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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1885)
THE HESPERIAN. DRIFT. Another trusting, confiding heart has been caught out in the rain. without an umbrella and a pair of gum over-shoes. A dapper young men (rem Kanscs State University, high up in the council of the most potent, grave and reverend Phi Gam ma Delta fraternity, came all the way to Lincoln to establish a chapter in our very midst. Poor fellow! He failed to dis cover that the energetic and enthusiastic correspondence he had been conducting with the chief fiends of our barbarian Gehenna was only intended to lure him on to destruction. Ah! the agony of that moment when he felt the axe descend ing with the well-known dull sickening thud! The moral of this gloomy episode in our jovial college life is as follows: "Do not be too fresh or you may be salted down." The Drifter confesses to being "one of those naughty frats, you know." That is why such breaks cause his soul to well up in a trans port of sadness. We are surprised! In one of the college papers the Drift er hadthe great pleasure-of reading the exquisite oration of that lamented Northwestern Inter-state Oratorical Contest. Now, as we perused, a strange feeling came over us. It was like the flood of recollections and memories of the past that rushes over a commercial traveler when he finds at a railroad eating house the same old ham sandwich that he marked six months before. As we read the eloquent and. poetic effusion of the honorable gentlemen from De Pauw University, almost invol untarily our minds roved back through long forgotten scenes and the past unfolded like a dream. (It always unfolds that way.) "To come to the point," as noble Brutus said when he ran on his bowie knife, we had heard that oration before. Thereon hangs a tale. Last fall a cheeky young man from De Pauw a. member of D. K. E., as is the successful orator entered the first prep department of Nebraska University. He was also an orator. In the local contest he favored the cultured audience with his views on a "Conflict between Capitol and Labor." Now that oration was almost identical with the prize oration. It contained the same old mixed metaphor "Then let the song ofBethlehem's morning star peal on etc." It was ornamented with the same figurative Chinese lantern with which the successful orator illuminated his scanty but well appearing thoughts. "Out from the shades of Gethsem ine; out from the riven tomb, he of the thorn crowned brow is walking down the troubled ages, etc." One more incident al is worthy of note. Both orations contained the unexplain able statement that "Capitol without conscience is tyranny, Labor without conscience is anarchy." Now gentlemen of the press walk up and deposit your guesses as to the true ex planation of these singular facts, we give it up. The world is overloaded with works of fiction. The Drift ERcan scarcely imagine how any one should have the unmiti gated gall to inflict another and yet another of the stereotyped novels, upon a long suffering public. But they will do it. We may as well be alvays prepared to encounter these never failing s(ock incidents that were new, perhaps, when Bob Ingersoll was a small boy and invoked shaol over his losing games of "keeps" and "peg-top. " It is "with a feeling of unexpress itile sadness" that we watch the gradual process ever going on in the world of fiction by which little things, once pretty and entertaining are converted into dilapidated lay-figures which may be dressed up and dragged in anywhere. The first time wc read about the quiet little country maiden, who, while visiting her wealthy and aristocratic aunt in the great city, was asked to play and who, steppiug up to the piano, modestly yet touchingly drcv forth the strains of a pathetic Scotch ballad, with the result of horrifying her aunt and delighting- the astonished company; the first time wc read of this charming bit of sincerity and unconventional simplicity, we, too were delighted. But now, and our eyes moisten as we write, that exquisite little scene in which the childish musician so completely sets at defiance the well known custom of causing an instrument to groan with some "Storm" or "Tempest" or" " whenever an invitation to play is extended; has become commonplace. It is in all the popular society novels. It has become "quite the thing" for a novelist to introduce the scotch ballads and youthful pianists on any and every occasion. So it goes. This is but one instance. There are many more like unto it who cannot deny the unwelcome truth. Originality is a rare and precious jew el, but, alas! one that is easily counterfeited. fashion notes. On commencement day seniors will wear neatly blacked boots and wear out their audience. Campus stiles admit more than last year; more at a time. Crushed bananna will be the popular fall shade. Ladies pursuing the scientific course can wear a coiffure of cosines, trimmed with coordinates and abscissas, and caught up behind with a defferentiated polynomial. Mortar-boards are still worn by ash-barrels and back alleys. CAMPUS CANARDS. And now loaf. Call us The Hesperian. What are you going to do this summer? What is the matter with our new cover? Are your hands as cold as that? Gatnbee. Tutor Culver is rusticating in the wilds of Chicago. There is a rumor that Churchill is an inconstant dude. "If you are discovered you are lost." Ask Will O. Jones. Knight has accepted a position in the Thomas Orchestra. (Not official.) It is a pity that many of the students will not subscribe to their college paper. The Omaha Bee, speaking of the Union exhibition, calls Conlee the "Singed cat." Good. Ex-Chancellor Fairfield did not draw a very-bja crowd. The Philo's have come to the conclusion that lectures never pay. The Shakespeare class has finished the Tempest and now consider themselves as competent critics as Hudson, Rolfe or Furness. The small but noisy remnant of the Cadet Band that re mains in the city has been engaged to assist our German brethren in their Saengerfest. ' Three society exhibitions coming one after another are tiresomely -tiresome. Let us have a reformation of some sort or else wc shall all be bored to death. The choral society which meets in the Union Hall is sing ing some difficult music. The instruction in this department is first class and all should take advantage of it. They tell us that Fulmer is an inveterate masher indeed the most conscienceless in the whole institution. This is prob ably a mistake; appearances are usually deceitful. . The past year has seen little interest in base-ball and, in fact, no. sports have been largely indulged in. Next year we must do better. A field day would enliven things