The herald., 1896-11-23
GARVANZA.
Citizens Hope to Secure Occidental Col
lege-General Notes.

GARVANZA, Nov. 22.--At a meeting
of citizens called last Tuesday by H. c.
McBurney of the school board to con-
to this neighborhood President Parkhill
told of the good work already done, of
the promise of seven and half acres
opposite to the beautiful home of Judge
Matthew Allen on Pasadena avenue if
$40, 900 could be raised and an additional
prospect of $4,000 from the Presbytery
of California Rev. A. A. Dinmore of
Alhambra called for subscriptions and
a liberal list was started, which is still
being circulated.
billed for last Thursday evening was
postponed one week on account of rain.
The literary club Friday evening at
the home of Mrs. McCracken was well
attended in spite of wet weather. Prof.
Garwood, secretary of the club, said
he had spread The Herald's accurate
account of the preceding meeting upon
the permanent record of the club. Upon
motion it was voted unanimously to
keep the paper posted upon the clubs
work.
President Ingham discussed the pro-
logue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
and read selections from it. Mrs. Nc
Cracken then explained the scheme of
the first great English poem: Thirty
pilgrims to the tomb of Thomas a
Beckett at Canterbury, stopping at a
wayside inn, We're each to tell one story
going and one returning, but only
twenty-five of the sixty intended were
ever written. Vice-President Gilbert
read extracts from Piers Plowman"
and Mr.. Thomas Fellows described NAL
vern Hills, near his boyhood's home
upon which was laid the scene of Piers
Plowman's vision by William Lang
land. Miss E. f. Thornton told the
story of The knights Tale. Mrs. Eel
lows compared Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales with Longfellow's Tales of a
Wayside Inn and invited the club to
hold it's next meeting at her house.
Mrs. w. S. Baird began scholarly
synopsis of German history during the
fourteenth and half of the fifteenth CEN
tury with the reign of Albert of Aus
trla and his attempt to seize Switzer-
land.
''The twentyseven year reign of Sigis-
mund in the first half of the fifteenth
century was signalized by the burning
of John Huss for his attacks upon the
church, the Hussite war in consequence,
the successful revolt of Bohemia and the
adoption of the double-headed eagle as
a national standard. 1t symboliZed
Germany and the Roman empire united
and is retained now by Austria alone
in 1887 the Hapsburgers regained the
throne of Germany and retained it in
their family until the breaking up of the
empire, three hundred years later
Mrs. E. c. Owens gave a biographical
sketch of Bocaccio, his birth, education
and work in Florence in the fourteenth
century: ut was not in his themes
but in his handling of them that Bocac-
clio was original. His style was not
classical, mediaeval nor modern. Its
originality lay in the fact that it salts
fled an age which was classical though
not medieval nor modern. That which
seems to us rococo and affected seemed
to those Of that time brilliant and
learned. The best society>of that time
discussed themes now hardly tolerated
in a barrack. Bocaccio was the most
brilliant story writer the world has ever
seen; the Decameron was his best work,
he translated Homer, wrote life of
Dante and his dictionaries of mythol-
ogy, biography and geography were
monuments of self-sacrificing and un-
remitting toll in the early dawn of mod