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To the Editor of the Crimson:

Every Harvard lion has at one time or another roared at its terrible aspect; every Harvard lamb has long ago succumbed to its frights. But Widener stomps along, brushing aside the lamb and the lion, lapping up the innocent books in its path, invincible creature.

No need to cavil at the foresight of its architects who planned the stacks so that they are as accessible to the common Harvard student as the burial chamber of Cheops to the common Egyptian serf; and in Fine Arts le Professor Koehler will probably continue to compare the exterior dimensions of Widener to those of the Parthenon, unaware of the irony should his listeners be inclined to contrast their interiors.

Three years ago our tutor guilelessly slipped three cards into the hands of the attendant. Three books he wanted. In time, which we hestitate to define in its Widenerian concept, he was informed that there was no report of them. Then the Widener Beast sat up on its hind legs, smoothed its scales, and smilingly queried, "May we trace the books and send you a card?" The spider could no better entice the fly. "Please," our tutor answered. Every month now he returns to the lair with the same three cards and receives the same benign reply. But the Beast has never sent him a card. Some thirty times our tutor has baited it, but the prey eludes the trap. Mournfully we suspect that somewhere in Widener even now there is a modified Jonah who has been prowling around the bowels of the Beast for three years, encouraged at the beginning of every month only by three cards, like those he got the month before. It is a sad tale, true, but our tutor tells it with a smile.

We have no suggestion really. Somebody might of course straighten the shelves in the reading room once in a while. A number of libraries have the foolish habit of cleaning dirty books, but it is a nasty job, involving an eraser and an elbow. Finally we do think that two weeks is more than long enough for a book to be charged out. We often weep at the distress of the student who finds Widener has a book, and indeed knows where it is, but can't get it for a month. A month is an con in an academic year.

As it is said, can't something be done about it? The gods, we are told, met no difficulty in penetrating the walls of the Great Pyramid. Alden Clarke '39