From the Easy Chair, Volume 2

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS SECOND SERIES
NEW YORK HARPER AND BROTHERS MDCCCXCIV
Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. —— Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. —— All rights reserved.
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N Germany on Sylvesterabend —the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last night of the year—you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian pifferari . In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately—
There is something of the same feeling in the melody of college songs heard at a little distance on awakening in the night before Commencement. The songs are familiar, but they have an appealing melancholy unknown before. Their dying cadences murmur like a muffled peal heralding the visionary procession that is passing out of the enchanted realm of youth forever. So the voices of Sylvester's Eve chant the requiem of the year that is dead. So much more of life, of opportunity, of achievement, passed; so much nearer age, decline, the mystery of the end. The music swells in rich and lingering strains. It is a moment of exaltation, of purification. The chords are dying; the hymn is ending; it ends. The voices are stilled. It is the benediction of Saint Sylvester:
But this is the midnight refrain—The King is dead! With the earliest ray of daylight the exulting strain begins—Live the King! The bells are ringing; the children are shouting; there are gifts and greetings, good wishes and gladness. Happy New Year! happy New Year! It is the day of hope and a fresh beginning. Old debts shall be forgiven; old feuds forgotten; old friendships revived. To-day shall be better than yesterday. The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from the fleet angel Opportunity. There shall be more patience, more courage, more faith; the dream shall become life; to-day shall wear the glamour of to-morrow. Ring out the old, ring in the new!