Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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IS 77 1? Annual of lazy little idiot, willing to defraud the world of the charming writings of Goldsmith, in order to save jj ' (?z the trouble of study- ing them? Ah! I have no patience with you! And, now, recognize in me the Spirit of that Shaw, doomed to walk the earth as man until students shall cease reviling it. Year af- ter year girls have dragged me further from my celestial home, but this class of ' 96 has almost destroyed forever my hopes of rest and peace. ' ' There was high tragedy in his tones, and I wondered in a shame-faced way, how many hundreds of times I had pulled him back b} insulting epithets heaped on the book which he guarded. Soon, however, he recovered and continued in his former uncomplimentary fashion. You reviling nuisance, come with me and see those men you have been hating, come and feel your own littleness in the presence of those master minds. The dwarf was growing eloquent, and — or was it my imagination ? — - seemed to be increasing in size and dignity. He strode toward the volume of Shaw that had fallen to the ground, pointed to it and said in commanding tones, Kick it. In spite of the tirade I had just heard, this exactly ex- pressed my sentiments toward the prostrate gentleman, and I willingly endowed him with a far from gentle tap, expecting to see him fly to the four corners of the room. Picture my aston- ishment then, when the book grew and changed in a swift, terrible fashion, enclosing me, and shutting out the view of the old room, till suddenty I found myself deep in a dungeon cell. Damp grey walls arose on every side, and from the bar- red window a few struggling rays of light fell across the figure of a man seated cobbler-fashion on the floor busy making tag laces. Hopelessness was plainly written in every line of the stooped form and in the sad, emaciated face, but a grand pa- tience and fortitude was stamped on the broad brow. A woman and five children crouched in ragged wretchedness in a far cor- ner, and by the worker ' s side sat a young girl, her wide, un- seeing eyes turned upward toward the light. ' ' As I walked through the wilderness of this world I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, murmured the dwarf in my ear, but I needed not the words from the once despised Pilgrim ' s Progress ' ' to assure me of the identity of this prisoner. Tears

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The Mary Baldivin Seminary. 17 this evening. As we were sitting down to dinner some one pushed the table, and over it went into the middle of the floor, with a loud crash of breaking dishes and rattling silver. When the debris was gathered up, we found that the only thing that had escaped complete destruction was the molasses pitcher. As, unfortunately, people cannot live without eating, and cannot well eat without dishes, we will be obliged to go home. Mother says there is always something to be thankful for, and this time it is that we will not have the trouble of packing the dishes (except the molasses pitcher which I intend to pre- serve as a relic) and that we may leave behind our handsome din ing table, which I earnestly hope will be turned into kindling wood by the mountaineers before our return. A DREAM OF WISE MEN. The night was so dull and close that stud -ing was a thing impossible. A volume of Shaw lay open on my lap, but, in spite of earnest endeavors, I had spent one hour in learning a single page. Rebellious thoughts surged through me against these men whose lives and writings must be crammed into a weary student ' s brain. The heading of the next paragraph, Goldsmith ' s Comedies, stared at me in bold, black letters and was the last straw to break the back of my good humor. Oh Oliver, Oliver, I murmured in a sudden outburst of wrath, ' ' why didn ' t you die before you wrote anything! What! what! 3 ' ou blasphemer? screamed a falsetto voice in my ear, causing me to start violently, and there in the full glow of the lamp stood the most peculiar of little men, such a wizen, dried up creature, with a face seamed like a frozen apple and a figure bent with the weight of years. His eyes, though, glowed in a dangerous fashion, and the shaking finger which he pointed at me destroyed my composure. At loss for a reply, I sat gazing in open-mouthed astonishment, till the apparation, still spluttering from the first attack now went on with unabated violence: — Do you realize the enormity of your crime, you

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Tlic Mary IhiliUciu Seminary. ) gathered fast in my eyes at the sad sight, and when I had wiped them away the scene had changed. There now came before my vision a room filled with men, who lolled at ease round a table loaded with wine and cigars. Con- versation went smoothly, and puns and gibes flew from mouth to mouth. A man, who seemed to be the leader of this war of words, sat at the head of a table in a raised chair. His crooked figure was decked in full court .suit, and his eager, burning eyes glowed in his sallow face. Now and again through his gay banter, ran a decided vein of venom, and I straightway decided this deformed body and .sharp tongue could belong to none other than the wicked wasp of Twickenham. Once when he had sliot an unusually rancorous dart at humanity in general, a man who had been standing in the background, came forward through the curling wreaths of smoke, and laying his hand on the speaker ' s shoulder said, Right, right, when you think of the world give it an extra la.sh for me. What a shame to encourage him in ' ' I shrieked in my dulcet tones but was not allowed to finish, for invisible hands caught me up and set me outside a fast shut door, over which the sign of Kit-Kat Club was suspended. I suppose that man was the Dean Swift who wrote those sickening hieroglyphics to ' Stella? ' I asked, when I had gotten my breath. And if he was, you had better show more respect in speaking of your superiors, growled the dwarf, w hose temper was evidently ruffled by the sudden exit. Wisely holding my peace, I followed in my sullen compan- ion ' s foot-steps. Soon we entered a theatre and I found myself surrounded by a gayly dressed throng. The boxes blazed with the stars of Peers; great Lords and Ladies flirted on every side. Beneath me Sir Gilbert Heathcote, mighty governor of the Bank of England, sat wath his attending satellites. What is it? I whispered to my deformed cicerone. He flashed a glance of disgust at such ignorance, then said: Presentation night of Cato. ' ' Those men in the pit are the representatives of Will ' s Coffee House; over here are the Kit-Kat; those on the right are Lords, and on the left, Whigs; the but he was interrupted by the tinkle of a cracked bell and I turned eagerly toward the stage, .soon becoming deeply interested in Juba,