Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/147

 during winter its august portals. As well as I could make out from my point of view, the Muctra consisted of a series of quadrangles enclosing extensive open spaces adorned with grass, trees, flowers, and fountains. Interspersed with these were frequent statues of those who had deserved well of mankind by advancement of the healing art, and of benefactors of the college.

Even from that distance I could distinguish the inaguificent central avenue of cedars of Lebanon, the boast and glory of the college, with which they were almost coeval. During the summer the grounds were open to the public. It was, indeed, during a visit there, in company with Utis, that I saw and heard much of what is here mentioned.

He then told me of his first visit there in company with Ulmene, then a wife of two months. The husbands of the fair students were admitted, it seems, on certain occasions, to a sort of public reception, much as ladies are now admitted to a view of the clubs of their male relatives. One of these days was the opening day, when the students for that year appeared, to enter their names on the great roll. On this occasion each was usually accompanied by her mother, who with pride introduced her daughter to the well-remembered walks and buildings so closely associated with those happy days of carly wifebood. She would, also, probably show her, on the ancient rolls, the long series of ancestresses, her predecessors, extending far back into the distant past, who, like her, had trodden those time-honored halls.

After I had sufficiently feasted my eyes on the prospect from the balcony, I ascended the tower. This proved to be an observatory, rising to about a hundred and fifty