Chapter X: Discussions and Discussions

The Easter vacation had come and passed, and Pamela was pleased to find herself again attending lectures. She had been a little lonely, for almost all of her classmates had been away somewhere “for fun or for clothes,” as Polly Porson put it. Polly and Clarissa had gone together to New York, where the former had an aunt, and their talk now turned on Art exhibitions, Waldorf musicales, and things of that kind. Julia, yielding to her aunt’s entreaties, had fixed her mind more or less attentively on clothes. Lois had had to put her own time and strength into remodelling and shaping the lighter summer clothes. Whereas in Julia’s case her greatest sacrifice of time came in the unescapable “fittings” which she had to undergo at the dressmaker’s. Pamela had had neither fun nor new clothes to console her in the vacation. She had been unable to afford the trip to Vermont, and indeed she did not intend to return home for the summer holidays, unless she should fail to find some employment in vacation that would help her pay her expenses during the next college year. Her one luxury through the recess had been frequent trips to Boston. She had wandered to her heart’s content through the Art shops, and she had spent many hours in the Art Museum. She had saved car-fare by walking one way to Boston, and this exercise in itself had probably been an advantage to her, as in winter she had had little time for long walks. The fresh spring air as she walked along blew many cobwebs from her brain. For Pamela was not of a hopeful temperament, and she could not help wondering where she should get her income for the coming year. Her aunt’s letters were not altogether cheerful. Between the lines she could read that continued disapproval of her ambition for a college degree. “If you had gone to the Normal School,” read one of the letters, “you’d be almost ready now to take a school. Perhaps you might have had a chance at the Academy. They say that Miss Smith is going to be married.”

“They’ll feel better if I tell them that I’m likely to get a scholarship at the end of another year. Oh, I do hope that I shall take second-year honors! That will make the scholarship almost certain. If I could earn fifty dollars above my expenses this summer, and if Miss Batson will give me the same chance next year, why, I can certainly hold on until I get a scholarship. Ah, me!”

The sigh was perhaps not to be wondered at, for Pamela saw clearly the uphill road that lay before her. Sometimes she could not help contrasting herself with Julia and Clarissa, and the others before whom life seemed to spread out so delightfully. She listened with interest to all that these lighter-hearted girls had to tell of their vacation experiences, and she bent with redoubled energy to her work. May was at hand, and nobody can be utterly down-hearted in May, with the trees bursting into bloom, and the air growing softer and sweeter, and the bright spring sun touching everything with gold, making even literary Cambridge a pleasant place for the hundreds of students who cross the Yard to the halls of Harvard, or walk through Garden Street to Fay House. Yet despite spring sunshine, Pamela shrank into herself, and even Julia could not drag her out of her routine.

“It isn’t right,” Clarissa remonstrated, “to think so much of Xenophon, Plato, and Euripides. They may have been very able men, but to think of them alone will make you one-sided.”

“If you had studied Greek you’d be less frivolous,” remarked Julia, as Clarissa picked up a slip of paper with printed questions that fluttered from one of Pamela’s books. Clarissa read aloud from the paper:

“‘IX. Write on the results, to logic and ethics, of the work of Socrates, and the impression which it made on his contemporaries as illustrated in “The Clouds.”’ Is it strange,” she commented, “that Pamela is half in the clouds and here? ‘Write an account of the life and professional activity of Lysias.’ It would be more seasonable to write an account of the professional activity of the catcher on the Harvard nine. Throw aside this foolish paper, Pamela! Why, the heading says, ‘Divide your time equally between Lysias and Plato.’ Your aunt in Vermont ought to know about this.”

“Don’t crumple it,” cried Pamela, flushing under this badinage. “I save all my examination papers; that was a mid-year.”

“To make a scrap-book?” queried Polly, who had joined the group. “Excuse my smiles, but it seems so comical to care tenderly for examination papers. Why, I tear mine up, and throw my blue-books into the fire. Lecture notes are more entertaining. Clarissa’s, for example! Clarissa, if your notes in History 100 should be published, they would contribute greatly to the gaiety of nations. You must not let them fall into the hands of the profane.”

The lecturer in History 100 had a rather original method in dealing with his subject. His style was colloquial, and when in his opinion the occasion demanded it, he used expressions that bordered pretty closely on slang. Nevertheless, he had a fine command of his subject, and that he was a valued member of the Faculty was shown by his standing near the head of his department. That he shattered some of the idols that his students had worshipped did not lessen the value of his teaching. After expressing his own views fully (and sometimes jocosely), he would always refer them to numerous books, by reading which they could inform themselves on the other side of the subject. Although open, perhaps, to some criticism from an academic point of view, Professor Z (for so he was nicknamed from one of his most popular courses) was a stimulating instructor, and his Radcliffe students set a high value on what they learned from him.

Nevertheless, Polly and even the sedate Pamela were almost convulsed with laughter as Clarissa read from her note-book what she claimed to be one of Professor Z’s lectures. “Stage directions,” as Clarissa called them, had been used very freely. “Here he frowned.” “At this point he stroked his moustache and looked inexpressibly bored.” “At quarter-past three he told us that he thought that Cromwell did not deserve any further attention, at least from him, and that we’d all be happier for a little respite from Puritanism. Whereupon he left us—fifteen minutes to the better.”

“How would you like Professor Z to see your note-book?” asked Polly mischievously.

“Why, I shouldn’t care. I never do behind any one’s back what I could not just as well do before his face. The worst, I suppose, that he could give me would be a ‘D;’ but I think, on the whole, that he would be rather amused that I had had sufficient interest to take notes at once so literal and so copious.”

“Yes, but don’t let that book fall into the hands of outsiders. They might feel that we were not under sufficiently serious influences. You New Englanders are so serious.”

