NOT SO BAD AS THAT, JOHN

The spirit of John Harvard is uneasy. The past two nights, when, with the falling shadows, it issued from its cast of bronze, as genius of the Yard, its customary meditations on the times that were and are no more have because short; and it has found no peace..Strange forebodings fill the air, portent of change and great upheaval. As, in its age-old way, in solitary musings, it sought a moment's observation of the Square, where it was wont to shake its head in self-approbation at the indications of decay the times give forth what glaring new construction stood there, thrown up like a mushroom in a day, to bar the time-worn path?

And these rumors--whence are they?--foretelling an encroaching stranger to crowd back those comfortable neighbors, Grays and Matthews! Then fouler whisperings of downfall to old Boylston! Dear Boylston, old companion, whose gray and frowning brow exudes such sympathetic melancholy; staid neutralizer, in its sober thoughtfulness, against that youthful, grand, and awful Widner; that sprawling, showy presence whose mere thought has oft inspired a nightmare in the midst of daydreams. What perturbers of the sprit these winged devils are! More rumors still, though less distinct, of other changes to be wrought, more parvenu intruders in the moss-grown ranks. They come, these leser rumors, to confirm the growing strife of mind that sets on to rebellion 'gainst the whole regime of change. For alas! the habits of three hundred years are not with ease to be cast off, like cobweb fancies.

But ere the first faint peep of morning, the spirit of John Harvard, soft returning, takes up again its customary watchfulness: in sculptured meditation, behind that pensive mask, there sits enthroned a pedestaled revolt.