The pomp and circumstances of all England lies trembling in the balance. Banks throughout America have no balance upon which to tremble. Short days ago the financial structure of Germany was undermined and the nation with her back to the wall stared over a bleak world. Empires, dominions, age hallowed institutions, and fair names avail nothing. No man can forget the greatness of these items.

The surging is all about; it thrusts itself upon our presence with persistency that will not be denied. The Vagabond has sickened of depressions, business cycles, nations in ashes, and economic theories. His frail mind can not encompass the full significance of one event before another is cried aloud in the market place to obliterate the memory of the first. He has, therefore, resorted to an old dodge, one frowned upon by psychologists and sociologists. He has taken unto himself comfort and refuge in romantic escape. He has harkened to the men who tell "tales of little meaning, though the words are strong." As the world is rushing headlong into the dismal future, he is thrusting himself backwards upon a Victorian past. Today at 12 he will journey to the Big Fogg Lecture Room, there to hear Professor Lowes upon the 19th Century poets. For a brief hour life will float gracefully along nodding to the gods upon Olympus and sweeping its skirts above the puddles of industry and high finance.

Quite frankly the Vagabond has never cared deeply for Wordsworth. He exhibits, in his poetry, too frank an interest in the exact size of a newly dug grave, or the precise circumference of a huntsman's swollen ankle. But he has compensated for this rather crass precision by developing an excellent and timely theory to the effect that the world is too much with us. And so the Vagabond will go today to hear Sholley, Keats, and Wordsworth as they troop across the platform, and to see them bow gracefully, when they pass Professor Lowes.

The Vagabond looks forward to this lecture, for Professor Lowes has but recently returned from England. During his absence English 72 languished in sepulchral silence, and it will be a pleasure to welcome back the calmness and tranquility of the Victorians.