rjMi :e DTHEIAMESEHDLASTIC WW 5DrSCIl-QMSI.SEHPES.YIGnmlI^* • <^^ •YlYE-QMSI-CBflS-HORITURUs. VOL. XXVIII. NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, NOVEMBER IO, 1894. No. 10. brilliant idea that has just occurred to him. ""Wlien Skies Are Gray." Why not expeditiously settle a number of epistolary claims by sending an occasional {A Rondeau) letter to the SCHOL.^STIC, and then referring to f^HEN skies are gray and Summer's light its columns all my creditors in the matter of Has faded from the land, the knight, correspondence, as.suring them that they will November, comes with lance in rest find therein full information on the only sub­ And visor down; a cruel quest • He rides upon; his glance is blight. ject about which they can reasonably expect me to write, at least for several months to Swift as the winds his steed, and bright come,—my summer in Europe. His sword, as sunbeams when they smite And what a supremely glorious summer it A path through storm-clouds in the West, When skies are gray. was! The realization of a thousand day­ dreams,—a vision of. delight in anticipation, a Crimson and gold, the leaves took flight thing of beauty throughout its passage, and a At Autumn's whisper; but his might Blasts field and wood; his sable crest joy forever in the retrospect! Ten brimming Nods death to all; for none may wrest weeks of life and light and glowing movement, His empire from him, his by right. of changing skies and heaving ocean, of storied When skies are gray. shrines and famous cities, of modern splendor DANIEL V. CASEY. and ancient ruins, of the noblest monuments reared by man and the fairest landscapes traced by his Maker,—yes, it was a glorious A Summer in Europe. holiday, and recompensed a hundredfold the previous industry that had made it possible! BY A. B. My exclamation points, however," are grow­ ing numerous. Perhaps I had better.heed the French injunction, and "moderate my tran­ I.—THE OCEAN VOYAGE. sports," lest I degenerate presently into the HAT a peculiarly disagree­ emotional hyperbole of the gushing damsel able sensation it gives one who furnished an anti^climax to our first ocean to be reproachfully glared at, sunset. " O my" she shrilly exclaimed, " ain't day after day, by a growing it just too ecstatically gorgeous for anything!" pile of unanswered letters—, To be quite prosaic, then, the summer was a big, bulky letters from valued most enjoyable one; and not the least pleasant correspondents who expect equally bulky re­ portion of it was the ten days' trip across the plies, and who are probably accusing one of Atlantic, from Halifax to London. Ten days unpardonable neglect because the replies have may appear an unduly long period for the not already reached them! Such an experience passage, especially in this epoch of " ocean has been the writer's during the past few greyhounds" and broken records; but as we weeks, and to it must be attributed both his were travelling for pleasure, and not on busi­ present unsatisfactory frame of mind and the ness, an extra day or two upon the billowy 146 NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC. deep was a matter of congratulation rather than ship in a perfect paroxysm of retching, was regret. Indeed, had our programme of con­ boisterously accosted by a fellow-passenger tinental sight-seeing admitted of the delay, we with: "Hello, friend, are you sick?"—"Why, would readily have consented to the prolonga­ you bloomin'-(whoo-00-oo-oop), you bloomin' tion of the voyage for an additional week. idiot," was the response, "you don't suppose To the tired brain-worker, there is surely no I'm doing this for fun, do you?" other form of summer recreation so thoroughly No; there is no fun in seasickness, even in its grateful as ocean travel. Where else can the mildest form; but for one who is impervious to nervously-exhausted professional man, the its attacks, there is a world of pleasure and worn-out college lecturer, or the weary " knight exhilaration and ,delicious rest in a voyage of the quill" enjoy repose so complete, luxuriate across the ocean. O the luxury of reclining at in idleness at once so perfect and so healthful, full length in an adjustable steamer-chair on as on the mighty expanse that stretches away the sunny side of the saloon, deck, and noting, from the New World to the Old? If the best between puffs of your postprandial cigar, the vacation (for the man who really needs one) is ever-varying aspects of the multitudinous blue- that which affords the fullest change from his black wavelets dancing away on every hand to ordinary life—change of air and diet and ideas join the engirdling sky! The