About the year 1885 there was formed in Lund a Students' Association called "The Old Boys," whose literary, scientific, and social programme was best expressed by the word "Radicalism." It was coloured by modern ideas; it was first socialistic, then nihilistic, and tended finally to a general dissolution of society. It had besides a fin de siècle flavouring of Satanism and decadence. The head of that party, the most conspicuous of their champions, a friend of mine, whom I have not seen for three years, pays me a visit. Dressed like myself in a monkish-looking mantle of a grey colour, grown old, lean, with melancholy aspect, he shows his history in his face.
"You also?" I ask him.
"Yes! It is all up with us."
On my inviting him to take a glass of wine, he declares himself a teetotaller.
"How are the 'Old Boys'?" I ask.
"Dead, come croppers, turned into Philistines and steady members of society."
"It is a case of Canossa, then!"
"Canossa all along the line."
"Then it is Providence Itself which has brought me here."
"Providence! That is the right word."