SOMETIMES we feel in these commercial days when everyone seems to be engaged in piling up money for the furtherance of his own selfish personal ends that the age of sentiment and chivalry is gone, that there are no gentle gallant knights, no faithful unselfish lovers; but it is not so. It is only because our sight is dimmed or our senses dulled that we do not see the romance or feel the sentiment or catch the music that is about us.
Out on the back campus last Tuesday morning a little scene was enacted—the singing of a few songs, the making of a few brief speeches, the digging of a spade full of earth to celebrate the beginning of a new University building. To the thoughtless on looker it might have seemed a very mechanical procedure, but in reality it was as touching and tender a tribute as was ever paid by a man to the woman he loved. It was a beautiful climax to a beautiful companionship which had lasted through many years.
In the early days of the war of the Rebellion an officer of the northern army was stationed in a southern city. He met there a young southern girl to whom he became devoted. They were married at the close of the war, and she came north with him to make for them a home. They lived together happily for many years. Through struggle, and toil, and poverty, and sorrow to success their devotion to each other was beautiful to see. Through all the years which they spent together there was no diminution of his faithfulness, of his courtesy, of his adoration, or of hers. She was to him always the young beautiful girl whom he had won in the south; he was to her a faithful and gallant knight. Even when she died he remained her tender lover.
The little ceremony on Tuesday was the breaking of ground for the building which is to be erected in her memory and into which is to go the bulk of the modest fortune which they together accumulated. It is a noble gift, the thought of which is inspiring. It robs one of cynicism; it strengthens one's faith in the realities of life and of love.
"What a fool a man is," someone says, "to give the savings of a life time to an institution supported by the state." But in reality those who sacrifice and give to a cause or to an individual whom they love are the only wise men. By his sacrifice and his generosity this man has dignified love and made it real; he has strengthened our faith in the goodness of humanity; he has enriched his own life, and he has added a touch of sentiment and idealism to an institution where such things are all too rare.
October