Tales From Two Hemispheres | Page 4

at the examination tables,
fraternize with every new generation of freshmen, and at last become
part of the fixed furniture of their Alma Mater. In the larger American
colleges, such men are mercilessly dropped or sent to a Divinity School;
but the European universities, whose tempers the centuries have
mellowed, harbor in their spacious Gothic bosoms a tenderer heart for

their unfortunate sons. There the professors greet them at the green
tables with a good-humored smile of recognition; they are treated with
gentle forbearance, and are allowed to linger on, until they die or
become tutors in the families of remote clergymen, where they
invariably fall in love with the handsomest daughter, and thus lounge
into a modest prosperity.
If this had been the fate of our friend Bjerk, we should have dismissed
him here with a confident "vale" on his life's pilgrimage. But,
unfortunately, Bjerk was inclined to hold the government in some way
responsible for his own poor success as a student, and this, in
connection with an aesthetic enthusiasm for ancient Greece, gradually
convinced him that the republic was the only form of government
under which men of his tastes and temperament were apt to flourish. It
was, like everything that pertained to him, a cheerful, genial conviction,
without the slightest tinge of bitterness. The old institutions were
obsolete, rotten to the core, he said, and needed a radical renovation.
He could sit for hours of an evening in the Students' Union, and
discourse over a glass of mild toddy, on the benefits of universal
suffrage and trial by jury, while the picturesqueness of his language, his
genial sarcasms, or occasional witty allusions would call forth
uproarious applause from throngs of admiring freshmen. These were
the sunny days in Halfdan's career, days long to be remembered. They
came to an abrupt end when old Mrs. Bjerk died, leaving nothing
behind her but her furniture and some trifling debts. The son, who was
not an eminently practical man, underwent long hours of misery in
trying to settle up her affairs, and finally in a moment of extreme
dejection sold his entire inheritance in a lump to a pawnbroker
(reserving for himself a few rings and trinkets) for the modest sum of
250 dollars specie. He then took formal leave of the Students' Union in
a brilliant speech, in which he traced the parallelisms between the lives
of Pericles and Washington,-- in his opinion the two greatest men the
world had ever seen,--expounded his theory of democratic government,
and explained the causes of the rapid rise of the American Republic.
The next morning he exchanged half of his worldly possessions for a
ticket to New York, and within a few days set sail for the land of
promise, in the far West.

II.
From Castle Garden, Halfdan made his way up through Greenwich
street, pursued by a clamorous troop of confidence men and hotel
runners.
"Kommen Sie mit mir. Ich bin auch Deutsch," cried one. "Voila, voila,
je parle Francais," shouted another, seizing hold of his valise. "Jeg er
Dansk. Tale Dansk,"[1] roared a third, with an accent which seriously
impeached his truthfulness. In order to escape from these importunate
rascals, who were every moment getting bolder, he threw himself into
the first street-car which happened to pass; he sat down, gazed out of
the windows and soon became so thoroughly absorbed in the animated
scenes which moved as in a panorama before his eyes, that he quite
forgot where he was going. The conductor called for fares, and received
an English shilling, which, after some ineffectual expostulation, he
pocketed, but gave no change. At last after about an hour's journey, the
car stopped, the conductor called out "Central Park," and Halfdan woke
up with a start. He dismounted with a timid, deliberate step, stared in
dim bewilderment at the long rows of palatial residences, and a chill
sense of loneliness crept over him. The hopeless strangeness of
everything he saw, instead of filling him with rapture as he had once
anticipated, Sent a cold shiver to his heart. It is a very large affair, this
world of ours--a good deal larger than it appeared to him gazing out
upon it from his snug little corner up under the Pole; and it was as
unsympathetic as it was large; he suddenly felt what he had never been
aware of before-- that he was a very small part of it and of very little
account after all. He staggered over to a bench at the entrance to the
park, and sat long watching the fine carriages as they dashed past him;
he saw the handsome women in brilliant costumes laughing and
chatting gayly; the apathetic policemen promenading in stoic dignity up
and down upon the smooth pavements; the jauntily attired nurses,
whom