use of allegory as illustration:

 

_THE LEADERSHIP OF EDUCATED MEN_

 

There is a modern English picture which the genius of Hawthorne might have

inspired. The painter calls it, "How they met themselves." A man and a woman,

haggard and weary, wandering lost in a somber wood, suddenly meet the shadowy

figures of a youth and a maid. Some mysterious fascination fixes the gaze and

stills the hearts of the wanderers, and their amazement deepens into awe as they

gradually recognize themselves as once they were; the soft bloom of youth upon

their rounded cheeks, the dewy light of hope in their trusting eyes, exulting

confidence in their springing step, themselves blithe and radiant with the glory

of the dawn. Today, and here, we meet ourselves. Not to these familiar scenes

alone--yonder college-green with its reverend traditions; the halcyon cove of

the Seekonk, upon which the memory of Roger Williams broods like a bird of calm;

the historic bay, beating forever with the muffled oars of Barton and of Abraham

Whipple; here, the humming city of the living; there, the peaceful city of the

dead;--not to these only or chiefly do we return, but to ourselves as we once

were. It is not the smiling freshmen of the year, it is your own beardless and

unwrinkled faces, that are looking from the windows of University Hall and of

Hope College. Under the trees upon the hill it is yourselves whom you see

walking, full of hopes and dreams, glowing with conscious power, and "nourishing

a youth sublime;" and in this familiar temple, which surely has never echoed

with eloquence so fervid and inspiring as that of your commencement orations, it

is not yonder youths in the galleries who, as they fondly believe, are