The procession of two regiments of veterans through our streets a few
days ago must have set a good many of us retired veterans who were not
in the line, to thinking. It did me. It set me to thinking, not of
war, not of peace, not of reunions, but of how time has changed us all
in twenty years. In a neighboring city where I volunteered, the old
company, with the old name and the old uniform, is still kept up by
our young successors. I saw it lately on parade, and as I saw the trim
looking young fellows of from nineteen to twenty-five, clad in the
same bright uniform of twenty years ago, and stepping out with all the
brisk and cheery step of youth, it looked as if there had been a
resurrection of the old days. Could we old gray heads ever have looked
like these! Could that gay young spark mounted on the leading caisson
horse and furtively chaffing No. 13 be Hilleary and Hutchins come to
life again? Could that serious, slender boy, all attention to the word
of command, be the grave and clerical Hale Houston of this day gone
back to youth again. Can that sturdy No. 4 at the gun, be old Boss
Lumpkin? Could we all have looked as fresh and full of youth, and as
full of engaging humor and good temper as these young fellows? I suppose
we did, though it is hard to be believed, even by ourselves. I can
tell you of a reunion that, if promised, would bring more of the old
boys together than all the patriotism than can ever fill the American
heart. Just promise them that for that day they shall be young again!
Bless my heart, what a crowd you could have! Young again, mark you,
both in mind and body. I don't know one of the old fellows who, if he
had the option, wouldn't take back the youth he had twenty-three years
ago with the war, famine and hardships that followed. What a deal of
difference it does make to a man whether the world is behind or in
front of him.
Do you know--of course this is confidential--that I am glad the schools
have gone for the summer. Education has been a thorn in our family for
some time past, indeed since the younger member got into the higher
branches. Until lately it has been the impression of Mrs. Boyzy and
myself that we spoke the English language with facility and much
correctness, and as for facility I will put Mrs. B. against any picked
nine that may be brought. But recently we have been greatly humiliated
by our eldest girl, who comes back daily from school with a new
pronunciation. Incredulity on our part is met by lugging the dictionary
into the conflict and we are defeated at once. So victorious has the
little one become that we tremble when we hear, "Mamma, how do you
pronounce so and so," and prepare for another humiliation. My wife's
plaintive, "It was pronounced so when I was a girl," is very touching
to me, but when did the young ever have mercy on the old? The last
conflict had--I hope it will be the last--was over the word "Squalor."
The young one, after setting the usual trap of demanding how we
pronounced it, announced that it was spoken "squaylor." At this my
wife, astonished into resistance, made her last flight, and said with
much dignity, that that pronunciation was silly and there must be a
mistake. In a moment more she was prostrated by the well directed
dictionary. In the evening after the children had gone upstairs, Mrs.
B. locked up her sewing and remarked that a good deal of what is taught
children in these days is nonsense. I did not reply. Had I, I should
have been forced to remind her that she and I put our parents through
the same mill in which the educational gods are now grinding us so
sharply. I take it that pronunciation, I mean that of ordinary
refinement and education, varies pretty much as bonnets do in style
and, like them, is a matter that taste has a good deal to do with; and
locality as well. Forty years ago in the jungles of East Virginia I
spoke glahss, fahst, ahnser; I never heard of papa and mamma, but of
father and mother, and I find they are teaching the children of this
day to say that, too. I was taught to say g-yarden, c-yar, s-yuit,
and, I suppose, that will also be resurrected after a while.
Pronunciation, I take it, is a matter of provincial taste. Reading
Chaucer, I have often wondered what standard of that sparsely educated
day fixed the standard by which he could be read aloud. And by the bye
who, of this more cultivated day, is authority for fixing the standard?
Not the Dictionaries, for they differ. I dare say that after all we
must fall back on taste. In the national metropolis of America, I have
noticed a half-dozen different pronunciations among educated people,
so distinct as to be readily noticed. But the best opportunity to be
had is in an army gathered from all quarters of the country, or even
from all quarters of a section, as the Confederate army was. I noticed
a dozen different pronunciations, the two from North Carolina and
Georgia being the most distinctly marked. I have heard it said hastily,
that all educated people pronounce alike, but I think, with more
deliberation and more opportunity for judging, it would be safer to
say that all uneducated people pronounce alike.
