The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ already has the heart, of Tackett. Herr Kordwäner, too, has come to the conclusion that he wants a partner, and on the day of the wedding a new sign is to be put up over a new and larger shop, on which 'Co.' will mean Hopeful Tackett. In the mean time, Hopeful hammers away lustily, merrily whistling, and singing the praises of the 'Banger.' Occasionally, when he is resting, he will tenderly embrace his stump of a leg, gently patting and stroking it, and talking to it as to a pet. If a stranger is in the shop, he will hold it out admiringly, and ask:

      'Do you know what I call that? I call that 'Hopeful Tackett—his mark.''

      And it is a mark—a mark of distinction—a badge of honor, worn by many a brave fellow who has gone forth, borne and upheld by a love for the dear old flag, to fight, to suffer, to die if need be, for it; won in the fierce contest, amid the clashing strokes of the steel and the wild whistling of bullets; won by unflinching nerve and unyielding muscle; worn as a badge of the proudest distinction an American can reach. If these lines come to one of those that have thus fought and suffered—though his scars were received in some unnoticed, unpublished skirmish, though official bulletins spoke not of him, 'though fame shall never know his story'—let them come as a tribute to him; as a token that he is not forgotten; that those that have been with him through the trials and the triumphs of the field, remember him and the heroic courage that won for him by those honorable scars; and that while life is left to them they will work and fight in the same cause, cheerfully making the same sacrifices, seeking no higher reward than to take him by the hand and call him 'comrade,' and to share with him the proud consciousness of duty done. Shoulder-straps and stars may bring renown; but he is no less a real hero who, with rifle and bayonet, throws himself into the breach, and, uninspired by hope of official notice, battles manfully for the right.

      Hopeful Tackett, humble yet illustrious, a hero for all time, we salute you.

      JOHN BULL TO JONATHAN

      You grow too fast, my child! Your stalwart limbs,

      Herculean in might, now rival mine;

      The starry light upon your forehead dims

      The lustre of my crown—distasteful sign.

      Contract thy wishes, boy! Do not insist

      Too much on what's thine own—thou art too new!

      Bend and curtail thy stature! As I list,

      It is my glorious privilege to do.

      Take my advice—I freely give it thee—

      Nay, would enforce it. I am ripe in years—

      Let thy young vigor minister to me!

      Restrain thy freedom when it interferes!

      No rival must among the nations be

      To jeopardize my own supremacy!

      JONATHAN TO JOHN BULL

      Thanks for your kind advice, my worthy sire!

      Though thrust upon me, and but little prized.

      The offices you modestly require,

      I reckon, will be scarcely realized.

      My service to you! but not quite so far

      That I will lop a limb, or force my lips

      To gratify your longing. Not a star

      Of my escutcheon shall your fogs eclipse!

      Let noble deeds evince my parentage.

      No rival I; my aim is not so low:

      In nature's course, youth soon outstrippeth age,

      And is survivor at its overthrow.

      Freedom is Heaven's best gift. Thanks! I am free,

      Nor will acknowledge your supremacy!

      AMERICAN STUDENT LIFE

      SOME MEMORIES OF YALE

      'Through many an hour of summer suns,

      By many pleasant ways,

      Like Hezekiah's, backward runs

      The shadow of my days.

      I kiss the lips I once have kissed;

      The gas-light wavers dimmer;

      And softly through a vinous mist,

      My college friendships glimmer.'

—Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue.

      It is now I dare not say how many years since the night that chum and I, emerging from No. 24, South College, descended the well-worn staircase, and took our last stroll beneath the heavy shadows that darkly hung from the old elms of our Alma Mater. Commencement, with its dazzling excitement, its galleries of fair faces to smile and approve, its gathered wisdom to listen and adjudge, was no longer the goal of our student-hopes; and the terrible realization that our joyous college-days were over, now pressed hard upon us as we paced slowly along, listening to the low night wind among the summer leaves overhead, or looking up at the darkened windows whence the laugh and song of class-mates had so oft resounded to vex with mirth the drowsy ear of night—and tutors. I thought then, as I have often thought since, that our student-life must be 'the golden prime' compared with which all coming time would be as silver, brass, or iron. Here youth with its keenness of enjoyment and generous heartiness; freedom from care, smooth-browed and mirthful; liberal studies refining and elevating withal; the Numbers, whose ready sympathy had divided sorrow and multiplied joy, were associated as they never could be again; and so I doubt not many a one has felt as he stood at the door of academic life and looked away over its sunny meadows to the dark woodlands and rugged hillsides of world-life. How throbbed in old days the wandering student's heart as on the distant hill-top he turned to take a last look at disappearing Bologna and remembered the fair curtain-lecturing Novella de Andrea1—fair prototype of modern Mrs. Caudle; how his spirits rose when, like Lucentio, he came to 'fair Padua, nursery of arts;' or how he mused for the last time wandering beside the turbid Arno, in

'Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,'

      we wot not. Little do we know either of the ancient 'larks' of the Sorbonne, of Leyden, Utrecht, and Amsterdam; somewhat less, in spite of gifted imagining, of The Student of Salamanca. But Howitt's Student Life in Germany, setting forth in all its noisy, smoking, beer-drinking conviviality the significance of the Burschenleben,

'I am an unmarried scholar and a free man;'

      Bristed's Five Years in an English University, congenial in its setting forth of the Cantab's carnal delights and intellectual jockeyism; The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, wherein one 'Cuthbert Bede, B.A.' has by 'numerous illustrations' of numerous dissipations, given as good an idea as is desirable of the 'rowing men' in that very antediluvian receptacle of elegant scholarship; are all present evidences of the affectionate interest with which the graduate reverts to his college days. In like manner Student Life in Scotland has engaged the late attention of venerable Blackwood, while the pages of Putnam, in Life in a Canadian College,2 and Fireside Travels,3 have given some idea of things nearer home, some little time ago. But while numerous pamphlets and essays have been written on our collegiate systems of education, the general development and present doings of Young America in the universities remain untouched.

      The academic influences exerted over American students are, it must be premised, vastly different from those of the old world. Imprimis, our colleges are just well into being. Reaching back into no dim antiquity, their rise and progress are traceable from their beginnings—beginnings not always the greatest. Thus saith the poet doctor of his Alma Mater:

      'Pray, who was on the Catalogue

      When СКАЧАТЬ