The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-07-16
From the n. Y. Tribune.
The A. Ii.

1ne A. IL.
These first days of July drag us all per
force into leisure; the city pastor breaches
twlce-used sermons TO empty benches; The
shopman yawns behind his too orderly coun.
ters; the doctors patients have slipped away
to the mediums of trout streams or beach.
and lett him TO read up his old numbers Of
the Lancet; even the hod-caIrier is forced
into the unwillil G dolce far niente OF an all
day pipe and dram. But Tom and Phil and
Bob, crowding the caIs after the commence
ment-day with their satcbels and trunks full
OF old elass-books and tin cases of specimens.
would swear to you that the conflict of ali
life was just now at its heat; they have
touched the top and crown of things within
the last week. Who ought to know so well
as they? Have they not stood apart for
years, looking philosophically ON mankind?
These great warning forces in sociology, in
science, in politics. in religion, have they not
the history OF them all at their tongues end?
1t is perfectly plain to their eyes how these
all now are about to join issue how the
world has reached its dark hour. its supreme
throe, its ides of March, and every lad of
them with any thought or spirit in him fan
cies himself the hero who is TO bring help,
the well-beloved Brutus who shall give to the
tyrant, call him by what name you will, the
death-dealins blow. The world of all Time,
from old Homer and Sophocles, with whom
they have logged in company so long, to the
envious ''Sophs" staring at them from the
depot doors, wait breathess to see them take
high rank in the great field of battle, and
promptly make footsteps in the sands of
time. They feel-the ingenious iellows-the
imminence and subimity of the passing DAYS
so deeply that the showing, smoking crowd,
men grumbling about tickets and bills of lad
ing, women cackling over their babies, is to
them only contemp ibe and vulgar. They
bear themselves with lofty indifference to
the trivial remainder of mankind, fall at a
moments notice into deep reveries, with
folded arms and eyes sternly fixed out Of the
window. What do those old fellows, with
their noses boring into the financial column
OF the Tribune, or the conductor. know of
the true philosophy Of history, or the correla-
tion OF forces, or the honey of Hymettus?
They themselves have its ancient sweetness
on their lips; they are generous in discover
ing in each other the honey and fire and
ichor of the gods. Not carload Of A. BIS
leaves the poorest Alma Mater that does not
contain the coming man, poet, statesman,
logician, who is to herald new dawn, and
to whom his mates doff their bonnets 10y
ally.
These beardless sages have manners and
customs of their own. They are irreproach-
able as to shaving, shirt-cutfs or necktis.
They carry both an umbrella and cane.
graphs in their coat pockets, but in the waist
coat carte and bit OF black or yellow curl,
which they brought away last night from the
Presidents party. They call loudly TO each
other across the car. In secluded corners
they give many editions to the same joke
about certain bottles of champagne last
night. They lard their garments with tags
of Horace, aud glancing furti7ely around the
car, talk of the Hoi p0itoi. The giaver AMI
more scholastic spirits sit apart, meditatng
upon their future. They are either orthodox
and devout. and destined TO the ministry, or
have just finished a premiership OF Carlyle,
and are now disciples of Emerson, with
hazy effort at atheism, which they think is
German mysticism. A touch will fire them
into argument which will last to the jour
ney's eLd. Nothing else breaks their calm
elfpolse; the brakesman stopping in the
smoking-car to wipe his perspring face and
make remark on the weather, or the sharp
town lawyer with his 'Just out of school,
eh? ?' ale held OIL by the same armor OF grave
dignity. But when the pretty girl with the
pink buds in her hat goes out, and her polo
naise fiutters airly past their knees, they half
rise and blush and stare and sit down, quite
sure that they have never looked SO like
idiots. In few hours each one of them will
be landed at home, cane, downy moustaehe,
Greek, science and dignity, and prestoi ne As
not A. B., but Phil or Bob again. Whether
he has earned honors or not, he is hero for
a few days, codded and worshipped, the
snuggest corner given up to his cigar and
books and Instruments. But in tor.-
night he finds the world about him alien.
There is no room OF comprehension for his
profound theories, his gigantic plans. HIS
father puts the question sharply, is it to be
the law or the counting-house, Bob?" His
neither, his fat, stocking-darning, pie-baking
mother-he thinks of his venerable Alma Ma
ter crowned with the lore of ages, and turns
away from the old lady with half distaste.
Then there are his sisteas, Polite and Sue,
and the pert, pretty little chts that they
bring about the house. He adventures
among them, and Homer and Kant and Her
bert Spencer vanish and leave him in the
lurch; the brain is wrung ou; sponge, his
jaws are on fire, his collar runs into his ears,
his arms and legs trip him up.
And so he stumbles on day by day and
year by year, pulled this way by diffidenee,
and that way by cOnceit, until he is showed at
last into his proper place in the world. Some
day in middle age he wakes up to find that
he has slain no tyrant, heralded no dawn;
that he, too, grumbles over tickets, or pores
over financial columns; that he has forgotten
Kant and Emerson and German infidelities,
and is given over to zeal in the sugar trade
or the spawning OF fish, or to bleak in the
village church, of which he is an elder. Al
ma Mater and her loves he remembers with
a good humored laugh and nod, but there is
nothing so sacred or dear to him, or so often
old, fat, tender-hearted mother whom, when
her work was done, he had laid reverently to
rest in the church-yard.