* * * * *
I am not one of the old men who take delight in "lecturing" the young.
I hate the very word, for I shall never travel far enough from my youth
to forget how I disliked both the lecture and the lecturer. But
sometimes I have an indescribable yearning to go and say a word to
them. I feel pretty much like one who, having found a circus to be of
no account and leaving the performance, finds another man at the
ticket-wagon eagerly putting down his money for a ticket. It looks
like a pity and I want to tell him so. I saw a lot of nice-looking
young fellows the other day--I was told they were boys from one of the
Universities,--standing on a corner badly flushed with liquor and
swearing at a high rate. They were evidently out for "a time." I should
have liked to say something like this: "Now, boys, just let this thing
drop there. Really, there is nothing in it. No young man with a sound
body can need liquor, and no one with a sound reason can need the
excitement of cards. We old fellows have been all along there, and
there is nothing in it. I am the chief secretary of the Ancient Order
of Old Boys, and my opportunities of acquiring knowledge have been
exceptional. I don't wish to hold up any raw head and bloody bones of
premature death and disgrace, and all that sort of thing, but I would
like to say this much to you: If you want to take a drink, take it and
go about your business, but don't associate together for the purpose
of drinking, whether for a night or for an hour. You will read, before
the long life that is before you ends, a hundred ways of accounting
for drunkards--heredity, inclination, regular drinking, grief,
disappointed love, and all that sort of thing, but all put together
they do not begin to approximate the cause I tell you of,--"associating
together." It is the associating together of boys, the late nights,
the early morning drinks, taken more frequently later on, and lastly
the appetite. It is the associating together for the purpose of drinking
that causes that selvage of bad company to adhere to the good company
you started out with earlier in the evening, and it is the selvage of
low company that will give every self-respecting man a good deal of
disagreeable reflection when he comes to look back at it. Don't buy
that sort of a ticket, my boy; the show won't pay you."
Speaking of veterans reminds me of something I would like to say right
here. Do you know there is nothing more awkward to a man--that is
nothing more awkward to me, and like all egotists I judge all by
myself--than meeting a familiar friend whom I have not seen for twenty
years. We expect each other to be the old heart-to-heart friends of
long ago, but how to go about re-establishing the relation is the
puzzle. We have all had new friends, new histories, new lives since
twenty years ago, and while we make an unsatisfactory attempt to be
the same "old boys" to each other, each feels the dismal failure.
Memory is faithful, but while we remember with affection that we were
Tom and Dick to each other then (twenty years ago) we cannot, out of
that slender material, build up a hearty fraternal conversation of
to-day. And with advancing years we find that the old subjects that
we spent hours of mirth over, a life-time ago, are not amusing to-day,
if indeed our defective memories can recall them. Ah! how little it
took to furnish youth with mirth, that common standing ground upon
which all so easily form acquaintance and friendship. I trust I may
be forgiven, seeing that I meant well, but I declare to you that I
have practiced outrageous deceit in affecting to remember incidents
that some of these old boys recall, and in trying to be agreeable by
so doing. But doubtless you have also. Perhaps we all have. After all
I take it that separation, like time, tries everything--love,
friendship, even acquaintance, and those of the three which survive
the test are like the ruins of ancient cities, of great value as
curiosities, but worth little for aught else. Mrs. Boyzy remarks that
this is a heartless view of it. But I silence that estimable woman by
the observation that philosophers do not take the heart into account;
the heart is the field of young lovers, physicians' fees and patent
medicines. This observation which she does not understand, and, I may
admit to you I am not so clear about myself, convinces her that I am
not only a philosopher, but a profound one. Ah! to a man of profound
observation, how many better ways of securing the respect of the female
sex there are than the primitive one of clubbing them.