farewell to 1883

FAREWELL TO 1883 I will avail myself of your invitation to speak. Your rare and hard attention is not to be wasted and what I have to tell you is worth very little. Benevolence will favor goodwill. '83 deserves a fond farewell, a smile of gratitude, from us. It is a friend that is bidding us farewell; a peaceful and calm day that slips away at the nightfall; a beautiful and rich page of the variegated book of our existence. With it have gone many of our ideals, sweet affections and illusions of the soul. And in fact '83 has given us our mutual friend Ventura who has not only been our companion but a genuine compatriot. His name is in our hearts and I will not extol him. '83 has brought us the two Esquivels, animation and joy, one a mathematician, the other linguist to others; to us they are friends besides; Mr. Felipe Zamora, glory of our medical science, who has not only left pleasant memories in Madrid but also a void that no one has filled; Mr. Enrique Rogers, a worthy model for his character, talent, and sentiments; Mr. Evaristo Aguirre, orator, poet, with a delicate and ready pen, who has brought us the airs of the Andalucia beyond the seas; Mr. Jimenez whose brief sojourn concealed many of his good qualities; Mr. Tuason who is remembered for his generous deeds and who makes himself liked without being hated; and finally '83 has returned to Madrid, to letters, and to his comrades the indefatigable Mr. Pedro Paterno, the personification of longing and activity, a son of the mother country, and a favorite of the Muses. The students made a good showing; the future prepares splendors and magnificence. Love and Joy, those divinities of youth, have visited us and attended our dances, outings, strolls, pilgrimages, in the form of youthful beauties who have departed with the flowers of spring. Many hearts have lost their freedom but they bless their chains. Unanimous and spontaneous strokes of good fellowship, meetings where the voice