Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/156

 was to him only a passing and a trifling incident better forgotten than immortalized in print. His letters have not truthfully reflected his real life. I have felt as I have gone over these chapter letters that in many if not in most cases they told very little of what I should most like to know of the lives and accomplishments of the men in the active chapters.

The first thing that strikes me about these letters is their oppressive optimism. They reek with panygyrics; they express nothing short of superlatives; they are turgid with laudation. One who has had even a moderate amount of experience with imperfect human nature must have something of the feeling toward the writers of these letters that a friend of mine had toward a mutual acquaintance whom he characterized as "imaginative and expedient rather than rigidly and puritanically literal." The letters that are before me as I write these paragraphs are pregnant with "brightest prospects for the year," are full of "the most promising material," and "swell with pride" as they introduce "the best freshmen in college and the most brilliant that the fraternity has ever pledged." The semester that is closed is "the most successful in the history of the fraternity," and the one that is opening "bids fair to eclipse those of former years." As one reads them