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

Page 9 text:

v ory=Kest Oorhn flour Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! This is Station W-O-E broadcasting its nightly Cozy-Rest-Coflin program. Remember our motto: When you die, Friends should buy Cozy-Rest — , — . — It is the best. Don t be old-lashioned and sleep in peace. Sleep in one of our plush-lined, Fisher-body models, ouIl never regret it! Now tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we re going to let you hear a true con- fession. We have right here with us a lady who has experienced such things as you 11 never lorget to your dying day, and she will tell you about them herself. Here she is: Mrs. Manning! % % Alas! alas! where shall I make a beginning and where shall I make an end of all my sorrows? Alas! But come, I must pull myself together. I must take this in my stride. The obvious place to begin (hen, heh) would be at the beginning (heh, heh) and so I do. It was years ago when I was a student at Bryn Mawr College. Like Caesar, I was ambitious. I saw my fellow-students gambolling over the lawns, careless of my will, and I thought, Power! If only I could hold these creatures in my grasp, wield and drive them as I wished, I would be content! I would give my soul for that! Xo sooner had I confessed as much to the ambient air, than there leaped Irom the book I was holding a thin, anemic wraith, which addressed me in quavering tones: can give you power! IOU? I returned with composure and disdain. iou aren t sufficiently well-nourished. ou coulan I haunt a mosquito! 1 hat s just my trouble, he nodded like a fog in a wind. But if you give me Food, I shall give you all you want. With a good, square meal diffused in my insubstantial body, I am a very prince ol air and darkness. Lucifer is my servant, lb- trembles al my name, which is Learning. Unfortunately, I am al present, as you say, quite under-nourished. I leed, you see, upon the brains ol all human creatures who read hooks and remember whal they read. Now there is no one who reads an more, or il there is. surely there is no one who remembers. Know I edge Floats in and oul ol minds before I can seize upon it, and I starve. Heavens and I I. II. how I starve! What, I inquired cautiously, for I did nol wish lo offer mysell to Ins dietary needs, Whal do you n.ml me to do? You need simplj promise thai you will lour all who hill through my influence into oni hands to read, read, read, and remember, remember, remember. I romise that, and in an instanl you will have the powei you desire. I promised. Lightning flashed, thunder resounded in the concave hollows ol the si.ii ks. the earth trembled. When the smoke cleared away, I was silling in an ,,.,! Ion, i bed office. f wo secretaries waited breathless!) Foi m winds. Outside

Page 11 text:

the door stood a dismal line of students, depending upon my whim as to whether they should be condemned to German Reading. Letters from parents imploring my mercy on their offspring poured upon my desk. Power! I had it. 1 arose and walked to my window to inhale the glorious air expansively. I blessed the name of Learning. Remembering, however, that the poor, ghostly fellow was still starving; remem- bering too that as a woman of honor I must keep my word before indulging in selfish pleasure, f turned to making my victims read, read, read, and remember, remember, remember. As soon as they looked well stuffed, I herded them together in a dark corner of Taylor beneath the blank white countenance of propitious Athena. I waved blue books in the air; I muttered the spell of quiz- rules, and such was the power of my words and acts that I conjured up the voracious spirit in the twinkling of an eye. He roared with joy at the sight of so much prey, while 1, a bit wary lest in his excitement he might confuse my identitv with that of an edible morsel, slipped out of the door and left him to his meal. Only after some time, when I was certain he was satiated, did I return to gather up the corpses. Insatiable, however, is spiritual appetite. With the years, the genius of Learning grew fat and full-blooded, but the more his health increased, the more he wanted to devour. I made excuses to him, I avoided meeting him, yet in the end I could not escape. Flashing blue flames, he confronted me and demanded that either I find some way of multiplying his matter of sustenance ten-fold, or he would then and there tear me limb from limb. The choice seemed to be obvious, yet in my nervous haste to assure him that I felt no hesitation whatsoever about ray course ol action, I rashly promised to multiply his fare not ten, but twenty-fold! He vanished in a complacent glow, but I was left to desperate dismay. Twenty-fold! How could 1 do it? And then — surely it was his diabolical spirit inspiring me, not my own invention — the idea came in a flash: Comprehensives. Xo more did I simply stuff my subjects until they were of an appetizing plumpness. No, I stuffed them to bursting, I saturated them, 1 charged and infused them. Working over a longer period of time, I changed their very substance into lood lor Learning. Xo loreign element did I allow to taint or lessen their prime condition. I walled them into their dwellings so that they could not escape I ro m my surveyal. I piled books upon them. 1 buried them in the Library, threat- ening dire punishment if they did not learn every word by heart. There, in the mkht ol dusty tomes and the shadows of infinite shelves, 1 suspect that the monster himsell appeared to them and urged them on. From their worn and pallid faces, I know thai they must have been assaulted by his terrors between the lines ol Milton and the laws l Newton, while he whispered lo them in heart-shaking tones, I. earn, learn, learn! I hey learned, incredibly they learned. ltir lour years, I had my victims reads. Draped in black, wept lor by the Friends the) were leaving, thej Followed me into I aylor where so often before I had summoned up the demon to his least. ol merely with spells and l)lue-books, bul with solemn arums, with Fires made ol all the books and papers ever used to pre p. ir - Foi this hour, with song and ritual dance, the mightj being was invoked and .uric I lied through lli ' - door, Iml I COuId ' Jo nn Farther. rear Iro .e me as I listened to the hortles ol inhuman joy, and the si reams ol too human despair and pain th.it echoed behind me. Foi limns I could not stir, and lor hours it lasted, an etcmih ol agony. Hearing such cries, I could not bul repenl lor whal I had dour; mv mind was seized with remorse as horrible in its niip .is the grip ol the fiend within upon those whom I had delivered up I i losed my eyes in terror and (Conilmiml n Pago 78)