(2 of 2)
The reading, as non-Harvard men can discover in "Copey's" an- thology, may start off with something from the Bible—nothing dull like all those "begatters" (ST. MATTHEW,) but something with action like the Israelites' conquest of Canaan (JUDGES IV :V), something affecting like David's lament for Absalom (SAMUEL XVIII; XIX), or something portentous out of REVELATION. Or it may begin with so different a thing as Lewis Carroll's "You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; " And yet you incessantly stand on your head— "Do you think, at your age, it is right ?" ...
Or it may have occurred to "Copey" to acquaint his listeners with the writing of some Harvard man—the late Poet Allan Seeger, who was doubtless one of the hundreds of men-with whom "Copey" kept up a lively correspondence as his contribution to the War; or Funnyman Robert Benchley, of Life; or Heywood Broun, idly-ambling colyumist of the New York World.
Of classical selections in "Copey's" anthology there is, of course, a great plenitude. The grief of Achilles over the body of Patroclus; the death of Socrates; "Hark! Hark! the Lark" and "Full Fathom Five"; "Lycidas"; "To Althea from Prison"; Gulliver and the Lilliputians; Tristram and the Ass; the Pibroch of Donuil Dhu; "The Rime of the Ancient Mari-er" and "Kubla Khan"; Lamb's "Gentle Giantess"; Edward John Trelawny on how they burned Shelley's body; a great deal of Keats; more Tennyson; still more Thackeray and Browning and more Dickens than anyone.
The test being read-aloud-able-ness, this last is only natural, but it is also quite necessary. Now that Dean Briggs is gone, "Copey" is the last of a vanished style in Harvard professors, in professors anywhere, for that matter. He himself is Dickensian, with his piercing glance to identify a caller or passerby, his two bachelor rooms in the garret of old Hollis, his quick replies which from a less amiable nature might be crabbed but from him seem wry and sprightly, and his remark in the introduction to his anthology: "As for Christmas Eve, it won't seem like itself if Mrs. Lowell stops allowing me to bring my book. . . ."
Every year for 21 years the Harvard Club of New York has had a "Copey" evening, a dinner to which a fortunate company, the Copeland Associates (by invitation only), sit down, followed by a reading. Here Theodore Roosevelt used to come. Here now come J. P. Morgan and his partner, Thomas W. Lamont. Here Publisher George Palmer Putnam and perhaps Nov- elists Owen Wister and Arthur Train, Poets Conrad Aiken, Hermann Hagedorn, Witter Bynner—these and many a plain John Smith and Tom Jones whose only claims to fame, perhaps, were their selection of one of "Copey's" courses and their attendance upon his Monday nights at Harvard, gather around, shake hands and exchange greetings with the small man who seems to look fondly down on them all from below.
—THE COPELAND READER—Chosen and edited by Charles Townsend Copeland, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard University—Scribner's ($10).