Show The Library I PEOPLE are different Some like solitude solitude solitude soli soli- tude others company some are ill- ill natured others natured good some are pretty others homely some are deep in their emotions others shallow some are happy others pensive some are young young and some are old some are are pleasant and others queer You will think I am queer to say such common things when I might spend time on a atheme atheme atheme theme more fruitful such as womans woman's suffrage as your mother lays it down for breakfast but as I said some folks are queer I like Ilke to consider myself natured good-natured and optimistic and think if you could just know how natured good-natured I do feel while hile I 1 am sitting among the dusty books at the west north-west end of the tre e gallery in the library weaving fancies and reveries s and happy in my solitary survey of the life and little pranks you lead below I I believe could you appreciate appreciate appreciate my satisfaction and my optimism There where a dusty old chair a picture frame and a broken box are the only things that furnish the space between between between be be- tween two book racks where the motley colored governmental documents are jammed close together in one place and lie over each other in another I sit I am about the only one that uses use this chair and I sit in it almost as often in fancy as in fact And to-night to as the the hands hands of the c clock clock- ock- ock are sl slowly creeping towards the index inde of f another day and as the oil lamp burns low the moon-light moon schedule has caused the inca incandescent to darken I sit again in that quiet corner cornet and you sit studying studying studying study study- ing and whispering and wishing study time was over as you did when the morning rays of old Sol cast bright patches of dancing beams on the library floor And I live again the life of thought I lived before And though the fire is out and the cold rain patters on the window and brother lies fitfully sleeping on a couch near-by near occasionally occasionally occasionally occasion occasion- ally tossing and drowsily muttering something about bed and morning I must tell you some of the thoughts I thought that made me good natured and rested the wheels wheels' that that- rattled and buzzed in my brain As the little book that Mr Coray lately used as a door weight but now ruthlessly thrown aside for a sprightly air spring pring just like a nobleman noble noble- nobleman nobleman man past his usefulness is cast aside for for- some one new new new-as as this little book plied its course up and down behind its protecting protecting protecting pro pro- pillar knowing no rest from morn to night and as the class-bells class ring out the passing hours and footsteps rustle on the floor and students pass pass- quiet or noisily in and out as some sit sit in deep meditation while others write and others still look wistfully first at their open book and then at the budding trees that send their rustle and the merry chirrup of birds through the the- open window just at hand and as the dictionary buds its knowledge first toone toone to to- one and then another and as the bustle at the shifting of classes dies away thee the the voices from outside grow fainter and the echoes from the stair case chase each other in into to the corners of the hall and melt away and then as the hush grows more audible to be broken by an occasional occasional occasional occa occa- rustle from the newspaper rack or orthe orthe the closing g of a book or the wakened echo of a footstep in the aisle and as the sloping sun-beams sun Creep farther along wall the wall an and d con contract to sm smaller aller pa patches on the floor while morning passes on to sultry noon and then as Mr Roylance's buzzing clock among the alcoves wakes again all quiet knit brow-knit study into bustle and clamor waking the student from his pleasures lending recreation to the weary and a chance of change to the indolent that ill could brook the time while peace and quiet wrapped the reading room with all its various vanous inmates for a space space space-on on this change on this motion on th the the various various various vari vari- ous impulses different hearts and wide emotions emotions I I sat and looked I sat and pondered A few grey rays of light that had stolen away from the beaten sunbeams' sunbeams path and found their way over the banister banister ban ban- ister or through the cracks and rents of the curtain that cant can't screen the north window from all persevering rays rays cast casta castil a il a sombre sheen about my watch-nook watch as you may see when you may look from the floor into the west north corner of of the gallery f It is there where the north window just peeps peeps over over the floor and lights the chair spells ha half f way up On the day of which I speak I had one living comP companion nion there in my half dark watch tower He was a small grey spider that that crawled crawled backward into a crevice in the ceiling and remained with me a silent watcher But what a difference in our thoughts He thought of spider world and I of men He thought of his web and a tangled mite that threatened to break it down while f I thought of destiny destiny and human souls thought to look into the seeds of time and pick out the good ones that one day would ripen and grow thought to look into the mirror of fate and see seethe seethe seethe the future alumni tossing and plunging plunging plunging ing and struggling in lifes life's broad sea see which should brave the tempest with success and which should sink which should reach their goal and which b be shattered on the jagged rocks of disappointment disappointment is p- p and despair This every-day every panorama spread pread out before me of the library and its meaning carried no thrill to my grey watchers watcher's core but to me it was a true swift- swift fleeting scene on lifes life's great stage There to grace the boards a while and pass with its notch of time into the nirvana of oblivion or the dusty vaults of unread history or go ringing down the corridors of future time and bid posterity hang reverence and garlands on our tomb just as these silent actors students now but expanding men and women act out their parts with weakness weakness weakness weak weak- ness with indifference or with brave and high born pride While I thus thought I felt that the little spider could not sense one half the woes that tangle round mans man's course and neither could he taste one bead of the joy-drops joy that bedew the bedew the early morn of human life and settle settle on its even even- tide Then let him watch the mites that besiege the net he spread Let him keep his watch-bowers watch in the crannies and lea leave e his solitude unmolested It ItI I turned my thoughts and my face away I looked for Shakespeare Newton Cromwell Milton I searched among the stores of my memory I I. brought them out I I set them in a row True Shakespeare might not have known himself had he looked at his mind-drawn mind image over my shoulder But there he was with three other lights as ready as they to cast his ruddy glow over the deeds and memories of smaller men Then I cast my glance over the faces and form forms at att the tables below Not to find a Milton or a Shakespeare Not to find a full brave hero one whose light shines out as theirs But only to see what germs allied to greatness or by their absence what what- empty forms drawn near to lowness I could find written on J those countenances countenances- or or beaming out through the windows of the souls or betrayed by little unpretentious ways and wiles that always tell the truth regardless regardless regardless re re- of the tongue that policy or flattery or deceit would guide And there I found those qualities all that go to make a giant or a hero scattered like sunbeams through the orchard boughs on the grass and flowers of the cool moist sod There I saw such boyi boyish boyish boy boy- i ish h stalwarts stalwarts' as Stewart Reynolds Young Gaufin born to be bethe bethe the champions great or small of freedom and loyalty There Roylance the lover of his books books and study deep stores his mind to be either a well or a spring to the readers of the future And there that happy girl whom favorites call Leo so buxom b blythe and debonair and that one coy and pretty The faced broad-faced Alice the leader of her English class and others tender tender- and ethereal lik like that clad brown-clad dainty Ethyl or again that strong one with a aloud aloud aloud loud long laugh all all tell that the difference difference difference differ differ- ence already wide and deep in girlish nature lives but to broaden Souls expanded and natures narrow knowledge deep and knowledge shallow hearts bubbling up with kindness and hearts that never a strong emotion l knew ambition with its objects high and lethargy y to aims and efforts all unknown unknown unknown un un- known pens that run to the dictates of philosophy pens that run to to the poets poet's will and Shadie's hand pens that run to suit a professor sor and pens that never run at all These four library walls enclose and there who there who knows it is not so so- so may sit some as yet inglorious Milton Cromwell Clay Some Wordsworth Astor noted for his riches or r Newton Who can can tell This little panorama and the future p procession of these present present actors filled my mind with thoughts and stirred in my my heart emotions that that even grim sages never will explain until the riddle of mans man's life and death are read Alaster J 1 A |