Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Paperscommand of all. His kind hand was always open. It wasa gracious fate which sent him to rescue widows andcaptives. Where could they have had a champion morechivalrous, a protector more loving and tender?I write down his name in my little book, among thoseof others dearly loved, who, too, have been summonedhence. And so we meet and part; we struggle and succeed;or we fail and drop unknown on the way. As weleave the fond mother’s knee, the rough trials of childhoodand boyhood begin; and then manhood is uponus, and the battle of life, with its chances, perils, wounds,defeats, distinctions. And Fort William guns are salutingin one man’s honor,* while the troops are firing thelast volleys over the other’s grave—over the grave ofthe brave, the gentle, the faithful Christian soldier.* W. R. obiit March 22, 1862.NOTES OF A WEEK’S HOLIDAYMost of us tell old stories in our families. The wife andchildren laugh for the hundredth time at the joke. Theold servants (though old servants are fewer every day)nod and smile a recognition at the well-known anecdote.“Don’t tell that story of Grouse in the gun-room,”says Diggory to Mr. Hardcastle in the play, “or I mustlaugh.” As we twaddle, and grow old and forgetful, wemay tell an old story; or, out of mere benevolence, anda wish to amuse a friend when conversation is flagging,disinter a Joe Miller now and then; but the practice isnot quite honest, and entails a certain necessity of hypocrisyon story hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing, tothink that a man with what you call a fund of anecdoteis a humbug, more or less amiable and pleasant. Whatright have I to tell my “Grouse in the gun-room” overand over in the presence of my wife, mother, mother-170