A LAST TOAST

The light of fellowship is to light up Mem Hall for a last carouse. Next week the pall of unlighted vacancy will descend from its timbers, cover the wainscoting, and shut off the inquiring gaze of the gentlemen whose portraits have stared indifferently over the heads of several generations. For tonight, at least, decaying grandeur will be enlivened by a farewell feast. Rumor has it that Mem has splurged on turkey, the royal American bird, and invites all her remembering sons to dine with her.

The march of time has outstripped the old tradition of Commons. Where the old boys sauntered casually along gravel paths, the undergraduate today dashes with determination from Sever to New Lecture Hall and to Leavitt and Peirce's windows. The Harvard men of Memorial's hey-day dined leisurely, and aided eloquence with loquacious draughts, but a schedule, measured by the unfailing Ingersoll, now limits his gustatorial pleasures to a few snatched moments, while the slogan "coffee or milk" is impotent to stimulate good fellowship. At present, the press of engagements has destroyed inclination as the motivator of the day's activities.

If the end of Mem marks the decline of the tradition of gregarious leisureliness, it may not pass without creating a compensating store of new tradition. Such a structure, honored in the past and haloed in the present, cannot fail to found a legendary cycle. Ghosts may creak its boards, vague shapes may flit from rafter to rafter, the vast silence of its dimness will overawe the intruder. The spirit of good cheer is abandoning its Bacchic board, but the void may yet be filled by the angel of venerability and contemplation which hovers about the acquiescent majesty of deserted grandeur.