The Princess Pourquoi

by Margaret Pollock Sherwood

CAME RIDING FROM ALL PARTS OF THE KINGDOM

It was noised abroad that the Lord Rector would deliver the first lecture when the new work began, and all were eager to hear; so it came to pass one day that a huge company passed in procession under the carven Gothic gate and into the great hall whose stained windows looked one way on the river and the other way on the court. First, in gown of velvet and of silk, came My Lord Rector, muttering in his beard; after him followed the philosophers, with stately step and slow; and then young squires a-many, who were eager to see what would befall; and lords and ladies in gay clothing, rarely embroidered in choice colors. There were maiden students also, many score, and at their head Sylvie, in scarlet silken gown, and Natalie in green; Amelie in brown velvet, curiously slashed, and Virginie in yellow; Sidonie in blue samite, and Dorothée in silver, and little Clementine in white, as befitted her tender years. Now behold! within the great hall the King was already waiting in a chair of state under a velvet canopy, and My Lord Rector and the philosophers of the new faculty bowed low to him as they entered. Then the Rector mounted upon a platform, and bowing to the King with "Rex augustissimus" he winked in his old fashion and fell a-coughing, and the King winked back and then fell a-sneezing, to hide the smile that his beard only half concealed.

"Viri illustrissimi," continued the Rector, bowing again before his audience and speaking in a solemn voice: "mutatis mutandis, horresco referens, da locum melioribus, dux femina facti, humanum est errare, nil nisi cruce, graviora manent, post nubila Phoebus, sunt lachrimae rerum, vae victis."

The last words came with a quiver of the voice, and many wept, for they did not understand his folly. Then My Lord Rector turned to the fair body of women students and spoke, seeing only the face of little Clementine:—

"Feminae praeclarissimae, credo quia impossibile est, inest Clementia forti, crede quod habes et habeo, sic itur ad astra, toga virilis, vita sine literis mors est, varium et mutabile semper femina, vade in pace," and with this there was hardly a dry eye in the house. So the new university was opened.

Needless to say, the success of the undertaking was great. Throughout the land, bower and hall and dell were left empty, for the maidens had all gone to the capital to get learning. They no longer wrought fair figures in the embroidery frames in the great halls of their ancestral castles, or polished the armor of father and brother, or brewed cordials for the sick over the glowing coals. They no longer wandered in gowns of green on their palfreys by hill or dale for the joy of going. By hundreds they bowed their fair heads before the philosophers as they lectured, taking notes upon the tablets of their minds, for they did not know how to write. My Lord Rector, when he spoke, could find no room large enough to contain his audiences, so he lectured only on sunshiny days, and stood on a platform in the centre of the great court; and words of grave nonsense fell from his lips as the light fell on golden hair or brown. So intently did the maidens listen that they did not smell the fragrance of the flowers crushed beneath their feet, wild rose and lily and violet, nor did they hear the beat of the wings of startled birds, nor see red crest, or golden wing, or blue, flash across the sky.

Being a cunning man and keen, My Lord Rector had left to the flocking students the choice of the lectures that they should pursue.

"Let them but manage it themselves," he said, smiling wickedly, at a private audience with the King, "and we shall see great things."

So the maidens met in assembly and consulted gravely together, and conferred with Rector and with faculty, and presently many branches of learning were established and all was going with great vigor. Each student chose for herself what course she should pursue, and it was pretty to see how maiden whims worked out into hard endeavor. Black-haired Sylvie specialized in dramatics, for she made, with her sweeping locks, an excellent tragedy queen; Natalie in athletics, and she took the standing high-jump better than any knight in Christendom; golden-haired Amelie devoted all her time to fiddling and giglology, and soon became proficient; Virginie, of the brown eyes, took ping-pong and fudge; blue-eyed Sidonie, acrostics and charades; Dorothée took chattering and cheering, and soon her sweet voice could be heard above the noise of building, or the roar of battle; while little Clementine worked at all branches of frivology, and became a great favorite, for in looks and in manner and in taste she represented that which is most pleasing in woman.

To tell of all they did and learned and thought would be too long a tale, and, moreover, the records of much of it have perished, but men say that their life was both strenuous and merry, and that womankind blossomed out into new beauty of face and form and mind. The infinite range of opportunity has been but faintly shadowed forth in the hints already given; and to those who philosophized and those who poetized, those who took societies and those who took cuts, life was one long burst of irrelevant, joyous activity. Most zealous of all the students was little Clementine. Ceaselessly alert, she listened with upturned face to lectures in the great flower-grown court; with infantile audacity she ventured out into vast unknown realms of thought, and puckered her white forehead in trying to work out the unutterable syllable. Now she walked the cloisters where the shadow of carven leaf and tendril fell on her hair, studying a parchment; and again, in moments of relaxation, she rode her dog-eared pony fast and furiously. To some this animal may seem strange, but there were many queer creatures in those days, as Sir John Maundeville tells.