Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/393

 —for the encouragement of picturesqueness in college life?

But as he sees the younger generation stare and whisper at him, upon his aged intellect, if he is sufficiently philosophical, a light may begin to dawn. A great truth, bard and unpalatable like most great truths, is slowly revealed to him. He remembers the story of the two elderly Oxford dons, of whom one remarked, “I wonder, my dear William, why we see no college characters to-day. In our time the place was full of them.”

“Ah, Thomas,” replied the other, “you forget. We don’t see them now because we are the college characters ourselves.”