felicity of grimace inspire their interested host with the sublimest ideas of the great departed-and forgotten. These, however, are known but by research, and for a full and free account of such nocturnal visitations, examine any old volume which claims a paternity in any old College, and the result will undoubtedly be highly satisfactory-a conclusion impossible from any such revelation that the unexperienced could make. But-whether from some slight offered to the Lares of our college home, whether its walls are impervious to spiritual entrance, or our own mental blindness has failed to distinguish those modest and exceedingly retiring visitants, we have never, at all events, been aware of their presence, and with the pleasing suggestion that its former proprietors are too well satisfied with their successors to think of disturbing them, we pass from this part of the subject, since the shadows we now pursue' were cast by other firelights. Like the charmed mirror of the "Lady of Shalott," the smoke that veils these cloister walls, reflects shadows of the passing world. A popular writer has recently said that there are materials for a novel in in every lifetime, and an author much older than he declares each to be a drama; and we can in some degree witness to the truth of these remarks, as we watch these shadows, varying with every new volume of the smoke-cloud, drifting backwards from the past, gathering solemn distinctness from the midnight present, and floating out from a future in whose skies we hope to see the morning. They are shadows from our own past, they are the experience of our actual present, they are the hopes of a personal future; and all cling to these walls as the scenes of their origin, and the way-marks of their development. It is curious to watch the outlines that represent the foundation of cloister life. The smoke on which they waver, curls around blocks of sharp and angular form, precise in architecture and isolated in position. They are laid with hard labor, and in mingled hope and fear. The forms that lay them turn wistful faces toward the home they have left, and childish hearts weaken the toiling hands. Soon, however, new hopes come to them and encourage effort, and thereafter the faces gradually look towards the Coming, and though earlier hopes fail, they yet see other fresher ones filling the vacant places. As they proceed only a little way, a figure of Glory that has been beckoning them, rises and is lost in upper air. Well-let it go. It were better, perhaps, that its crowned head bend over their toil hereafter from Celestial Battlements. We can only indicate the gradual improvement manifested in the progressing work—that the figures are more numerous, the mirror smoother, the scenes more varied, until the strengthening picture brightens into actual reflection of the present, around which presages of the future are revolving,-each in its season eclipsing the remainder. These invite our attention, as every thing that is new replaces the old, as mystery is more attractive than oft-repeated tales of circumstance, as hope outruns experience. It is not surprising that a prominent form among them is that of a home, for as around it cluster the dearest recollections, so our fondest ideals are fashioned from it. It stands before us like the Palace Beautiful, itself the shrine of goodness and beauty. We forget that the hot sun of noon will come before the evening of our rest; that for many the quiet of the home fireside comes only in first and second childhood; that the love of youth is uncertain and experimental, aud that of age is the result of long union in labor and sorrow; so we revel in unreality, and spend long hours in this home of our dreams. With a slight degree of selfishness this shadow takes a slightly modfied form, and we rejoice in the unlimited elysium of bachelor life. A host of pleasures attend the solitary figure appearing on the mirror, each one intended for his individual enjoyment. Oh, the charming devotedness of this self-service! Oh, the exquisite refinement of this sublimated selfishness! By a fine adaptation of spiritual to earthly obligation, man's duty being to take care of himself, the accomplishment of duty is delightful in its devoutness. As the mind aims somewhat higher, the shadows of all humbler selfishness retire before the noble apparition of "literary lion"-ship. What a grand and prominent part this figure plays in the mirror, of imagination. As the Madonnas in sundry "Ascensions," by the old masters, are surrounded by a quantity of glorified babies, so numerous attendant shadows seem to encourage the principal one, and cling vigorously to the skirt of a poor representative and former attaché of Glory, before she changed her situation, apparently that the two may not part company. A life of varied labor, and ease glorified by that labor, opens before the hero of the pen. He sees himself disclosing to the world what a mine of eloquence of language and delicacy of idea may be contained in the evening lecture and the monthly publication. The volume conceived in his study floats on the wings of half-a-dozen languages to as many portions of the earth. He is the universally accepted pet of society, the autocrat of innumerable literary feasts, the orator at the foundation of this Lunatic Asylum and that Observatory. Himself, together with his friends the learned Professor A., the celebrated Poet B., and the Hon. Mr. C.