else, in a strictly factitious manner. Moreover, not only are “bar’lls,” hogsheads—yea, tons, of science being broached in my behalf and the sparkling nectar retailed to me on draught from the Wood, but also is the vasty deep of literature being drained to the very dregs to saturate me and my fellow-sponges. Squeeze me, and facts will ooze from every pore. Did old Chaucer use a moth-eaten, obsolete word, hoary with age and unknown save to antiquaries?—then is the meaning of that word as familiar to me as my name. Did the wise Bacon use the most brilliant powers of his imagination to hide the significance of a thought; did he fairly bury it out of sight beneath a glittering heap of metaphors?—then I could rake that thought out so quick that you would gasp for breath. Besides this training I have received special instruction in the newly discovered science of “Sarcastic

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IIO LAE TICCEL NERA Ce IVE me your attention, reader, I am about to write a story. None of your weak, wishy- washy, love in a farmhouse stories, mind you; but a good, healthy, murderously sinful tale that will cause you loss of sleep if you ever finish reading it. It shall commence thus: ‘On a calm summer day in the merry Hold! did you presume to advise me to state my subject before proceeding further? Was ever such conceit! Advise me,—me! a practised story-teller, to give away my subject before I have had time to tell you about it? The idea! You poor ignorant fault-finder, are you not aware that an author should find his f of at the outset? No self-respecting story will fail to beg, borrow, steal or invent a plot before it does any thing else; shen, all the rest will follow as easily as one b r after another on commencement night. This same plot, let me tell you, should be the first thing for the writer and the last thing for the reader to discover. But just here comes a difficulty; the plot belonging to this particular narrative, in order to sustain your interest, should be situated in, or not distant from Stevens Institute, and the only known specimen near that structure is the worn and weary grass-plot which surrounds it,—and this, unluckily, has been nearly plotted out of existence by the Seniors. (Do not smile at this, if you please, as it is associated with a few of the most painful moments of a painful life.) Very obviously the dangers and obstacles in the way of borrowing or even stealing my plot are insuperable, and there is nothing left but to concoct a blooming new one. This, as I will show you in short order, is one of the easiest things in the world to do; the recipe is compact and easily understood.

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112 LAS RCCL IN TRG Dogmatics.” ‘I have learned that the proper attitude of the teacher toward the taught is, not to “care a pin for the opinions” of the latter. I have spent one day with the “Merchant of Venice,” extracted a little bogus philosophy from an “Essay on Man,” casually glanced at the true history of creation as given by Milton, and have painfully paid a pious pilgrimage to Canterbury in company with a Parson and a number of other ancient individuals. In short, you must perceive how overflowing are the storehouses of my mind, and how perfectly prepared I am to drive an author’s quill. God bless me! if I haven’t forgotten that I am writing a story. And here is the patient reader all this time, waiting for me to proceed, while I have been maundering on with my conceited gossip. Never fear, reader. I shall find my tale in a moment and then you shall have it complete, though I humbly apologize for the delay. But you see how it happened—while I was gossiping, my story wan- dered off into space (with a velocity proportional to the square of the time, no doubt) and I may have some trouble in finding it again Ah, I have it, by Jove! and quickly found, too. “Oh, heavepS! I am dying! save me!” she cried. . “Roderick bent over her, gave one long last look into her lustrous lying eyes, which he loved 0° 9 well, albeit he knew their deceit, and placing the weapon to his temple, fired Wuat’s THIs? Can it be that my story begins in murder and suicide? Am I, a mild and peace-loving — student, involved in crime? What would mother say? Who can predict what will happen next? For aught I know, my tale may lead me to the gallows. But, I say, reader, this must be the conclusion—as true as you live I have begun at the wrong end. Well, well, who would have thought it! I have been told é that I was absent-minded and now I believe it. It is of no consequence, however; we can shift the story ) round and commence again; and besides, in that case, we shall not be forced to attend Roderick to his I, post-mortem. Poor wretch! even death affords him no relief from an examination. . “On a calm summer day in the merry month of May, a young man and maiden, obviously lovers, | 3) ——” evidently this is the degimmimg. Contrast it, if you choose, with the sad end; and note the skillful use