Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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12 Tlie Augusta Seminary Annual, his merry crew, with Trip away, Make no stay, Meet me all by break of day. Another kmd of fairy is dainty Ariel, hght as thistle-down and inyisible as air, who flies to and fro at Prospero ' s bidding. One thinks of music in connection with Ariel, of fleecy clouds, of morning mists, of all things that are light and joyous and, above all, free. Like Titania and her maidens, Prospero ' s tricksy sprite is very small ; his bed is the cup of a cowslip bell, and he seeks shelter from rain Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. The Httle people of A Midsummer ' s ]S ight are the fairies of childhood, the creations of one who, living in the world, as yet has looked only upon the surface of life, but Ai-iel is the produc- tion of a mature man, who has sounded life ' s profoundest depths and scaled its loftiest peaks, and now, from the heights above the clouds, is able to conceive as a crowaiing glory the Tempest, with all its soul and tenderness embodied in the person of dainty, faultless Anel. With the Tempest Shakspere ' s Hterary career came to a close. It is thought to be his last work, and it may be that the breaking of Prospero ' s rod, by which Ariel ' s soul was set free from its long bondage, symbolizes the laying aside of that magic wand which, vielded by the master ' s hand, after a lapse of nearly three centu- ries, still weaves around men ' s hearts, with all its fonner potency, its magic charms of wonder and delight. Cabeie Pbeston Bell.

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The Augusta Seininary Annual. 11 she appoints one aloof to stand sentinel over his sleeping queen, while the others roam the wood, Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose bud, Some to war with rear-mice fur their leathern wings To make my small elves coats ; and some keep back The claiuurous owl that nightly hoots and wonders At o ur quaint spirits. And, lo ! while she slumbers, Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight, comes jealous Oberon and drops upon her slumbering eyelids the juice of a little western flower, which Will make man or woman madly dote I ' pon the next live object that it sees. Under its influence Titania meekly gives up her changeling to Oberon, who, not wishing to be outdone in kindness, releases the fairy queen from the spell by which she is bound, and bids her Be as thou wast wont to be ; See as thou wast wont to see ; Dian ' s bud o ' er Cupid ' s flower Hath such force and blessed power. Then the revels of A Midsummer ' s I ight are over, and, as they hear the morning lark, Oberon says : Then my queen in silence sad Trip we after the night ' s shade. We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wandering moon. Now the lark uprising has startled the dull night ; The eastern gate all fiery red is tlIro m open to the king of day, and all is quiet and deserted in the forest ' s depths. All of a long summer ' s day no elf or fay is seen or heard, but vat the first shades of evening they come in troops and take possession of Theseus ' house. From room to room they flit, round and round they whirl and dance and sing, weav- ing their fairy charms for the protection of their patron ' s home, until at last when the moon has poured her silver beams into every recess and cranny of the forest, Oberon dismisses to HiUs, brooks, standing lakes and groves

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The Augusta Serninm y Aimual. 13 Thackeray, as Reflected in The English Humorists. IT is amusing as well as interesting to see the mirrored like- nesses of the literary men where they have been unconsciously reflected in their own works. The candid admiration, the wit and humor, the unerring penetration, and above all that touch of sympathy which makes the whole world kin, shows us the nature of the man infinitely better than the most polished and correct biography ever could. Who that has read Macaulay ' s great Third Chapter has not felt the force of the man ' s intellect ' { Hifi repeated images, like so many dazzling lights, make the eyes of less gifted mortals bUnk at their brilliancy. Who has not felt the gentleness, the wit and the humor of Lowell in reading his Essays, and, charmed by his grace, involuntarily wished to make him a bosom friend :• Is there one of us who does not feel the rugged manliness of Carlyle on reading his ' ' Essay on John- son, of whom he says, He was nowise a Clothes-horse or a Patent- digester, but a genuine man ? If we see in their writings the characters of Macaulay, of Low- ell and of Carlyle, far more plainly do we trace the outlines of Thackeray in his English Humorists. What could be more generous than the words in which he commends to us the dear parson in the tie-wig : When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he has so benevolently described, up to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture, a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison ' s, There could hardly be sweeter praise, there could hardly be words which would betray Thackeray ' s own benevolence, humanity and piety more plainly than those in which he himself describes another. The society and the lives of these lordly, laughing, careless wits, hide not a secret from this great reader of the mind and heart. He has di ' ined them all, and when we read of them as he has portrayed them, we can almost see his blue eyes twinkle