Morning Fix

Rub the film of obedient blindness from your eyes, oh Veritas; we are back and would share greater vistas with you. Hidden under cloth of monotonous hue, your once-broad searching has hurried along the dictated path, looking neither to right nor left. The stern discipline imposed on your inquiring soul must have made insensitive dreams of clouds lolling in luxurious sunlight, resilient grasses, paternal elms and walls of mellow brick. You needed peace, and us, and we needed you, while we were stumbling upon the rocky path.

We believed in you when we were younger, Harvard, and we inwardly drew back as we were pushed into the traffic of the world. But we had to go: and perhaps one of the questions you had taught us to ask we secretly wanted to ask you, the very fountainhead. You had told us that to understand knowledge would show us The Way more certainly than a flash of faith: but wasn't it faith that drew us to you? Your science had justified to us the conviction of Christ and of our own country's founders that our fellow men were our brothers and equals: but had you showed us how to love the man who still remained unconvinced? Could we fit into your gentle worlds of learning the treachery of desperate Arab urchins, the hauteur of allies hurt by unplanned insults, the greediness of Italian waifs in snatching scraps we refused, the hollow smiles of erstwhile enemies? Could we reconcile the fear we had at being shoved out to meet predestined missiles hurled by other cringing beings?

There were more of us when we last embraced you, but if you do not see them coming back, do not wait, nor yet forget them. They saw the light that shined on The Way even if their feet did not feel the pavement. They and we stood by you, Veritas--the map you drew for us had been keenly perceived and boldly executed. Your disciples had bravely threshed unordered knowledge and had given us the grain to staff our life. But you seldom feel the sweat and blasphemy of living, while we anxiously look for earthly applications of our growing wisdom. We lost the freshness of your teachings while wrestling with a less sympathetic but no less worthy teacher. We admire the ideals you have held out to us, but we do not find the lessons complete.

When we record the scenes about the Yard, it shall be with enthusiasm; we shall mark the times and deeds with truth; and we shall look for the humanity in man. We will laugh, and let him protest whom the jester's sock pinches. We shall ask questions and they shall be blunt. Come with us, Veritas; we want your company, and we hope that you may profit from ours. We will have an answer ready when you ask, "Quo vadimus?"