Then let its windows be filled, as in the glorious halls and chapels of England, with memorial glass. Let one of these, if no more, be formed, of the costliest and most perfect workmanship our art can compass, to the memory of the Heroes of Harvard. It shall be the gift of every class which counts among its members one of these. There, amid the gorgeous emblazonry, shall be read their names, their academic year, their battles.
Or, if this may not be, because our Alma Mater is still too poor or too humble to offer to her returning children such banqueting-place,—if there is no Wykcham or Waynflete or Wolsey to arch for us the high-embowed roof, let us place our memorial in the Library, along its shaded alcoves and above its broad portals. There the bright shadows shall sleep and pass with the sliding day, where the young scholars mused and studied. There the future student, as he walks, shall read as noble a lesson as he can glean from any of the groaning shelves and dusty tomes. There shall be for Harvard her Libro d'Oro wherein she has written the names of her best-beloved.
Some token let us have that they are unforgotten. It was no quarrel of vulgar ambition in which they fell. It was the sacred strife for which the mother armed them when she sent them forth. For her they fought, for culture, generous learning, noble arts, for all that makes a land great and glorious, against the barbarism of anarchy and the baseness of a system founded upon wrong and oppression. We cannot, indeed, forget them while we live to come up to our annual gathering, and see the vacant places amid familiar ranks. There will then be question and reply, saddening, but proud. "He fell at Port Hudson, cheering on the forlorn hope." "He lies beneath the forest-trees of Chancellorsville." "He was slain upon the glacis of Fredericksburg." "He died in the foul prisons of Richmond." We cannot forget them, and we would fain leave the memorial of them to future generations. Their fame belongs to Harvard; for what they learned there could not be other than noble, inspiring, manly. Let Harvard make the plan, and give the call, and all of us, from our distant homes and according to our ability, will offer our gifts with gladness. Let the graduates who have leisure and taste and means, and who are still dwelling under the pleasant shades of the Cambridge elms, come together and take up the matter while love and gratitude and pride are fresh.
[pg 394]
WHO IS ROEBUCK?
An inquiring American mind, seeking the solution of this momentous question, would naturally turn to Appleton's "New Cyclopædia," Vol. XIV., page 131. The inquiring mind would be enlightened in a somewhat bewildering manner by the description there laid down of a little animal, some of whose qualities are thus set forth in the first article on the page indicated above:—
"ROEBUCK. A small European deer of the genus Capreolus.... The skull has a very small, shallow suborbital pit, ... tear-bag indistinct, hoofs narrow and triangular.... The color in summer is reddish brown, in winter olive, with paler shades; inside of the ears fulvous, and a black spot at the angles of the mouth.... It is about four feet long.... The horns are used for knife-handles.... They congregate in small families, but not in herds.... From their strong scent they are easily hunted; though they frequently escape by their speed, doublings, springing to cover, and other artifices.... The roebucks are represented in North America by the Virginia deer."
Inquiring mind, not wishing for researches in the direction of Natural History, albeit the subject of parallelisms is a somewhat curious study and in special cases infinitely amusing, passes on to the next article in the Cyclopædia.
It is sufficiently obvious that it requires neither fame nor greatness to excite public curiosity. A notorious criminal or an unusually eccentric lunatic frequently gives rise to a larger share of newspaper-comment and general discussion than the wisest and most virtuous of mankind. It must be well remembered by those who have read Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon that a dwarf was attracting thousands to the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, while the historical painter, stung to madness by the neglect of the frivolous crowd, committed the hideous and ghastly suicide which threw a tragic darkness over the close of his strange and troubled existence. The desperate and dangerous frequently succeed in placing themselves on a bad eminence, from which they are conspicuous enough; and if to be talked of and pointed at be the sole object of their ambition, they can, of course, be congratulated on their success. Virtue may sit in humble and obscure usefulness at a thousand quiet firesides, while the work of the incendiary may be seen to spread widely, and the tumult of his mischief be heard from afar. And so any public man or politician, whose taste is so morbidly depraved and whose aim in life is so debased as to prefer notoriety to honest, useful service, may revel in the questionable enjoyment of being the especial theme of public debate and private conversation. Hence it happens that so many of our fellow-countrymen are at this moment asking the question with which we head these pages,—"Who is Roebuck?"