Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/699

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Dec. 15, 1860.]
THE STEADY STUDENTS.
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but again and again it would return, and all the day through she was vaguely speculating how she could or might act if he did not come. She found out all possible hiding-places for it, and tried and rejected them one after the other; and when she closed her shop at night she put it in her pocket and took it home with her—she could not part with it. She thought about it all the evening, feeling repeatedly in her pocket to ascertain that it was still there. The confused dreams of her broken sleep were about it, and the advantages which such a sum would give her—what profit might be made out of it before it had to be returned-all gain to her without any loss or injury to any one—suggestions which her waking thoughts put away as dishonest; and yet she never mentioned it to her friend.




SONNET FROM PETRARCH.

Se lamentar angelli o verdi fronde.

The birds’ sad song, the young leaves’ rustling play,
In the soft summer air, the hoarser sounds
Of lucid waters as they rush away
Between their verdant flower-enameled bounds,
Where, lost in Love’s sweet phantasies, I lie;
All these—the murmur of bird, leaf, and stream,
Are filled with her. To my fond ear and eye
Her voice, her living form, still present seem;
And to my passionate sorrow she replies
In pitying accents from the far-off shore—
“Why dost thou shed such tears from those sad eyes?
Untimely wasting! Weep for me no more.
I died to live; and when life seemed to close,
The dawn of God’s eternal day arose.”

W.




THE STEADY STUDENTS.

While residing in the old town of Luneburg, I got acquainted with a German doctor of philosophy. To my knowledge he never did anything but smoke, compare the different systems of metaphysics, and collect curious tales; but an honester or more truthful man I never knew: and one evening, as we sat together in his summer-house, he told me the following story:

I got my education at the university, or more properly speaking, the College of Brunswick. My father sent me there because somebody had told him the students’ morals were better looked after, and also because we had a second cousin who held the office of notary to the Ducal Court. My father was also notary public to the town council of Luneburg. He owned a considerable property in the town, which may have helped to make him careful of my principles, for I was his only son and heir.

Like most people of property at the time—it was a few years after the general peace—my father was ultra-loyal to the powers that were, and had a bad opinion of student-life, as a school where not only loose practices, but revolutionary opinions might be learned. I know not which was considered the greater evil; but to Brunswick I was sent, placed under the surveillance of my courtly cousin, and appointed to lodge with Frau Subert, a clergyman’s widow, famous for early hours, strict accounts, and all sorts of sober housekeeping. Frau Subert’s dwelling stood in a quarter which had been built when Brunswick was one of the free cities of Germany, and was now decidedly unfashionable, owing to its distance from the court end. Quiet respectable burghers lived there, and carried on business in old-fashioned shops overhung by the first floors. The houses had that antiquated yet substantial look common to the most ancient quarters of our German towns. Many of them had been occupied by the same families for five or six generations, and that was the case with Frau Subert’s. It had a verse from Luther’s bible cut in stone above the front-door; by the way it was in the gable, an outside stair; narrow and pointed windows, and some remains of fortification with which one of her ancestors had strengthened it in the thirty years’ war. There the Frau dwelt with her son and daughter, and regularly let three apartments,—one on the first, one on the second, and one on the third floor. The two upper-rooms were occupied before my arrival; the first floor one being the most genteel and expensive, suited a young man who was heir to property in Luneburg, and had a relation at court; there accordingly my cousin established me, saw that I matriculated properly—advised me to make no acquaintances without consulting him—gave me a solemn invitation to dine at his house on the first Sunday of every month, and left me, as he said, to pursue the path of knowledge. I had a great veneration for rank in those days, and some idea of attaining it by holding on to my cousin’s skirts. His advice was therefore followed to the letter. I attended strictly to lectures and classes—eschewed all intimacy with my fellow-students, and magnified myself on the once a month dinner, which came off in the fourth floor of one of the large houses in the court end, where the ducal notary lived with the help of his old and