University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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t rs PROLOGUE. TAe wanderer over rural Berkshire sees, from afar, the figure of a gigantic horse, roughly carved from the turf of a hill-slope, and gleaming white with the whiteness of the exposed rock, and stops to muse over this lasting battle trophy of a well fought day. It is the White Horse King Arthur ' s royal emblem the device wrought upon his standard and blazoned on his shield, what time, upon that field of Ashdown, he first gave check to the conquering Dane; is the hill up which the young king cast a troubled eye over the far outnumbering Danish army, ere with purpose taken he said aloud to his questioning lords, Dare I go up at them ? In God ' s name and St. Cuthberfs, yes ! Since then the simple country folk have ever made an annual pil thither, to preserve from encroachment or obliteration, this record of their ancestors, that coming generations might remember and ponder over deeds worthy of emulation. Such is the ancient custom of Scouring the White Horse. Kind reader for you are kind to read we of this book have fought no battle, won no victory, reared no trophy. We are the simple country folk, whose turn it is to scour our White Horse; to keep fresh in the minds of our successors the memory of deeds done upon our college Ashdown, of fights fought long ago. And to the discharge of this, a time-honored duty, we go indifferent alike to applause for success, or to sneer sat a probable failure, but claiming, as is due, respect for the spirit which prompts us. Salve !

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I 7 THE BLUE AND GOLD. 3 s

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THE BLUE AND GOLD. THE EDITOR ' S FORETHOUGHT, ONDERFUL were the sights upon which the ever wise Ulysses gazed during his visit to the infernal regions, and many were the lessons he drew from these subterranean marvels. The punish- ments which the gods inflicted upon their enemies were disclosed to him, and he beheld the wretched victims racked by unceasing torments. But our hero did not view these wonders in simple curiosity; nor did he draw merely this conclusion from what he saw, that men should avoid offending the deities lest they be punished after death. That was a super- ficial deduction, and Ulysses looked far beyond it. He understood that the beings around him were acting as they had always acted, and that the punishment which they were undergoing was but an exaggerated or dis- torted likeness of each one ' s earthly pursuit. A prominent character in the place was the ghost of Sisyphus, the Over Wise, which With many a weary step and many a groan was employed in heaving a huge round stone up a high hill, a never- ending, still-beginning task, for the stone each time- turned before reaching the summit and fe ll back to the ground. Although Ulysses was prepared for punishments adapted to the characteristics of the individuals, yet he was startled at the peculiar fitness of this one, for Sisyphus had obtained his name from the habit, in his lifetime, of overdoing whatever he attempted to perform. Whatever he undertook was commenced with violence, and continued without intermission or recreation until exhaustion overcame him. With him there was no gradual development of a project ; he threw his whole strength into the first effort, and allowed himself no opportunity to be refreshed until worn out by his exertions he was obliged to abandon his half-finished work. And thus there were no successes in his life ; nothing was completed, because every thing was persistently overdone, and when at last the Over Wise reached the Stygian bounds he was by (he gods compelled to spend his time in casting a huge stone up a hill a cruel travesty of the victim ' s past performances, for the task was necessarily begun with the most violent exertions and was so managed as to be endless. As Ulysses turned away from the groaning shade he un- doubtedly commented on the similarity between the Sisyphian labor and the manner in which a number of his worthy toiling neighbors in Ithaca conducted their affairs, and must have come to the conclusion that there were still living many of the race of Sisyphus, to whom all their ancestors ' peculiarities had been transmitted. d