DOG DAYS

Cynic, as anyone knows who has taken Philosophy A, and everyone knows who has taken Greek, is a polite name for the canine minded. For only a dog can keep his nose so close to the scent that he does not in some fashion appreciate sunset and saints and symbols. But in spite of the bad lineage which this word must admit, it still remains popular, not alone at tea parties where to be a cynic is to be lionized, but even in Harvard Yard, where to be a cynic is to be quite de rigeur.

Indeed, March, having appeared like a lion, finds Cambridge besieged by a plague of cynicism almost approximating the plague of colds now making lectures objectively staccato. This month might be and really is called by some dog might be and really is called by some dog days, mainly due, of course, to this sweeping cynicism, and not as some might think, because the sun is climbing northward with a persistency remarkable for one so old. So the thinking being when he climbs into bed to race the blissful nirvana of eclipsed regrets occasionally wastes a few minutes and an aspirin tablet in tracing this phenomenon to its source.

And usually he comes to one of the following conclusions: it is the weather; it is divisionals; it is tutorial reading; it is just plain intellectual fatigue. In all of which he is partly right. Some time ago the CRIMSON mentioned the chronic case of college cramp, affecting the University. Spring has not yet come to cure that ill.. So dog days continue to rule. Yet even the very least of university Pollyannas must remember that canines, though necessary beings, are not, after all, the most delightful companions when they continue to growl like child Menckens. The weather is rather impossible; the divisionals very near at hand; the tutorial reading twice as inglorious as the poorest want ad--and woe is truly upon every ice cake and puddle of existence. But cynicism usually prefaces belief. And the sun really is getting farther and farther from Palm Beach and nearer and nearer the waste lands of Cambridge. Dog days are almost over.