He walked the shady path with his
light stick swinging, his eyes seeing, not an arch of tangible trees,
but the shining vista which dreamers call the Future.... He stood upon a
platform, fronting a vast white meadow of upturned faces. He was
speaking to this meadow, his theme being "Education and the Rise of the
Masses," and the people, displaying an enthusiasm rare at lectures upon
such topics, roared their approval as he shot at them great terse
truths, the essence of wide reading and profound wisdom put up in
pellets of pungent epigram. He rose at a long dinner-table, so placed
that as he stood his eye swept down rows upon rows of other long tables,
where the diners had all pushed back their chairs to turn and look at
him. His words were honeyed, of a magic compelling power, so that as he
reached his peroration, aged magnates could not be restrained from
producing fountain-pen and check-book; he saw them pushing aside
coffee-cups to indite rows of o's of staggering length. Blames College
now tenanted a new home on a grassy knoll outside the city. The single
ramshackle barn which had housed the institution prior to the coming of
President West was replaced by a cluster of noble edifices of classic
marble.
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