River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1897-10-07
Burns Niuht AtI.yceum

fIludy was burns night at L}ceuM,
and whether out Of regard for the
poet or for the people taking part on
the program, the audience that came
together in the Normal Chapel was
unusually large and distinguished by
many mature faces. The music for
the evening was singularly apt, and
included some OF the sterling fayorites
by Burns-Auld Lang Syne and
Coming Through the Rye-as well as
a few Of the rarer lyrics.
y paper by Miss De Lap, dealing
with Burns as boy, poet and
citizen, opened the literary part of
the program, and laid an easy and
safe foundation on which 10 build up
the fabric of the poets larger self
that followed.
The talk by Miss Shultes on the
haunts of Burns as she had so lately
seen them in TER visit 10 Scotland,
was in the nature of a charming
lecture, colloquiauy fluent and yet set
forth in a delightful diction. The
enthusiasm and the touches of
personal feelit 2 that characterized it,
as the scenes Of Burr's boyhood, his
meeting plP yes with Highland Mary
and the farm on which he spent his
closing years, were each called TO
mind in regular order, brought the
pictures very distinctly before the
eye. In addition to this, Miss SLuItes
had provided several charts and
drawings, which helped materially in
the narrative.
With so clear and so attractive a
story, those wits must have been dull
indeed, who failed TO see, though less
clearly than the speaker, the splendid
highways Of Ayrshire as they wound
through the green valleys checkered
with stone walls, closed in on either
hand by trees and ancient mansions,
and interrupted now and then by
rustic stone-arched bridges, older
than the generations, and clothed, as
with drapery, with masses of clinging
ivy. They must have been I'M
sympathetic. too, or no lovers of
Burns, If they failed, on hearing
her charming recital, to catch some
| thing of the personal uplift felt by
| the speaker as she visited, a hundred
years after, the seats of the mighty.
1t was an immensely refreshing
sketch, lively and personal and gay,
and lighted up by bright bits of phil
| osophy. Nor was wit lacking, or a
tilt at repartee with her fellow-tourist
| Miss Pardee At the close of the
| speech, the heartiest kind of applause
was struck up in every part of the
house And the only pity is, that
| there remains no other poet whose
bygone days and haunts Miss Shultes
may be called upon to describe.-Or
have we Walter Scott?
As an appropriate complement to
| the address, Prof. Clark gave several
readings from Burns, including parts
Of The Cotter's Saturday Night and
Tam o. Shanter. As an ardent adj
| mirer Of Burns, one TO whom the
bonnie writer made an early and
certainly lasting appeal, Prof. Clark
was the one among hundred to give
the delicate yet robust spirit of the
lines. The Scotch fire, too, was in
the tone, and here and there the
dialect was given a quantity native
turn that was happy even to distrac-
| ton.
The singing of Aud Lang Syne
closed the program.
Incidental to this program, which
could hardly be dispraised, it is worth
while to say that the Literary Society
| is in a really flourishing state of being
1t probably has better corps OF
workers and committees than las ever
graced its rolls on previous years at
so early period Of the year. Mr..
| SwartZ, as president, has an eye To
making the meetings OF lively
parliamentary interest, giving them
a suggestion OF the public forensic
entertainment as well as a school for
the performers.
Miss Pauline Coggshall has return
ed to her studies aft TWO weeks
absence.
Z. 1 ~ So. rls.NHL