“So?  I had not known that,” said the jester softly, and he smiled to himself.

The old dead mute was placed back on his bier and the trap-door shut down.  “So now I must hunt for another page or squire,” growled the captain, and he clanked wrathfully out of the donjon.

The jester stayed a little while, to pray for the mute’s soul and for the squire’s soul and for his own.  Then he too rose and, swinging the iron door behind him, left the corpse alone.  The moonlight shone dimly and more dimly through the grating, and soon had disappeared.  It left the donjon keep in total darkness, and in a stillness broken only by the dripping of water from the mouldy ceiling.

Literary Monthly, 1910.

NINE WILLIAMS ALUMNI[1]

[Footnote 1:  A series which ran through Vol.  XXV. of the Lit., 1909-1910.]

I. JOHN BASCOM

JOHN ADAMS LOWE ’06

Already long past the threescore years and ten allotted man, Dr. Bascom exerted a vital influence on the college when we first met him.  On the shadowy side of the valley, and even then silvery haired, he moved beneath these classic shades like a patriarch, “the grand old doctor.”

The facts of his life and of his achievements require volumes for the telling.  They speak of his genius-like career at Williams, of his keen philosophical insight, and of how, after being graduated in 1849, he tried the law and theology before accepting a tutorship in his alma mater.  A score of years from 1855 to 1874, he served the college as professor of rhetoric, although his desire was to give his attention to philosophy.  The times were filled with conflict and struggle, and Dr. Bascom accepted the presidency of the University of Wisconsin, where he made a glorious record covering fourteen years.  In 1887 he returned to Williamstown with unimpaired powers, and became lecturer in sociology and later professor of political economy, a position which he filled till 1903.  They speak of his degrees of honor:  Wisconsin, Amherst, and Williams conferred the LL.D., Iowa College the D.D.

It is in the evening of his life that it has been our good fortune to know him.  As when, the day’s work done and the worries of its earlier hours laid aside, we look forward to the rest that awaits us and live over in thought the events of the day that is gone, the conflicts lose their bitterness.  Here is a man whose limitless energy built up a great university; whose straightforward counsel for many years shaped the policies of one of the political parties of the Commonwealth; whose earnest teaching pointed out to many a man his civic duty; and whose personal life is an incentive to high intellectual morality.  By a score of books covering the various fields of rhetoric, aesthetics, political economy, philosophy, and religion, he has moulded public opinion in his generation.  The same undaunted ambition keeps his eye bright now as then; the same keen brain grapples with vital problems; the same magnetic personality commands respect and love.