Year: 1874

These first days or July uTaS us all per1Orce
into leisure; the city pastor breaches twice
used sermons to empty benches; the shOpman
yawns behind his too orderly counters; the
doctors patients have slipped away to the
mediums of trout streams or beach, and left
him to read up his old numbers of The Lancet;
even the hod-carrier is forced into the un-
willing dolce far niente of an al-day pipe and
dram. But Tom and Phil and Bob, crowding
the cars after the Commencement day with
their satchels and trunks full of old class
books and tin cases of specimens, would
swear to you that the conflict of all life was just
now at its neat; they have touched the top and
crown of things within the last week. Who
ought to know so well as they7 Have they
not stood apart for years, looking philosophi-
cally 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 are all now
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 fancies
himself the hero who is to bring
help, the well-b beloved Brutus who shall
give to the tyrant call him by what name
you will, the death-dealing blow. The world
of all Time, from old Homer and Sophoces,
with whom they have logged in company so
long, to the envious "SOphs" staring at them
from the depot doors, wait breathless 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 fell
tha INN auh Of tha
passing days so deeply that the showing,
smoking crowd, men grumbling about
tickets and bills of lading, women cacklng
over their babies, is to them only contempti-
BILE and vulgar. They bear themselves with
a lofty indifference to the trivial remainder of
mankind, fall at o moments notice into deep
reveries, with folded arms and eyes sternly
fixed out of the window. What do these old
fellows, with their noses boring into the
financial column of THE TRIBUNE, or the con-
ductor, know of the true philosophy of his
tory, or the correlation of forces, or the honey
of Hymettus7 They themselves have its
ancient sweetness on their lips; Iioy are
generous in discovering in each other the
honey and fire and ichOr of the gods. Not a
carload of A. BIS leaves the poorest Alma





poet, statesman, logician, who is to herald a
new dawn, and to whom his mates doff their
bonnets Loyalty.


These beardless sages have manners and
customs of their own. They are irreproach-
able as to shaving, shirt-euffs, or neck-tie:
they carry both an umbrella and cane; there
is Hat album with the class photographs in
their cOat-pocket, but in the waistcoat a 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 of the same joke about GER
tain bottles Of champagne last night:
they lard their remarks with tags of
Horace, and glancing furtively about the
car, talk Of the Hoi pOlloi. The grayer
and more scholastic spirits sit apart, medi-
tating upon their future; they are either
orthodox and devout, and destined to the
ministry, or have just finished premiership
OF Carlyle end are now disciples Of Emerson,