The Student-Life of Germany

Transcriber's Note: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/studentlifegerm02corngoog
THINK OFT, YE BRETHREN; THINK OF THE GLADNESS OF OUR YOUTHFUL PRIME,-- IT COMETH NOT AGAIN,--THAT GOLDEN TIME!
The Commers Book.
How shall I call thee, thou high, thou rough, thou noble, thou barbaric, thou loveable, unharmonious, song-full, repelling, yet refreshing life of the Burschen years? How shall I describe you, ye golden hours, ye choral-songs of brotherly love? What tone shall I give to you to make myself understood? What colours to thee, thou never-comprehended chaos? I shall describe thee? Never! Thy ludicrous outside lies open; the layman sees that; one can describe that to him; but thy inner and lovely ore, the miner only knows who goes singing with his brethren into the deep shaft. He brings up gold; pure, solid gold; be it much or little, it is still of high value. But this is not his whole booty. What he sees there, he may not describe to the layman: it were all too strange, and too precious for his ear. There are spirits in the deep that no other ear can comprehend; no other eye perceive. Music floats through those halls, which to every uninitiated ear sounds empty and unmeaning. But to him who has felt with it and sung with it, it gives a peculiar consecration; when he, moreover, smiles over the hole in his cap which he has brought back with him as a symbol.
Old Grandfather! now know I what thou undertook when thou held thy annual, solitary, intercalary day! Thou too hadst thy companions in the days of thy youth, and the water stood in thy gray eyelashes when thou marked one in thy stambook as entombed.
Hauff's Rathskeller in Bremen .
We have had various peeps and snatches of the Student-life of Germany, from time to time, in our periodicals, but we have nothing like a complete, and faithful account of it. Some of those accounts too, are by English writers, who had at best but a partial and passing view of this singular state of existence, and could not, however much they might have seen of it, enter into it and comprehend it with the fulness of apprehension and feeling which a native possesses. When I, therefore, was thrown, on my first visit to Germany, into the midst of its students, I began to inquire for a volume written by a German, which should lay open the whole interior of that, whose surface was so strange and so picturesque. I was told that no such thing, of any value or completeness existed, and that, indeed, the students themselves were jealous of the laws and customs of their ancient Burschendom being laid open to the public. Yet, finding myself amongst those whose knowledge and talents most entirely qualified them for making this exposition, I did not cease till I had prevailed on one of the most gifted to undertake the task, assisted by the experience of friends, who, like himself, had passed through the mysteries of this singular life. The present volume is the result; and I present it to the public with the confident assurance, that whatever they may think of the portraiture, they may depend upon its faithfulness. Spite of what that young and popular writer, Hauff, has left on record in the extract which immediately precedes these remarks, we have now penetrated the depths of the Burschen-life; we have traversed its chaos, which he terms a never-comprehended one; and have made the music of its most hidden halls, audible and intelligible to all ears. I do not hesitate for a moment to assert, that, taken as a whole, this volume will be found to contain more that is entirely new and curious, than any one which has issued from the press for years. The institutions and customs which it describes, form the most singular state of social existence to be found in the bosom of civilized Europe; and what renders them the more curious and worthy of investigation is, that they are no recent and evanescent frolic of eccentricity, but are as fast rooted into the antiquity of German mind and manners as the universities themselves. They have been modified and softened by time and advancing refinement, but are not a whit nearer being rooted out, apparently, than they were three hundred years ago. This state of things is here depicted by a German himself, who has passed through it; and with that peculiar feeling and appreciation which a German only can possess. It is in this light that they are to be regarded. I do not here present myself as an advocate or a caviller at this scheme of things, but merely as a spectator, who, beholding something strange and curious, brings it to the observation of his countrymen, in all truthfulness and simplicity of representation, that they may judge of it for themselves. It has been translated under the author's own eye, as it was written, and as he is also acquainted with the English language, it may be reasonably presumed to give a faithful transcript of his thoughts.