What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was the frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary association. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the landlord had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which the young folks of all the country round had resorted. It was still sometimes used for similar occasions, but it was especially notable as being the place of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY.
This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted as signifying that its members knew everything, had no such pretensions, but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, held itself open to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from such as had knowledge to impart. Its President was the rector of the little chapel, a man who, in spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire from the widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching or losing his temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern was a convenient place of meeting for the students and instructors of the University and the Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage-loads, sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to the meetings in Pansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called.
These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the most part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by the students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances by anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and discussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought worth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great. The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favorite subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the will, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem.
Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating to the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The most conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladies and some of the University students were strong in defence of all the “woman's rights” doctrines. Some of these young people were extreme in their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and Queen Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the chance, to vote for a woman as President of the United States or as General of the United States Army. They were even disposed to assert the physical equality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather questionable history of the Amazons, and especially of the story, believed to be authentic, of the female body-guard of the King of Dahomey,—females frightful enough to need no other weapon than their looks to scare off an army of Cossacks.
Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna Institute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It was rather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of this extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with brain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; looking almost like a child at an age when many of the girls had reached their full stature and proportions. In her studies she was so far in advance of her different classes that there was always a wide gap between her and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herself that she passed under the school name of The Terror. She learned so easily that she undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the deepest admiration for those of her friends endowed with faculties of an entirely different and almost opposite nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her the encyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go through the series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her schoolmates delighting.
One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she was of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which nature had specially organized her. All the physical perfections which Miss Lurida had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, whose school name was The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, there were several taller girls of her age. While all her contours and all her movements betrayed a fine muscular development, there was no lack of proportion, and her finely shaped hands and feet showed that her organization was one of those carefully finished masterpieces of nature which sculptors are always in search of, and find it hard to detect among the imperfect products of the living laboratory.
This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with the same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at the University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a source of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which the young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managing herself in the accomplishment of feats which looked impossible at first sight. How often The Terror had thought to herself that she would gladly give up all her knowledge of Greek and the differential and integral calculus if she could only perform the least of those feats which were mere play to The Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the rest in her attainments in classical or mathematical knowledge, and she was one of the very best students in the out-door branches,—botany, mineralogy, sketching from nature,—to be found among the scholars of the Institute.
There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there were many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, and quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office where brains are more needed than muscle.
There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and rowed by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and captain of the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like the captain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one or two quiet trials with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the ultras of the woman's rights party, he had not vindicated the superiority of his sex in the way which might have been expected. Indeed, it was claimed that he let a cannon-ball drop when he ought to have caught it, and it was not disputed that he had been ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag projected by the strong arms of the young maiden. This was of course a story that was widely told and laughingly listened to, and the captain of the University crew had become a little sensitive on the subject. When there was a talk, therefore, about a race between the champion boats of the two institutions there was immense excitement in both of them, as well as among the members of the Pansophian Society and all the good people of the village.
There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it unladylike for the young maidens to take part in a competition which must attract many lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to venture upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of girls try their strength against an equal number of powerful young men. These objections were offset by the advocates of the race by the following arguments. They maintained that it was no more hoidenish to row a boat than it was to take a part in the calisthenic exercises, and that the girls had nothing to do with the young men's boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as possible. As to strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight for weight, their crew was as strong as the other, and of course due allowance would be made for the difference of weight and all other accidental hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiority of masculine muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the whole country would know it, and after that female suffrage