Discordant Harmonies of College Society. 'Tis a stern and startling thing to think, Oh don't you hear the spicy breezes A blowing among the cinnamon treeses? They shall see, and they shall wonder when they see! HOOD. O. YEATH. EGAD. 'Tis THE great fabric of human society is built up on a series of recurring platforms, representing the several individual peculiarities, political organizations, and universal harmonies of the race. only when these active principles of the mind harmonize and counteract each other, that society attains that high and elevated position whence may be "snuffed the breezes of both oceans." And the injudicious development of any one mental endowment cannot fail to react on the brain, and lead on a train of most ruinous disasters. Suppose for example that that faculty of the mind which philosophers have designated by the term corpulence, be in any given case infinitely developed by a generous exercise of those means which nature has provided for the enlargement of our bodily systems. The inevitable consequences of such a course would be an extraordinary elimination of leanness on the one hand, and on the other, expansive obesity; either of which, in ordinary cases, would be sufficient to dismay the unhappy victim. But if in the course of human events, all mankind should make one simultaneous and oblique attack on those creature comforts which are calculated to develop human adiposity, (and this is no unreasonable hypothesis,) the results would be certain and fearfully appalling; for supposing the Malthusian theory to be correct, the limited boundaries of our planet could not accommodate themselves to more than three thirds the increased rotundity of their inhabitants, and population would become so fearfully crowded, that from Greenland's icy mountains even unto the shores of Madagascar would ascend the ominous ejaculation of Archimedes-Ilov ot! (which being interpreted signifieth, off from my toes!) Thus would the iron heels of the nations become the corn-planters of the down-trodden and oppressed, and scatter as with the whirlwinds of heaven the seeds of direful distempers, and luckless lamentations over the sad spectacle of humanity, wrapped up in the shroud of its own voluntary dissolution, "While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean, Would speak and in accents disconsolate answer the wail of the forest." But we can trace these mournful scenes no farther. Enough has been demonstrated to convince every candid reader, that in the world's political economy "there are times when great states rush to their ruin,"-critical times, when men who hold in their hands the destinies of nations and commonwealths, are beguiled away from the spheres of duty by the glowing assurance of fame, even as the white rabbit, Wabasso, of the north is entangled in the gins and snares of the hunter, "When the fierce Kabibonoka, Sweeps the everlasting snow-drifts, We desire on the present occasion to make a few remarks on what is, and what might be, in College society, and comparing events with their results, trace the necessary relations of cause and effect. And here we would remark, incidentally, that no evil like the one above delineated can ever exist in our midst, unless a revolution be first effected in the principles and public sentiment of our community. For the whole spirit and economy of College government seems calculated to circumscribe all personal liberty, and bodily development, since by austere regulations it refuses all College Roomers, the luxury of boarding according to the dictates of conscience, each in his own cloistered den. Were this oppressive regulation expunged from the book of Yalesian statutes, what different scenes might we behold in these classic haunts! Where we now sit encircled by the forgetten lore of former generations, and inspired by the seers and wise men of a dim and distant antiquity, would be seen numberless codfish and esculent molluscs, and the ominous voice of the frying-pan would float away on the noon-tide breeze, and mingle its melodies with the clack and the croak of the swinging katy-did. Innumerable armies of sable mice, sailing in sepa rate squads from College to College, would ransack the beer-mugs and meal-chests of the unsuspecting epicureans. The delicate tastes of those who rally under the banners of the "Fastidious Element" would be happily beyond reach of their enemies and persecutors.* No garrulous neighbor would incur the sore displeasure of his unhappy and fastidious victim by recounting scenes of medical lecture, speculating on the possible combination of elements in "horse pies,”—or by inserting into his capacious pockets great quantities of savory sustenance. In the solemn retirement of his cloister room would he (the "snob") banquet on the good things of this earth,-unto the unseemly intruder he would wave his hand and answer and say, "Foul fiend! awaft!" Yet even this state of emancipation, supposing the "spirit of free inquiry to be rampant in the land," would only be the means of leading us from one evil into the very jaws of another; an evil no less fatal to the welfare of College community at large, than the individual interests of particular members, and the phenomena of which have ever baffled the theories of Political Economists. We refer, as may have been anticipated, to the very frequent depreciation, or perhaps we should rather say scarcity, of metallic currency as a circulating medium among College students, and the substitution of insufficient securities