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

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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

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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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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Nor is the race yet extinct. Indeed in this country it has flourished beyond reason, and now counts among its members representatives o( all classes and all occupations. It includes the business man who toils early and late until his constitution is gone and his body is a wreck ; it includes the broker who drives himself into a frenzy on the floor of the stock ex- change, and the merchant who goes mad over his counting-room desk. Sisyphus fills our legislative halls with oratorical flights and our statute books with bosh. As a judge he overrules all his predecessors and swells the reports with his verbose opinions. He is everywhere, and everywhere he is the same. Even at Berkeley we find him, and here he is the osten- tatious student, the dig, the man who, whatever his momentary employ- ment may be, at all times hugs under his arm some precious volume ; he who writes wordy articles, with high-sounding titles, for the Berkeleyan, in which he condemns the frivolity and levity of those around him. Their recreations are vanities to him ; their follies crimes. It was Sisyphus who penned, several years ago, a protest against the observance of traditional college customs, whose only reason for being, accordiug to him, is their antiquity. We are exhorted to rise to a higher plane of thought pre- sumably the one on which Sisyphus has taken his stand ; we are urged to abandon collegiate follies and, among other happy results, it will follow that THE BLUE AND GOLD, unable to survive on the spare diet of stale jokes and selections from the Register, would be presently gathered to its fathers. With even more harshness are some other cherished insti- tutions treated ; in fact whatever destroys the monotony of study is decried by this would-be reformer as unworthy the attention of rational beings. But we spurn his doctrines and denounce him as a false utilitarian. In spite of him we will continue as before to give up a portion of our time to our follies. He may be as virtuous as he pleases ; but for us, we will still eat our cakes, and drink our ale ; hot ginger shall still burn our mouths, and THE BLUE AND GOLD shall ever find in us a hearty patron. And we have authority for our conduct. The great men of all times have had their hours of relaxation, and have spent them not at sober tea- drinkings, nor yet in sedate conversation ; not they, but in noisy laughter and sportiveness. That our good faith in making this statement may be unquestioned, let facts be submitted to a candid world. No man of his time was more famous for his intellectual acquirements than Scott ; but neither was there any one jollier or more bent upon en- joying life. Many were the drinking bouts participated in by Scott, Clerk, and Erskine the three inseparables and frequent were the pranks they played upon friends and neighbors. Those were the days of giants; but no dwarf could be more frisky upon occasion than these gents, nor could a clown be merrier. Witness the great Jeffrey, who wrote articles for the Edinburgh Review which might compare favorably with the contributions of Sisyphus to the Berkeleyan, found in his garden playing leap-frog with two friends. And a man cannot vault over