BACK FROM BABYLON

Once yearly the average undergraduate, dissolved into his component and unaverage parts, welcomes home to the Cambridgian shores the graduates. Again our hospitality is extended, although with such modification of its joviality that it might seem lessened in spirit. It is not lessened in spirit, but softened to these gloomy times of war, when everyone feels in duty bound obligated to look lachrymose, and forebode concerning the future, or lament the past.

We always welcome the graduates, for in them we see, though as through a glass darkly, the prophecy of what we will some time be. Darkly, for it is apparent to all that while we shall attain to the success of the most successful, we shall never equal the mediocrity of those who have failed to stir the world. We shall never grow bald-headed or over-weight as some graduates do, or wear nose-glasses and starched collars, or carry umbrellas.

And the graduates are always welcomed, for they see in us a memory, however slight of that which they once were. Although they are sure that in the golden mirage of their youth they were never so callous, nor so ignorant, nor so self-satisfied. And so, in mutual reflection and compassion we shall meet each other.

Hall, Graduates, brothers well met. Shortly we shall be of you. And no doubt like you.