that this laxity must result in lowering the standard of scholarship.  But recent events lead us to the opposite conclusion.  The Saratoga regatta last summer proved that the Cornell students are not wanting in muscle, and the inter-collegiate contest of this winter shows still more conclusively that they are not wanting in brains.  Cornell entered in four of the six contests, and won four prizes—­one second and three firsts.  Two of these first prizes, be it observed, far outrank the others as tests of scholarship—­namely, those in Greek and in mathematics.  No shallow theory of luck will explain this sudden and remarkable success.  The older colleges will do well to inquire into causes, and to ask themselves if their young rival is not possessed of a new power—­if sturdiness of character and independence of thought are not more efficient than mere routine.  After all, is it surprising that the institution which is most liberal should attract to itself the most progressive minds?

JAMES MORGAN HART.

SONNET.

  I saw a garden-bed on which there grew,
    Low down amid gay grass, a violet,
    With flame of poppy flickering over it,
  And many gaudy spikes and blossoms new,
  Round which the wind with amorous whispers blew. 
  There came a maid, gold-haired and lithe and strong,
    With limbs whereof the delicate perfumed flesh
    Was like a babe’s.  She broke the flowering mesh
    Of flaunting weeds, and plucked the modest bloom
  To wear it on her bosom all day long. 
    So in pure breasts pure things find welcomest room,
  And poppied epics, flushed with blood and wrong,
  Are crushed to reach love’s violets of song.

MAURICE THOMPSON.

THE HOUSE THAT SUSAN BUILT.

Susan—­Susan Summerhaze—­was twenty-nine, and had never had a lover.  You smile.  You people have a way of smiling at the mention of a maiden lady who has never had a lover, as though there was a very good joke in the matter.  You ought to be ashamed to smile.  You have a tear for the girl at the grave of her lover, and for the bride of a month in her widow’s cap, and even for her who mourns a lover changed.  But in each of these cases the woman has had her romance:  her spirit has thrilled to enchanted music; there is a consecrated something in her nature; a tender memory is hers for ever.

Nothing is so pathetic as the insignificant.  Than a dead blank, better a path marked by—­well, anything, perhaps, except dishonor.  The colorless, commonplace life was especially dreary to my Susan, because of a streak of romance—­and a broad streak it was—­that ran from end to end of her nature.