full, deep draughts and scenery and people—what transition can of life and vigor that one drinks in while briskly compare with that from lecture-room or study promenading, in the early morning when the to the breezy deck of a handsome liner grace­ breezes blow fresh and the pearly tints of dawn fully gliding through summer seas! are lost in a flood of golden glory as the sun "All very well," interjects some biliously emerges from the eastern waters! The sense incredulous reader, "but what about seasick­ of incomparable beauty that captivates and ness?" Seasickness, my dyspeptic friend! Why, enthralls one's being when the malady is old-fashioned, out of date, " the moon is on high. obsolete. At the very least it is no longer an Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky," inevitable, but merely an optional, concomitant and the gaze wanders from the myriad star-jets of life on the bounding wave. In the lexicon that flash their radiance athwart the azure of the prudent ocean-traveller, strong in the vault above to the phosphorescent glow that resources of the American druggist, there is no fitfully gleams in the troubled wake of the such word as mal de mer. When you purpose coursing ship! crossing the Atlantic, nowadays, you provide Boundless sky and water day after day and yourself with a bottle of Elixir Prophylactic, night after night; but what infinite variety of manufactured by tht Brush Chemical Company expression in both immensities, alternately of Boston; you take a dose every three hours thrilling the soul with a realization of the sub­ on the day before sailing; and, your internal lime, and steeping the sense in a spell of love­ economy absolutely undisturbed by pitch or liness! And to think that there are mortals so roll, you sleep with the tranquillity of the hopelessly prosaic as to complain, even on veriest Jack Tar, and eat with an appetite that their first ocean vo3^age, of tedious monotony, Jack would blush to acknowledge. and -sigh for the unattainable daily paper! Such, at least, was my experience. Yet, lest Thank Heaven! they were not represented in any reader should feel inclined to quote: " He the muster-roll of passengers on board the jests at scars, who never felt a wound," let me Halifax City,—possibly because the roll was not say that the quotation would be the reverse of a very long one. No; our score and a half of apposite. I have felt th^ wound of the baleful fellow-voyagers were a cultured body; and inal de mer. It was years ago, on the Bay of although some no longer found in ocean sights Fundy; but I preserve a very vivid remem­ and sounds the attraction of novelty that brance of the ineffable misery and utter accentuated the pleasure of the greater num­ wretchedness of my condition during that first ber, none proved insensible to the manifold encounter with the sea. It taught me that charms of magic sunsets and starlit nights and there is very little exaggeration in Mark Twain's the soft, strong melody of the rolling waves. comment on the malady: "For the first ten Our route lay across the northern Atlantic, minutes you're afraid you're going to die; after and we were consequently treated more than that, you're afraid-you're wo^f"; and it put me once to the impressive sight of those majestit in thorough sympathy with the English trav- rovers frogi the Arctic seas, the icebergs. Most ellei:, who, as he leaned over.the side of the of the gigantic masses were from two or three to NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC. 147 eight or ten miles away; but even at this latter size with pawns, two of the smokers invited distance, several of them loomed up like lofty- the precious child to have some fun with them. spired cathedrals, or the battlemented castles They smilingly insisted on testing the elasticity of feudsi days. Of one we had a nearer view. of his ears, the solidity of his muscles, and the It lay directly in our course, and our helms­ resisting power of his hair; and so impressed man sheered off merely enough to allow the him with the peculiar character of the "fun" steamer to pass it in safety. A perfectly sym­ he«night expect whenever he visited the smok­ metrical quadrangular pyramid, measuring ing-room, that for the remainder of the voyage fully one hundred feet from apex to visible the misguided youth gave that apartment a base, its dazzlingly white surface glittered and wide berth,—and his disciplinarians earned our flashed in the morning sunshine as though it cordial gratitude. were some colossal monolith reared to the And now the voyage is evidently nearing its memory of the hardy vikings who swept of completion.