Josephine Daskam Bacon

“ Her vague conception of college life was modelled on The Princess: she imagined graceful, gracious women, enamoured of a musical, poetic, higher knowledge, deliciously rapt at the wonderful oratory of some priestess of a cult yet unknown to her: a woman beautiful and passionate, who should understand her vaguest dreams and sympathize with her strangest sorrows as no one she had yet known or seen could do. ”

“ Any one who has never been a subject of song to some hundreds of young women cannot perhaps understand why the mention of one's name in flattering doggerel should be so distinctly and immediately affecting. But any one who has had that experience knows the little contraction of the heart, the sudden hot tightening of the eyelids, the confused, excited desire to be worthy of all that trust and admiration. It is to be doubted if Theodora ever again felt so ideally, impersonally devoted to any cause, so pathetically eager to "make them proud of her." ”

“ It was the most perfect success of her life—though the girls who thought she scorned her college triumphs would have laughed had she told them so, later. Every point was eagerly caught and wildly applauded; the stage setting, the funny, clever costumes, the irresistible caricatures, the wit and humor of the thing, all acted with a verve and precision unusual in college dramatics, where criticism is too often forced to take the will for the deed, all called for a tremendous and well-earned appreciation. ”

“ But they did not answer with one of their own; a little of the first faint conviction that the college owns all her classes, the feeling that grows with the years, came to them, and as the circle pressed closer and closer and their steps fell into an even tramp, Grace called out, "Now, girls, here's to old Smith College!" and they sent it out over the campus, so strong and loud that the decennial people and the groups of Ninety-green and the juniors and the belated sophomores lurking about heard them and joined in:
Oh, here's to old Smith College, drink her down! ”

“ A CASE OF INTERFERENCE
"What I want to know," said the chairman of the committee, wearily, "is just this. Are we going to give the Lady of Lyons, or are we not? I have a music lesson at four and a tea at five, and while your sprightly and interesting conversation is ever pleasing to me—"
"Oh, Neal, don't! Think of something for us! Don't you want us to give it?"
"I think it's too love-making. And no one up here makes love. The girls will howl at that garden scene. You must get something where they can be funny."
"But, Neal, dear, you can make beautiful love!" ”

“ Susan, to whom she soon became the visible expression of all the triumph and ease and distilled essence of the successful college girl, used to wonder, later, as older than Susan have wondered, how much of her college life was ingenuous and how much a perfectly conscious attitude. For long before she left, Susan realized that she had greatly misjudged a large proportion of the girls, whom the event proved more practically wise than she, and that they who fill the rôle of "fine, all 'round girl" with the greatest success are often perfectly competent to fill others, widely different. ”

“ It was only a flash; but she saw the gracious, well-ordered household, the handsome, dignified people, the atmosphere of generations of good breeding and scholarship, as clearly as if she had visited them, and her heart swelled with angry regret and a sickening certainty that all the cleverness in the world could not make up for the youth she had been cheated out of. She thought of the bickering, squabbling family table in Troy and tried to imagine her father teaching Doris and Veronica not to interrupt: her cheeks burned.
In class Sue was often near her ”

“ Something had been hailed as Gustavus Adolphus from her freshman year on; but below her most daring flights of fiction must ever appear those three ordinary, not to say stodgy, names. That alone would have soured a temper not too inclined to regard life with favor.
Martha might have lived down the name, but she was assured that never while Bertha Kitts remained alive would she be able to appear really wickedly interesting. For Biscuits would tell the Story. Tell it with variations and lights and shades and explanations adapted to the audience. ”

“ But Susan had made a great mistake, and what is worse, never knew it. A little gossiping freshman in the boarding-house she had moved into, who had been injudiciously petted by the seniors and imagined herself in everybody's confidence, told Miss Jackson, with many vows of secrecy, that there had never been such a time in Alpha in the history of the college: they had meant to have Sue—oh, of course!—but there had been a terrible mistake at the balloting and names had been confused, and though etiquette forbade any expression of their real feeling, they were nearly wild at their clumsiness. ”

“ Now, Martha, just look at it: you know that the girl is a perfect child—you know that she means well enough, and in her way she has a keen sense of humor. Now you are much more mature than the average girl up here and you take—er—broader views of things than most of them. You wouldn't be so shocked at the things Suttie does; you could, very gradually, you know, convey to her that her ideas of humor were just a little crude, you know, and that would strike her far more than the lectures that Alberta used to read her by the hour. ”

“ Theodora looked up at the purple and yellow gallery. The freshmen stared as if hypnotized at their steady misfortune, their faces flushed, their mouths tremulous: when the players ran to suck the half-lemon or kneeled to tighten their shoes, their class-mates held breath till they returned; when Grace got the ball or Virginia pushed it aside, they started a cheer that faded into a sigh as Alison Greer drove everything before her or Kate sent that 17 terrible Sutton throw to her sister. Theodora suddenly started. ”

“ Now a wealthy young woman from San Francisco who chooses to spend from two to four years at an Eastern college is a sufficiently complicated type in herself; when she has grown up in studios and done very much as she pleases all her life, she affords even more food for thought to the student of character.
People who disliked Suzanne called her unprincipled and shallow and lazy; people who admired her called her brilliant and irresponsible and lazy; people who loved her called her fascinating and spoiled and lazy. She could dance like a leaf in the wind ”

