Emerson spoke flash on the souls of men the truth that they were slaves no more; that each might and must stand to his work erect and strong, since nature and God were his very own. The eyes of the blind were opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; "for he came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE THE last weeks of a Senior resemble in one respect the first weeks of a Freshman: they are too complexly active, too bewildering, for thought. Professors, examinations, literary work, friendships, relatives, sweethearts, and plans of life whirl through a Senior's head and set it whirling with them. Then, as always, after exaltation comes depression. Clearing up after anything is a searching test of cheerfulness; and clearing up after four of the richest years that youth can know, sending away your furniture from the room you love, bidding good-by to scores of fellow students whose lives have been very near your own, and doing it all with the reaction ary weariness that follows prolonged excitement, is sad business, even for a sound-minded girl who is eager to do her part in a newly opening world. On the morning after Class Day in Cambridge, some years ago, an uncommonly healthy Senior who had played in the University football team and who could not be charged with maudlin sentiment, got up at five, sat on the steps of University Hall in the middle of the College Yard, and wept. Before he went away, he said, he must have the Yard for once to himself: 669 "'T were profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love." In this reaction, when you have shuffled off the coil of your last college days and find yourself face to face with a new life or with the return to an old one, you are prone to ask, "What has it all been for? Am I fitter for the life I must live than if I had been living it four years already? College has been fascinating, |