for the redemption of small loans, or the settlement of outstanding obligations. Certain "promises to pay" are made legal tender, and the very extensive loans of charcoal, shillings, and quarters, which prevail in our midst, not unfrequently accumulate in the hands of the borrower into a fixed capital, and vic versa, compel the lender thereof to resort to a suspension of all specie payments. But in the case of chartered corporations, such as Burial-of-Euclid and Junior Exhibition Committees, the result as well as the method of procedure are somewhat different. Any individual member of such corporation can guarantee to the printer or other employee, the ready redemption of all obligation by specie payments of coin or bullion, and as security therefor, endorse the note of the Committee, or give his own as responsible for that body. This is generally accepted as the wisest policy for the Corporation or Committee as a whole, but in most cases the unsuspecting member of the body who is held responsible, "fails to connect." He is suddenly observed to make himself exceedingly * Ille student qui will not permit suum proximum neighbor ad breakfast table fundere contentas molasses jug down ejus tergum, fastidious snob est. LEGES CONVIVIALES. scarce in all public places and thoroughfares,-to assume a misanthropical disposition,-to assimilate himself unto the lean kine of Pharaoh-to draw (through his friends) innumerable drop letters from the Post Office. The strange movements of such unfortunate individuals, have long been recognized by philosophers as an "halo phenomenon" baffling solution. Indeed, the vertiginous circumrotation of the one-eyed Gyroscope around its horizontal parallax is not more inexplicable or unique in its character than the erratic wanderings of this deluded victim on Chapel street, or behind the Colleges, to evade the eye of the frantic printer. Let us calculate a little. In the natural world it is a well established fact, (I say it advisedly,) that all motion is either direct, retrograde, or curvlinear. But direct and retrograde are the same thing, only reckoned from antipodal points, so that one includes the other, and the other includes both, and the resultant of this compound with the aforementioned curvlinear motion is a zig-zag strait-line, composed entirely of re-entrant angles. Such was the motion of Socrates around the lamp-posts of Athens while his better half, Xantippe, was applying her broom-stick, and warbling in dulcet tones, "Who tied my dog loose, oh who tied he, Who tied my dog loose, mitout the lief of me." Such was the graceful arc described by Don Quixotte when he was "Railroad-rioted" by the antiquated wind-mills of Castile and Arragon, and echo answered, "Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day When the wind-mills shall meet thee in battle array." Such too is the nearest conceivable approximation to the ambulations of the unfortunate victim of a conspiracy when the voice of the printer is heard in the land, ejaculating in thunder-tones, "Don Alphonso, where is my ' debtor !'" Not unlike these in character, but emanating from different sources, and reducible to more systematic speculations, are the eventful experiences of the wayward Freshman in the early stage of his pupa existence. He cometh from far, knowing not the ways of this College world, and sojourneth as a strange people in a strange land. He foreseeth not the gins that are being set for him by men wiser than he. The "Primer" and the Iliad are foolishness and a stum bling-block unto him, and at even-tide a deep sleep falleth upon him. He lifteth up his eyes in the midnight hour, and lo! innumerable Sophomores; and in their hands glittering meerschaums, and on their faces broad phylacteries, and likenesses of false prophets, and servants of Belial. He saith unto them "a-hoo-ah," and practically illustrateth the theory of Universal Gravitation by descending many fathoms from his window, in nocturnal habiliments. He frequenteth the haunts of the owl and the bat. He espieth ponderous shears in the hands of the "Areopagite." He quaketh in secret. He exclaimeth, aha, aha, I smell a rat. He holdeth on to the hairs of his head, lest in the night watches they take unto themselves wings and fly away. He taketh unto himself a "fighting cut," and dwelleth in safety. Of initiation ceremonies it behoveth us not to speak, lest we tread on forbidden grounds. Many, yea, very many have been heard to exclaim in the words of an immortal literary character, "Methought in a dream me saw the sh-sh-shades of me ancestors." Now then, from the foregoing observations it will be readily understood why the state of human society, as represented by a College community, must be either advancing or retrograding, and since the known laws of the natural world declare the existence of retrograde progress to be "unwise, injudicious and highly censurable," as well as impossible, it necessarily follows that all these discordant harmonies of College society are in reality but imaginary evils, whose substance is shadow, and whose ultimate end must be utter annihilation. "Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, E. T. F. College Excitements. THERE is a season in early summer when the purity and limpid clearness of the atmosphere has a crystalline density, and creation seems immersed in infinite depths of ocean waves. We move in, and inhale an element which exhilarates and intoxicates, steeping mere animal existence and all sensation in delirious joy, while thought |