“Julia’s the only New Englander here. You mustn’t be too severe,” said Polly.

“No, indeed,” rejoined Clarissa; “but speaking of Jane—”

“Who spoke of Jane?”

“Well, _if_ we were speaking of Jane, it seems to me that we should all say that she looks tired—too much work and no play. She’s something like you, Pamela, only more so, though she has the excuse of being a Senior. But speaking of Seniors (we really _were_ speaking of Seniors this time), there’s Jane herself. Come, Jane,” and Polly raised her voice slightly, that Jane, who was passing the door, might hear her.

It was after half-past four, and Polly, Pamela, and the others were sitting in one of the vacant recitation rooms.

“Come, Jane,” said Polly, “we wish you to tell us why you have abjured society of late. There have been several teas lately where you were especially expected, which were remarkably desolate on account of your absence.”

At this Jane looked uncomfortable. Was Polly making fun of her?

Julia’s more serious tones reassured her.

“Yes, tell us, Jane. Ruth and I had the special honor the other evening of pouring chocolate at Professor Judson’s; his wife is some kind of a cousin of Uncle Robert’s. But why weren’t you there? You belong to the Philosophical Club.”

“Yes,” added Polly. “You _would_ have enjoyed meeting some of your fellow sufferers from Harvard; there were several sedate youths among them, Jane, exactly your style. The paper was most improving; every social gathering in Cambridge has to be opened with a paper. Why weren’t you there?”

“Clothes,” replied Jane laconically, smoothing the folds of her black student gown.

“Oh, I suppose that you do not care to go where you cannot wear that becoming cap and gown.

“Oh, Jane! oh, Jane! oh, Jane! oh, Jane!
Never did I think that you were so vain.”

Jane’s discomfort increased under Polly’s fusillade.

“I might be more comfortable in my cap and gown,” she retorted, “but they would be as unsuitable as my brown merino in some places, and that is the only best gown that I own.”

“I’m sure that it’s, it’s—”

“No,” said Jane gravely, as Julia stumbled; “no, it is neither beautiful nor becoming. But it has been very useful to me this winter. I wear it at our college functions with few qualms. It is only when I am invited outside that I am disinclined to wear it.”

“Isn’t that rather foolish? In these days woman can be perfectly independent about her clothes.” And Clarissa gave her curly head the toss of independent “Young America.”

“No one can live entirely to herself, even in the matter of clothes,” Jane explained. “If a hostess goes to the trouble and expense of providing a pleasant evening for her friends, her guests should wear festival attire. You are ‘asserting a false mood.’ Isn’t that what Shaftesbury would say?” And she turned to Polly, who of all present alone happened to be in her Philosophy class.

“Yes,” said Clarissa, “I agree with you there. I never could understand why people in the East wear ugly clothes at times when they ought to be in their best bib and tucker. When I am invited anywhere—which isn’t often—I always try to wear something bright and cheerful.”

“The poster girl!” murmured Polly under her breath.

“I’d rather be called a poster girl than a mummy,” said Clarissa, “though you, Jane, in your brown merino would be more welcome at some functions than others I could name in purple and fine linen.”

“And I will wear my brown dress and never look too fine,” hummed Polly. “You remember that Jennie Wren married Cock Robin, who seems to have been a fairy prince among the birds. Every one knows that you are sure of a _summa cum_, Jane Townall, so that you ought to be able to wear what you like at any time.”

“I can’t speak for Jane,” interposed Julia, “but I am sure that in accepting invitations we ought to think of what the hostess would like. Don’t frown, Clarissa.”

“Oh, of course you are more in society than we are.”

“Nonsense, that isn’t fair,” replied Julia. “But college girls ought to place themselves above the criticisms of those who do not look below the surface.”

“One shouldn’t think too much of appearances. Who cares for narrow-minded people? We must take the world as we find it.”

“I suppose so,” sighed Clarissa. “If I had worn a conventional Boston costume, perhaps Mrs. Blair would not have gazed at me the other day as if I were some newly discovered species. Next year I’ll appear out in—”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” cried Polly, “but let us do the proper thing by putting the matter to the vote.”

“Resolved, that no Radcliffe student shall accept an invitation to a festivity in Cambridge, or the adjoining suburb Boston, unless arrayed in a becoming light gown.”

“Low-necked?” questioned Clarissa.

“Cream-white?” asked Jane with unwonted levity.

“Color and style to suit the complexion of the wearer,” replied Polly. “Only no more dingy street gowns and hats at evening receptions.”

Though there wasn’t a dissenting voice, all knew that they were in earnest to only a limited extent. Yet the discussion showed that dress was a subject demanding some attention from even the busiest college girl. It could not be dismissed with a word. “If a hostess fears that I shall mortify her she needn’t invite me.” A busy girl naturally cannot give much time to shopping and dressmakers. Often she has little money to give to either. Yet by exercising care and taste, the girl with a small purse can often work wonders. The world of college undergraduates long since decided that there is no real connection between genius and dowdy dress, and that the wearer of a well-fitting gown need not lack mental ability.

There was some point to this discussion because invitations to affairs outside of the immediate college now came occasionally to even the quietest of the Freshmen. One or two of their professors invited them to receptions. Some of the girls living at home in Cambridge or Boston entertained more or less. In addition there were various college affairs to which the outside world was invited, and those students who acted as hostesses or ushers were especially conspicuous.

Simplicity was the keynote of most of the entertainments offered outside of Radcliffe, as well as in the college itself. This was disappointing sometimes to the occasional girl, conscious of her father’s wealth, who had come to Cambridge expecting this wealth to count for as much in her college life as it had counted at her own home. Yet no girl at Radcliffe was ever so dull as not to discover speedily that plain living really set the standard in Cambridge, and that any departure from simplicity was really regarded as blamable rather than praiseworthy.