Anyone crossing Anderson Bridge after a big game and still retaining sufficient composure to philosophize may well compare the scene before him to certain similar parades in the French Revolution. What modern panorama is so much like the march to Versailles as the sight of those crowds which billow and surge down Boylston Street, filling every square, inch of the lane between Smith Halls and the subway walls? Thousands mill around thousands and the vista as far as eye can reach in November dusk is one of bobbing heads and shoulders.
however, in the general tenor of their minds. For no gathering of like size preserves the geniality of a football crowd, immediately let out of the stadium. Surprisingly enough there is comparatively little boisterousness. There is a composure which is almost marked enough to be termed bovine; there is content. The tramp of tens of thousands of shuffling feet, the clink of colas in the Salvation Army blanket, the dolorous wheeze of the organ man, the shouts of the game extras, the smell of popcorn and frankfurters--these are what the artist designates as local color. And the fact that the scene passes, not to be viewed again until another autumn makes it more impressive and more indelible.
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Norton Lecture