Bryn Mawr (Pa.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Bryn Mawr College -- Fiction; College stories, American; Women college students -- Fiction
"My dear child there never was a time when everything was new, and I
know what I'm talking about, for I was the first freshman that ever
spent a night in Bryn Mawr, and I then learned that Bryn Mawr already
had a history that was venerable, customs that were inviolable. That
first night I learned the Manus Bryn Mawrensium and the Maid of Bryn
Mawr. I was early taught the tradition of the sacredness of the Harriton
family cemetery, taken there by two sponsors, who felt the necessity of
impressing us, the newcomers, with the past.
"In that stretch of woodland," here her voice took on a sentimental
tone, "known as the Vaux woods, and still frequented by Bryn Mawr
students, there lies nestling among the trees a secluded burying
ground. Grey walls of ancient date bound it within narrow compass. The
masonry sturdily defiant of time, has been mellowed by a growth of moss
and lichen. To any eye a picturesque spot! In its calm but cheerful
solitude, no inhospitable resting-place! You feel in a sense possessors
of that place; you are aware that in some subtle manner it belongs to
you; but fully to comprehend your own feelings you must hear the droll,
though sentimental reminiscence of the first class of Bryn Mawr; you
must picture to yourselves a group of students on the worn steps and the
nervous, enthusiastic figure of that 'learned doctor,' as he walks up
and down in front of them, declaiming ore rotundo and with all possible
expression, the parting of Hector and Andromache. Yes, he taught us
Horace," answering a question from one of the groups on the grass. "Oh,
you have no such classes now. I couldn't imagine college without his
Horace class."
"How we had to work in it, though," sighed Louise.
"Oh yes, but you know we always had his permission to shirk all other
work that we might do his," came from Beatrice.
"And at last we had to protest," continued Edith. "Had we done all that
was expected of us, we should never have gone to bed. Our protests
passed seemingly unheeded, till one day just before Thanksgiving, the
Polyglot entered the room, one shoulder heaved on high with the great
pile of books he held under his arm. Having as usual begun his lecture
in the corridor, he was saying as he came inside the door, 'I have with
me a most interesting find, a manuscript Latin poem, unexpectedly come
into my possession. I shall write it on the board and then ask some one
to volunteer with a translation.' Then standing on tiptoe, at times
jumping so that he might write at the very top of the blackboard, he
began to copy some verses, but long before he had finished, the class
was convulsed with laughter. For it was a graceful little apology for
overworking us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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