“ The sun is glaring down on the campus. A crowd of parents and other relatives is surging toward an awning near the steps of College Hall; a stream of white-dressed seniors continually flows toward the Hatfield House, where a procession is forming. Forty junior ushers struggle with a rope wound with laurel, which is to encompass the column of seniors. A few scattered members of the Faculty and a crowd of alumnæ wander aimlessly about, obstructing traffic generally. ”

“ We are Ninety-yellow and our fame shall never stop,
'Rah, 'rah, 'rah, for the freshmen!
They sang so well and so loud and strong, shouting out the words so plainly and keeping such splendid time, that as the verse and chorus died away audience and sophomores alike clapped them vigorously, much to their delight and pride. Theodora looked up for the first time and saw as in a dream individual faces and clothes. They were packed in the running-gallery till the smallest of babies would have been sorely tried to find a crevice to rest in. ”

“ In a moment Martha had it, and as Harriet bent forward to guard, and the ball toppled unsteadily on the edge of the basket and fell off, in the midst of the hubbub and scuffle some one pushed heavily on Harriet, four hands grasped the ball firmly, somebody called, "Foul, foul!" and as five panting girls hurled themselves against the wall and the assistant tossed up where it fell, to make sure of fair play, Harriet dropped with her foot beneath her and did not get up. ”

“ The Twins, in the course of their mysterious loitering, overheard a somewhat sentimental discussion between Evelyn Lyon and an extremely stiff and correct young man from Amherst, as to whether chivalry and openly expressed devotion to the fair were not disappearing from the earth. "Men like shirt-waists and golf-shoes," Evelyn had been heard to murmur, with a glance at her fluffy chiffon and bronze slippers, and the senior had protested that they did not, and that emotion, if controlled, was as deep as in the balcony-serenade days. ”

“ Accordingly, at a few minutes after nine, Marjory stood at the foot of the main staircase, swaying backward and forward in the chapel rush, and picked out Caroline, sauntering down with a cheerful "Hello!" for everybody on the stairs and that air of leisure that was the despair and admiration of the perpetually rushed; for she was one of the notoriously busy people in the college—always "at everything," distressingly competent in several of the stiffest courses offered, the first aid to the injured in any capacity, and the prop of more committees than she had fingers. ”

“ There are the social leaders, who don't particularly suffer if they don't get into a society, who are popular everywhere, and get the good time they came for. But Winifred Hastings has somehow missed all these. She got started wrong, and she's gone from bad to worse. She is not solitary by nature, and yet she is more alone than the girls who like solitude, even. She is not naturally reserved, and yet she is considered more so than almost any girl in college. ”

“ You suppose she is not the only one, Miss Burt? I hope there are very few like her. I have never known of a girl of her ability to lose everything that she has lost. There are girls who are queer and erratic and somewhat solitary and perhaps discontented, but they get into a prominence of their own and you call it a "divine discontent," and make them geniuses, and they get a good deal out of it, after all. There are girls who are queer and quick-tempered, but good students, and devoted to a few warm friends, and their general unpopularity doesn't trouble them particularly. ”

“ Third Sophomore. Well, she's not to blame, is she? They're certainly lots prettier than laurel or daisies or odd flowers—Oh, girls, I think Louise Hunter is too silly for anything! She feels too big to live, leading the way! I'd try to look a little less like a poker if I was an usher!
¶ The Ivy Procession marches to the steps two and two, each girl with an enormous American Beauty in her hand. At every step the girls with cameras snap and turn, so that the sound resembles a miniature volley of cannon. There is a comparative silence during their progress. ”

“ She could have suppressed the others, but the Sutton twins were beyond earthly and human suppression. It seemed to her that she never met them or passed them in a corridor without hearing their jovial assurance: "Oh, Martha Williams is all right! Why, the idea! She's as kind a girl as ever lived—she's nothing like that story. Gracious, no! She's never been to Paris—she lives in Portland. Why, her father's a Sunday School Superintendent! Oh, bother! She's as good as Alberta May, every bit! She has a strong religious—" and somebody passed on, assured—heavens, perhaps admiring her character! ”

“ The people seemed to swim before her; for one dreadful moment she longed for her home as she had never longed before. Her knees shook and the clapping of the class sounded faraway. With her eyes on the floor she moved out; halfway to the centre Virginia Wheeler stepped to meet her and put her arm over Theodora's shoulder.
"Don't be scared, Theo," she said, "don't be scared, but help us out—heaven knows we need it!"
"Watch Martha—don't take your eyes off her!" whispered the coach as she handed the lemon to the new Guard. ”

“ Even that dear Miss Hunter is really un peu gâtée with it all—she thinks, I believe, that a college education is all there is for anybody. She told Mamma that I wasn't well—she wanted me to keep my high grade. Oh! Carol! there are better things than grades! Life is a very much bigger thing than the campus even! I think, dear, that one really ought to consider very frankly just what we intend to do with our lives—if we are going to marry, we ought to try to make ourselves cultivated and broad-minded, and in every way worthy to be—Oh, Carol, dearest, I'm terribly happy! ”

“ DEAR Old Sue: It's a miserable shame! You ought to have had it! But it seems that it makes no difference what we want, nor who would work in best with the girls. Genius isn't everything, always—but you know what I wanted! ”