Bryn Mawr College - Bryn Mawr Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

Page 16 text:

This walk is fraught with danger. Not only do cars whiz by, (notably the bus labelled Sisters of Mercy,) but in the past year or so, the Dog Menace has increased alarmingly. We are all devoted to the three little dogs who sit so dismally in front of the Library, and to the Scottie Elys, but the dogs we encounter on the Circuit are of a different calibre. At the Diez ' we almost always meet Siegfried, who springs upon the unsuspecting stranger, while Dr. Diez doffs the hat and gives many assurances of Sieg- fried ' s friendly intentions. A little further along two Airedales come racing down a hill, and growl unpleasantly from behind a frail fence. There is a group of Thurber- dogs, (having no particular characteristics,) who roam around together, and one of the houses on the Circuit has acquired a Doberman, who has a glint of fire in his eye, and who adds peril to the trip. Now that we are nearing the end of our last spring, we look with great fondness on the man who sells balloons and daffodils on the corner of Montgomery Avenue, and we will feel nostalgic in the years to come, whenever we think of the cherry trees in blossom down the walk to Goodhart, as we remember the first snow-drops in Wyndham garden, and the pansies that grow in the cold frames of the greenhouse opposite the Inn. We will remember long the twilights in the Deanery garden, where we could sit quietly after supper and listen to the little splash of the fountain. Ever since we first came to college, we have been told that we would look back on these days as quote the happiest days of our lives unquote. We have always been skep- tical, our minds filled with problems of exams to be passed, reports to be written, and Orals to be taken. And yet, in ten years ' time, it will probably seem to us that there is no honor so great as receiving a hoop, no excitement comparable to that of keeping our class animal a secret, no luxury so delightful as being able to take two hours off in the middle of the day to play solitaire, and no life so enjoyable as this one, which enables us to sit in each other ' s rooms until 4 a.m. and very solemnly talk and argue about nothing at all. 10

Page 18 text:

oA liberal Education The Adventures of Sophias Phile among the Wise meN of agashuLanD THERE were many doors leading off the long passage, each with its brass plaque, but owing to the poor illumination Little Sophie was unable to make out what they said. But she knocked anyway. No one answered, so she went in. A heavy cloud of the best smoke hung over all, filling every cranny. Ah, she mused, weeping copiously, just as I thought. To be is to be perceived, since that which ' exists fills space and that which fills space must be perceived, whereupon a sudden dreadful doubt seized upon her susceptible young mind. Is this cloud, this space-filling and all too well perceived smoke, existent while I, I in my lonesomeness, am relegated to non-being? But no! for Aristotle reasoned that I think, therefore I am; we can assume nothing except starting with this preface. Therefore will start with this preface. This, then, is the beginning, the beginning without end, for am not able to stop myself from thinking about some- thing, therefore I must exist. Furthermore, one thinks then one has a mi?td and so one exists. This is progress. But if one exists then one is perceived by someone (to couple Hume with Aristotle) and if you are, there must be others; these others perceive you; you are perceived Q. E. D. even though (by this time the smoke was as thick as Kant ' s collected works) you cannot see yourself, therefore some think that the only test of knowing you are real is by perceiving others or by having them perceive you. Surmising by this time the need for companionship (this need, she noted in passing, was one of those truths the idea of which according to Plato enters our minds by study or otherwise and so we learn, them!), Sophie tied up her sash and dug away valiantly at the smoke, which she now perceived to be a cloud of ignorance — ignorance which in being so perceived became, alas, existent. This, not Pandora ' s box or the apple, was the beginning of evil. Just as little Sophie was about to succumb to the asphyxiating fumes there suddenly came into existence (i.e. were perceived) a number of individuals with their backs to her, sitting on a bench. Sophie tried to sit down on the end next to a very stolid figure to all appearances utterly saturated in himself. He was wearing a blue denim coat on which Sophie was able to make out in large red letters Unmoved Movers, Inc. Don ' t mind him, said a long-eared fellow with a stop watch in his hand. He ' s just thinking. Heavens, cried Sophie. What about? There was a chorus from the bench-warmers: ' Everything, of course. Nothing, stupid. See page 25. 12