There is among us, an unpardonable tendency to coarse fun. The idea prevails to no small extent, that there can be no real, capital sport without vulgarity. Now the fact is, on any subject, high or low, a man of genuine wit can say things, which it would be almost impossible not to laugh at. But laughter is not always delight. Therefore, perhaps, it may be admitted that low conversation is sometimes really laughable, yet it is always so intolerably disgusting, there is no enjoyment to be derived from it. He who lets his wit run in that direction, criminally abuses a rare gift, and is doing more than he can in any other way to corrupt his companions. By the intermixture of the mirthful, he renders attractive to those most easily tempted, what is in itself disgusting, and leads those who add stupidity to grossness, to think that vulgarity, even without the ridiculous, is an object of laughter, rather than loathing. The idea, that vulgarity and irreverence are indispensable elements in wit, or are the best, is born of a beastly nature. It finds lodgment in none but degraded souls. It is an insult to human nature-a libel upon our manhood. Yet this philosophy pervades college life widely enough, to give rise to several barbarous festivals annually. The student has not been here three weeks, before he is dragged through an initiation to a freshman society, (provided he joins one,) that shocks him and the better part of every man who witnesses it. We do not object to initiations respectably conducted. We care not how much fun is made at the freshman's expense, if it be innocent. Let initiations be as ridiculous as human invention can make them. Mingle the absurd and the fantastic-horrible, make humbug as impressive as possible, but keep profanity and indecency at a distance. Putting a man in a coffin for sport and kindred operations, are profanations which trample on the finest feelings of our nature. Death is a terrible reality. The grave is sacred as our last resting place. To trifle with these is a mockery, shocking in its enactment and brutalizing in effect. A Pow-wow is not a bad thing. An unrestrained glorification with music and banners, with torches and transparencies, over the transition from Freshmen to Sophomore seats, we heartily sympathize with. But we do hate the ordinary proclivity to vile, insufferable buffoonery, which generally attends it. Of the same kind is the burial of Euclid-an institution which might be venerated for its age, were not an outrage execrable in proportion to its years. Night is made hideous, by a grand burlesque of the most solemn of human experiences. Respectable men are ashamed to be present at the performance, undisguised. We believe that most who attend, do so, not from any sympathy with it, but from curiosity or a sickly fear of unpopularity. The custom is kept up, not by any general demand, but by the absurd notion, limited to only a few, that there is no fun without vulgarity and sacrilege. We are thankful that such things are doomed to die, and we are glad that the custom of which we speak is dying. We are aware that in saying these things, we make ourselves liable to an incalculable amount of bitter reproach. We cannot help that. Our subject requires us to say soft words of nothing, which crushes out the refinement that is essential to a true character. We might talk of the immorality of some practices mentioned, but that is not our theme, and this is no place for a sermon. We only appeal to men in behalf of decency. It not The spirit we denounce is almost unlimited in its influence. only originates the bad, but poisons the good. We have never attended a Wooden Spoon Exhibition, where things were not said, to some extent, insulting to every lady in the hall. Some men cannot make a speech, of five minutes, even in the presence of the fine and fair, without letting out something which will show their gentlemanliness to be of very doubtful character. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." Our Literature, occasionally, is tainted with the same thing. But we will not continue to specify. It is to be regretted, that there is so much unpalatable truth to be told. Our earnest desire is, that genuine refinement, consisting of finenes and purity of nature, and delicacy of feeling, without which, a man, though he be proud, can have no self-respect; though he call himself a gentleman, can have no high sense of honor; though he excel in scholarship and in general ability, cannot be of the highest use in life; without which, in short, a man is not a man; may exist throughout the college-world, in reality as well as in appearance, and that whatever abuses have sprung from the want of it, and prevent its culture, may be banished from Yale forever. S. H. L. A City gone to Seed. In the afternoon they came unto a land, All round the coast the languid air did swoon, THE LOTOS EATERS. AWAY down upon the Atlantic coast nearly to the jumping-off-place of this free and independent country, dozes in the sun a little city. We might call it town or hamlet, but venerable Spanish folios show la Ciudad de San Augustino, and as they (not the folios but the nation) built it, they had a right to dignify it with the most telling name they could. It is a very dull, lethargic, little city, where Spanish blood forbids people to work, Spanish tongue to read, and Spanish religion to think. A glance tells us it is past its meridian, is slowly setting to nothingness and oblivion, through long, dreamy years of indolence. Yet it is beautiful, lovely; sleeping like an odalisque by its quiet bay. What if its beauty is that of "the dying day and the autumn woods"? Nobody goes there to speculate in lots, or to kick up a row. We could not if we would. All day long a tropic sun shines through an Indian summer sky, all day a gentle sea-breeze sways to and fro the pendulous fronds of the palm, and shows the golden fruit of the orange among its dark green leaves. All night the moon pours a lustrous light "on castle walls And snowy summits, old in story," all night the land breeze comes fraught with perfume from southern gardens and primeval forests, softly fanning the Spanish maidens that trip along the sea-wall, or silently listen to the splashing wavelets at its base. Need we do more than mention the famed harbor of St. Augustine? Shut in between the narrow island of Santa Anastasia and the mainland, circling in a graceful curve around the shore and out to foaming banks of breakers at either extremity, it sleeps in the sun or heaves its waters in long, low undulations. From the center of this bay we see the city spread out along the beach like a panorama, its white houses in strong contrast with the green foliage, flanked on the right by the dark gray battlements and wave-worn curtains of Castle San Marco, now called Fort Marion, and on the left by a long level stretch of meadow extending westerly and southerly to the blue, pine forests, while over castle, town, and sea, hangs that mellow, Italian sky, known to northern eyes only by the landscapes of Claude Lorraine. As we ap No ships ride at anchor. Nothing disturbs the waters of the harbor but a few fishing smacks and superannuated canoes. proach the only pier, divers ancient negroes become visible, doing nothing very lazily, and other modern ones sucking sugarcane and playing in the sand. Skirting the shore in front of the town runs the sea-wall, built of massy granite to hinder the encroachments of the waves, whose top furnishes a delectable promenade. As we leave this and enter the city we meet everywhere a slumberous calm; we are no longer in the busy, scrambling, hurry-skurry world. A few men with broad brimmed sombreros walk sedately along as if they very well knew that art is short and life long; grass covers the pathway, and very rarely does some presumptuous carriage traverse the narrow, balconied, over-shadowed streets; monotonously hum the bees around the drooping flowers; softly, sleepily the ripples break on the sand; ruined walls fretted and sculptured portals, waste, overgrown lawns, shafts of drowsy sunlight through ancient windows, all tell the death of Thought and Life, of Work and Will. In the center of the town is a little square, where stands a small solitary pillar, bearing the device PLAZA DE LA CONSTITUCION. Fronting the north side of the plaza is the old cathedral of Santa Helena, surmounted with an antique belfry, where a chime of five bells is occasionally rung with a past-and-gone, far-off sound, as if from out years long hidden in the crypts of the past. Joined with the soft melody of the organ, its burden seemed to be that of the song of the bride of Lammermoor, Empty heart, and hand, and eye, Everything is finished, ripe, going to seed; it is a second lotus-land, and "the time, the clime, the spot" whispers e dolce far niente. In the evenings Castilian ditties sung to the guitar by hidden voices. float from closed balconies, perchance an amatory ode of Lope de Vega, perchance that pensive cantinela of Gonzaga, so popular on the Spanish main: São estes os prados, Os sitios formosos, Are these the smiling meadows, I passed the years of childhood! For thou hast left me lone, love, The frowning old castle north of the city is a unique remnant of mediaeval architecture. The wide and deep fosse, the frame of the portcullis, a defaced and ancient inscription, conjoin to transport us to an older world and an earlier time. Nor is it altogether scant in legendary lore. Sixty feet above the exterior surface is a little loophole; from there the Seminole chieftain Coacooche, when prisoner, made a daring leap, and won his liberty and life. Far under ground in the northeast corner of the fortress is a sunless chamber. On entering this the guide will light a torch of fat pine, and with the close musty atmosphere of the room around you, watching the water as it trickles down the reeking walls, will tell you how some years ago a portion of the interior masonry gave way, disclosing this, previously walled up, apartment, and how its only tenant was a human skeletor, still clothed in tattered fragments of garments, and an empty cup. Whq shall say what dark deed of crime, what drama of vengeance, guilt, or bigotry, has been enacted here? About the center of the eastern curtain, you see where many stones are fractured by cannon balls. More than a century ago Governor Oglethorpe left these marks as enduring testimonies of his valor and energy. No, my friend, this little city has not always dozed. There was a time when its streets reëchoed to the tramp of mail clad warriors, when on those gray battlements the Castilian banner floated over the flower of Spanish chivalry. For forty years before a stone of another permanent settlement north of Mexico was laid, had busy, fluctuating life trod these pathways. Close to the shore a deserted, ruinous house is shown the curious visitor. Rats and scorpions haunt its vacant chambers, the rain pelts pitilessly through its rotten roof, its rude walls are almost crumbled away. Yet that poor, tumble-down, insignificant old hut, has more of interest than the noblest edifice of modern opulence, is as venerable to the American as the old South Church or Independence Hall. Its |