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The Ghosts in the Ivory Tower: History Haunts Harvard Rooms

"Oh Christ!," he roared, and nearly fell off his bicycle.

"No, Pusey," corrected his friend (awit) who had waited for the reaction. "Christ didn't go here."

There exists, moreover, at least one account of a Harvard student actually zonking out over the thought of a noted predecessor. Honoring his family's request that he remain anonymous, the freshman in mention discovered that several hundred years before a totally undistinguished poet had resided for a term in his study. He immediately charged out every volume of the man's work in Widener Library (two). purchased a third or fourth-hand frock coat from Joe Keezer's on Mass Ave., and for the duration of the winter did become that poet. Devotees of the Harvard Union dining hall three or four years ago will recall him striding through food lines, volumes under arm, or rising without warning from the table to rip off a couplet or two.

Back in Hollis Hall now, Ralph Waldo's room is packed John Dos Passos '16 and Edward Estlin Cummings (i.e. e. e.) '15 have come over from Thayer 29. stopping on the way in Thayer 15 for James Agee '32, co-author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Meanwhile up in Thoreau's, William James '02 (Matthews 41) and Arthur Schiesinger Jr, '38 (Thayer 7) are listening to Oliver Wendell Holmes 1829 (Stoughton 31) tell Horatio Alger 1860 (Holworthy 7) and William Randolph Hearst 1885 (Matthews 46) about the time he played a trick on Wendell Phillips 1831 (Holworthy 24). Not listening are Rush and Pete Seeger '36 (Harvard Union) who are trading songs, and Norman Kingsley Mailer '43 (Grays 11) who sits in a corner writing about it.

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Once during the summer, and it must have been a staggering moment, conversation suddenly halted, and the rooms cleared. From the far side of the Yard came the distinct, persistent, shrill stab in the night of a young girl's loud voice.

"Do you really think it's Tom Rush's bed?" she was asking her roommates. "That'd be something to write home about."

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