TO THE EDITORS OF THE HERALD: It is a cold, disagreeable day here, and I cannot help being glad I am not at Wellesley, for it is doubly dismal there on a rainy day. Everything is shrouded and dull, and lessons seem to go wrong. Since the death of Mr. Durant, founder and munificent patron of the college, we have had quite a change in the management of affairs. A long vacation was voted the president, and our professor of history was made vice-president, and is becoming very popular among the students. Some time ago a party of Harvard men came to Wellesley to visit the college, and were shown over the building by this same lady, whom they mistook for a student, and conducted themselves accordingly; but they soon found out their mistake, and left somewhat chagrined. This was not the first instance of the kind. Quite an amusing accident befel one of the girls last fall. It was a freshman, who thought she would stay away from chapel one evening. By way of amusement she strolled through the corridor, and, seeing a bright light in a room, concluded to make a call. Two ladies were sitting by the table reading when our friend entered and exclaimed, "Hallo! didn't you go to chapel, either? It is great fun to 'cut,' I think." She talked on in school girl dialect for some time, until the silence and horrified looks of the ladies suggested to the unlucky freshman that possibly these might be teachers. Such proved to be the case, and after much apology she retreated, greatly fearing for the consequences. 'Tis hardly necessary to say that she has been to chapel ever since.
There is so little besides study going on at Wellesley that gossip and groundless reports flourish finely. If it were not for concerts and lectures we should feel like the Sleepy Hollow people, yet without their contentment and repose.
Signor Monti gave us four very interesting lectures on "Dante and his Divine Comedy." At the Inferno lecture he recited a long passage to us in Italian, where Franecsca di Rimini meets the poets and tells her story.
Our concerts have been especially good the past term. Prof. Baermann honored us by giving at Wellesley his first concert in America. His programme was delightful, chosen from the works of Beethoven, Chopin and Rheinberger. I never enjoyed piano music so intensely, especially the Chopin selections, which were rendered with all the exquisite feeling which the Polish composer has woven into his music, and with none of the sentimentality which some people think is the only interpretation of Chopin.
After Prof. Baermann's concert we had one by the Beethoven String Quartette and Mr. Sherwood. They gave one of Beethoven's finest quartettes and a quintette by Raff, "The Miller's Pretty Daughter," which you may have heard. Our last concert was a song recital by Jules Jordan.
Examinations had begun by this time, and the end of the delightful concert brought us back to a consciousness of the morrow's work.
STUDENT.
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