No idle wealth, but purity of thought

In forms surrounding. Fallen now from that,
But ah, how fallen is this land of Nile!

The mighty hand of Rome is stretched abroad
Over old Egypt; yea, and lays its hold
Upon my heart."

Speaking she led him towards

A couch and showed a place beside her there.

And Creon, gazing, thought the light of evening
Was truly dim, ay, hated half the dark

That thrusts a hand from out oblivion
To steal away all beauty like a thought.
Along the floor there lay great Moesian rugs,
And woven costly wools of Kermanshah

Wrought with bright colors hung across the couch,
And silks of Noahkahli, dyed in Ur.

Before them stood a table whose bright top
Was one quick flashing slab of almandine,

Deep black, yet touched with sudden lights of rose.
Then came a train of slaves in white sparse tunics
And the strong black limbs at every motion
Rippled o'er with light. Nubians they, from out
The chosen tribes of Darfur. They had known
The mighty silences, the livid sun,

And those tall, welcome palm trees by the spring.
And some in goblets bore the priceless wines
Of old Messenia and Ocana's stream.

Fair were the goblets, carved with chrysoprase,
Others of jacinth or carnelian red.

So that twain feasted there on curious dainties
Brought from far Clissa and Nowanagar,

And new-found lands, and the Messenian wine

Laughed all aglow through the white jacinth, wreathed With opal stones.

And there she watched the great

Heroic arch of Creon's breast, and he

How her lips smiled less often than they seemed,

Wondering ever at the littlest curve.

Then dancing girls, with measured steps, moved through
The hall, clothed in light fluttering veils that each
Cost a year's labor far in Dehra Dun.

Beyond the Indus, past the Ganges stream,
Old women wrought them far in Dehra Dun.
And round the dark hair of the dancing girls
Lay ropes of pearls, and jeweled sandals flashed
Upon their feet. Then one high flute blew out
And the quick lyres made chorus with the sound
In trembling rhythm, whereto the dancers moved
In the dance of dawn. First all the motions slow
As shadows that swing down an eastern range,
Soft-footed steps and wave of rosy veils;
And next the freshness and the eager stir
Of life that slept in beauty and awoke
To sing. So lyre and flute rose high, and leaped
The dancers in triumphant ecstacy.
And as it ended all that group retired,
And all the players of the lyre and flute,
And they, the Nubians of the chosen tribe.

And silence grew out through that mighty hall
Save where beyond the wall a sound was made
Like half-remembered music of a dream.
And the drooped lights purple and golden shone.
And through the air the rich Messenian wine.
Left a sweet odor like the breath that stirs
The lips of Gods, when Gods are bent on love.
And Creon let his eyes through a long space
Fall on her, and he thrilled to think such beauty
Should be near his touch; gazed ever on those lips
That smiled less often than they seemed, and throat
Even more white than soft, and there below,

Just hidden by the loose robe girt around,

Her breasts made gradual swell, and the cloth flowed Softly along her waist, o'er hips and thighs

Whose roundness made sweet magic of each fold;
And last his eye caught on the sandalled feet

Crossed by thick-jeweled thongs that showed more dark
Against the tender white, where a small vein
Ran out a little tracery of blue.

Up in the east an eager radiance sprang
And ran along the sands and made old Nile
Run red between the shadows of his banks.
And so it struck those sphinxes crouched at watch
Grimly before the gates, struck them and rose,
And reached that lighted room, and looked beyond
The lights.

And the queen saw it first.

Even then

A maiden came therein who bore a cup,
A wonderous cup, flashing more fair than day,
And in it, darker than the pools of night,

The hemlock; placed on the table and went out
Dolorous-footed from that waiting hall.

Laughing rose Creon, not a laggard sound,
This as it burst forth made a rout of all
The lurking shadows. So he grasped the cup
And raised aloft, and ever laughing cried:
"Libations to high Eros, God of Gods,
And Atropos, who brought me to this night!
O queen, I feel the arms of Proserpine!"

But ere he drank, sudden she started up,
With wan, drear lips, and placed a hand upon
The fateful arm, but never word she spoke,
For as they stood a growing sound moved out,
Strong as the horror of that dawn of death-
The marching trumpets of Antonius.

A SUGGESTED SIMPLIFICATION IN THE PRESENT METHOD OF ADMITTING FRESHMEN

TO THE UNIVERSITY

W. SCOTT THOMAS

Considered broadly and historically, there are found two, and only two, methods by which pupils have passed from the fitting school to the freshman class of the American college. These two methods may be adequately designated by calling one the examination method and the other the accrediting method.

The examination method is the older. In origin, it harks back to the days of the small college, with its easy opportunity for close personal contact between the college teachers and the would-be student.

According to this method, the college authorities seek, by means that have with time undergone numerous changes, to determine by and for themselves, the fitness of the candidate to take up college work. The means, at first scarcely more than a personal conference between the candidate and some college officer, came with growth in the number of those seeking admission, to be almost wholly a formal written examination of the applicant in certain prescribed subjects of preparatory study.

The examination method has been chiefly characteristic of the East; while the accrediting method has been characteristic of the West, where it originated.

Essentially, the accrediting method is a transference under certain conditions, of the means and the responsi

bility for determining the fitness of the individual applicant for admission from the college authorities to those of the school. In other words, it may be called the examination of an institution instead of an individual.

It is clear that the acceptance by the colleges and universities of the accrediting method would seem to imply an assumption of qualifications of the school authorities to pass satisfactorily upon the applicants' fitness to do college work.

Such in brief are the fundamentals of the American methods of admission to college. Today all freshmen are admitted by one or the other of these methods or by a combination of both.

The University of California during the first sixteen years of its history employed the older method; but in March, 1884, the Board of Regents issued an order whereby the first tentative steps were taken in the use of the accrediting method, which had already met with a warm reception in some parts of the middle West. The order of the Regents, as slightly modified later, read as follows:

Upon the request of the principal of any public or private school in California whose course of study embraces, in kind and extent the subjects required for admission to any college of the University at Berkeley, a committee of the Academic Senate will visit such school and report upon the quality of instruction there given. If the report of such committee be favorable a graduate of the school, upon the personal recommendation of the principal, accompanied by his certificate that the graduate has satisfactorily completed the studies of the course preparatory to the college he wishes to enter, may, at the discretion of the Faculty of such college, be admitted without examination.

From the wording of this order, it might be assumed that the University had thus early come to acknowledge and accept the most fundamental principle of the accrediting system. That is, that the method of individual examination of the candidate by the college had been superseded by the recommendation of the principal of the school, and that admission to the freshman class was henceforth to be