-constitute a literary coterie, which all the world, at a safe distance, may contemplate through telescopes-thus forming a "truly magnificent spectacle." And in the far years, through whose darkness his own mausoleum gleams dimly and grandly, his marble presence keeps moveless watch over the immortal legacies of his genius-the past of his popularity, the present of his greatWhat an unfortunate fact it is that this is all a shadow, for if such is its pictured magnificence what must be its substance; if the mind, by its far off gazing, is ennobled, it surely needs but an actual contact with this higher point to make it truly "the roof and crown of things." But clouds are unsubstantial, and if touched for a little while with lustre, they only darken by contact in the coming night. ness. Our eyes become dazzled by too strong a light, and experience relief as the scene changes. Long drifts of desert sand toward a horizon of ungracious hills-the visible heat lying on low, flat roofs, whose monotony is broken by the minaret of a mosque-groups of turbaned heads, or deeply veiled figures-all interspersed with a suitable number of palm trees and camels, with perhaps an occasional glimpse at the pyramids, appear in succession on the cloud canvass, where experience has yielded the brush to the hand of vague fancy. With a strange feeling that ill accords with the previous passion of self-love, we picture on the changing surface the devoted life of a missionary. The patient toil under an accumulated heat and burden the long endurance of hardship-the earnest spirit that strives with and outlasts stubborn human nature-all clothe the lonely figure that rises before us, with sad yet surpassing grace. We follow it through a life of generous labor, and see it lie wearily down at its close, and as it vanishes, the true glory lets fall a golden shower from its far off habitation, and fixes in the sky a new star to light other laborers on their pathway upward. Such are some of the shadows that a coming future throws on our cloister walls. Beside these there are permanent pictures that the same surface receives from the actual present. There are individual histories, striking" life-passages," personal actions, that make too strong an impression there to be quickly erased. They are not all our own, for the pictures from other brushes hang beside ours, and we study and pass them. They make there a considerable Art Exhibition, embracing all classes and schools-but yet all pictures from life. They have been thrown off from private easels throughout our cloister life, and stand as indices-too often as estimates— of the character of the several artists. Some were intended for grand altar-pieces, but lose something from an unfortunate position or other circumstantials. There are among them noble conceptions, their execution dealing largely in mystery; graceful parlor ornaments, which by their delicate sprays and flowers would be desirable in the collection of an artistic milliner; designs dependent on the power of "the suggestive style" for their value and appreciation, and little cabinet pieces, whose modest beauty is too apt to be overlooked. To arrange and classify them all would be hopeless labor. Placed here and there in our course, in a series extending to the immediate present, we observe urns whose funeral fires will ever mingle their incense with the light chain work of our college dreams. There can be no after thought that will crowd out the memories lingering around their ashes. We shall see those to whom they are consecrated, always in our reveries, as figures that we left behind us, "not changed but transfigured." We see them now as the spirit left the body, where it had been happy in its joyous sociality, or lonely in its quiet seclusion, and we know not whether most to mourn for their departure, or rejoice they have escaped the world into which we are so quickly going-that for them there is peace in exchange for trouble, rest for those who may not know "Long labor unto aged breath." Thus as the shadow cast by the sunlight lies always on our path from morning until evening, the shadows of life will follow us from childhood to the grave. We are soon to strive with those that we have seen from out the future, and we wait their sure coming, half with pleasure, half with terror. But let us rake the ashes over the dying fire, and drive back the visions into dream-land. We shall know the dread reality quite soon enough-why should we let them darken our college home? We will rather laugh at the distant cloud, while we enjoy the sunshine, and store the memory with treasures she will faithfully reproduce as we draw near the time when our earthly years All their weary beads have numbered, Crossed the hands upon the breast, |