Apparently facts concerning the subsequent transition of ownership are obscure. The house seems to have passed immediately into the hands of the English Department.

At the turn of the century, Professor Bliss Perry referred to the department in quoting the words an old lady had once spoken in reference to a lecture of Emerson's. "It had no connection," she said, "save in God." And Chairman Bate today adds, "Perhaps our frail, earthly unity is also provided by this strange, old building."

Today the identities of the institution and its home have mingled. To blaspheme the place is common practice on the part of those who adore it. Some refer to it as the "out house." But let anyone suggest changing quarters and a department of disparate factions will respond as one. As Professor Bate puts it, "It would seem like sacrilege."

Win at Scrabble

Throughout the country "Warren House" has become synonymous with the department itself. Those who "write to Warren House" do so sometimes to ask for faculty appointments or for special reading lists, but also for purposes of a less professional nature. There have been questions about cross-word puzzles, or about how to win at scrabble. A Novia Scotia farmer once sent his poems to be "criticized." The piece-de-resistance is probably a letter from a high school teacher asking for a list of the "twenty best books, with reasons why".

The Warren mystique reaches far and wide. At this point even book salesmen ask to see the trap-door and the room where Kittredge, Lowes and Bliss Perry once examined. Visiting chairmen of other English departments return to see the house which gave birth to their scholarly careers. Everyone agrees that something intangible contributes to making Warren House the indispensable institution it has become. Perhaps one professor best summed it up in quoting Santayana's description of Concord: "External humility and inward pride." ir?-, iohkRCcotkle