PROSINESS.

IN this age of steam, the telegraph, and telephone, affairs move faster than they did a century ago, and there is no time to be spared on the proser; certainly not in busy Cambridge, though here the species is not yet extinct, as the experience of many students will attest.

When my neighbor calls to return a borrowed book, and for a whole hour imposes upon me his theories respecting the Eastern Question, all of which it required less than five minutes to glean from an article in a newspaper of the evening previous, I fully realize this evil. How soothing to my impatience is his assurance that he was not aware time was passing so quickly, when to me ages were slowly wearing away!

How exasperating when at last I have succeeded in obtaining from the library a long-coveted book, and am hurrying to my room to indulge in the rich treat in store, to meet a real Socrates, who buttonholes me through the Yard, persisting in lecturing me on the Antwerp galleries, which he had visited last vacation, when the criticisms of a Ruskin or a Reynolds might have been enjoyed instead.

The sound of one's own voice is generally so delightful that many persons are unmindful of its effect on the weary listener, who has unfortunately been bound a captive to the prosy tyrant's ambition for a subject.

To some extent this curse contains the seeds of its own destruction, for prosy talkers soon become known, and are anxiously avoided as a pest. But they cannot always be evaded, for prosiness is not wholly confined to talkers, although with them it is most common. But in books, and in our lecture and recitation rooms, it is but too often met with; and the student, bending over a text-book or within the sound of the voice of a teacher, finds his thoughts distracted and wandering away from the subject, which should absorb his whole attention. Instead of brief, simple, terse statements, easily grasped and understood, we have attempts at profound, high-sounding expositions, whose object is to exhibit the learning of the author or utterer, rather than to teach the reader or hearer. Trite sayings, which might be found endurable when succinctly stated, are spun out into a labyrinth of empty phrases, and shallow ideas are harped upon through infinite paragraphs, to give them an importance which they do not deserve.

In a community like ours, prolixity in our social relations must be endured to some extent; our prosy friend will often knock at our door at unseemly hours, disturb our quiet, and exhaust our patience, but, at least, let us be spared this abomination in our recitation-rooms and in our textbooks.