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 | COLLEGE DAYS Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis |  |
[DEAR DAD:]
We have started the best sort of a club up here which I am anxious to tell you of. It consists of a spread, net price of which will be about 30 cents each, every two or three weeks. Only six fellows belong and those the best of the College. Purnell, Haines and myself founded it. I chose Charley, Purnell, Reeves, Haines and Howe. We will meet Saturday nights at 9 so as not to interfere with our work, and sing, read, eat and box until midnight. It is called the "Pipe and Bowl," and is meant to take the place that The Hasty Pudding, Hammer and Tongs and Mermaid do at other colleges. Two of us are to invite two outsiders in turn each meeting. We will hope to have Dad a member, honorary, of course, when we can persuade him to give us a night off with his company. We want to combine a literary feature and so will have selected readings to provoke discussions after the pipes are lit. The men are very enthusiastic about it and want to invite Mr. Allen and you and every one that they can make an honorary member of immediately.
It was first as an associate editor and afterward as editor-in-chief of the college paper, The Lehigh Burr, that Richard found his greatest pleasure and interest during his three years at Lehigh. In addition to his editorial duties he wrote a very great part of every issue of the paper, and his contributions included short stories, reports of news events, editorials, and numerous poems.
As, after his life at college, Richard dropped verse as a mode of expression, I reprint two of the poems which show him in the lighter vein of those early days.
A COMMENCEMENT IDYL
"I'm a Freshman who has ended his first year,But I'm new;
And I do whate'er the Juniors, whom I fear,
Bid me do.
Under sudden showers I thrive;
To be bad and bold I strive,
But they ask — `Is it alive?'
So they do.
I'm a Sophomore who has passed off his exams,
Let me loose!
With a mark as high as any other man's,
As obtuse
I'm fraternal. I am Jolly.
I am seldom melancholy
And to bone I think is folly,
What's the use?
I'm a Junior whom exams. have left forlorn,
Flunked me dead;
So I'll keep the town awake 'till early morn;
Paint it red.
At class-meetings I'm a kicker,
Take no water with my liquor,
And a dumb-bell's not thicker
Than my head.
I'm a Senior whose diploma's within reach,
Eighty-four.
On Commencement Day you'll hear my maiden-speech;
I will soar!
I got through without condition;
I'm a mass of erudition;
Do you know of a position!"
OUR STREET
"Our street is still and silent,Grass grows from curb to curb,
No baker's bells
With jangling knells
Our studious minds disturb.
No organ grinders ever call,
No hucksters mar our peace;
For traffic shuns our neighborhood
And leaves us to our ease.
But now it lives and brightens,
Assumes a livelier hue;
The pavements wide,
On either side,
Would seem to feel it too.
You might not note the difference,
The change from grave to gay,
But I can tell, and know full well,
Priscilla walks our way."
Shortly after his return to college Richard celebrated his nineteenth birthday, and received these letters from his father and mother:
| COLLEGE DAYS Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis | |