Owen's house had no ballroom (except one of those floored attics on
which our people persist in bestowing that ambitious title) she decided
that the Propylaeum alone would serve. Pray do not reach for your
dictionary, my friend! No matter how much Greek may have survived your
commencement day, you would never know that our Propylaeum (reared by the
women of our town in North Street, facing the pillared facade of the
Blind Institute) became, on its completion in 1890, the centre of our
intellectual and social life. The club "papers" read under that roof
constitute a literature all the nobler for the discretion that reserves
it for atrabilious local criticism; the later editions of our _jeunesse
doree_ have danced there and Boxed and Coxed as Dramatic Club stars on
its stage. "Billy" Sumner once lectured there on "War" before the
Contemporary Club, to say nothing of Mr. James's appearance (herein
before mentioned), which left us, filled with wildest surmise, on the
crest of a new and ultimate Darien. Nor shall I omit that memorable tea
to the Chinese lady when the press became so great that a number of
timorous Occidentals in their best bib and tucker departed with all
possible dignity by way of the fire-escape. So the place being historic,
as things go in a new country, Mrs. Owen did not, in vulgar parlance,
"hire a hall," but gave her party in a social temple of loftiest
consecration.
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