Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 22 (US).djvu/111

 "Ah, gentlemen, my fellows in misery," cried he, "how is it possible for you to be so calm, nay, so happy, as I read in your cheerful looks? You are sitting here corked up in glass bottles, as well as I, and cannot move a finger; nay, not think a reasonable thought, but there rises such a murder-tumult of clanging and droning, and in your head itself a tumbling and rumbling enough to drive one mad. But doubtless you do not believe in the Salamander, or the green Snake."

"You are pleased to jest, Mein Herr Studiosus," replied a Cross Church Scholar; "we have never been better off than at present: for the speziesthalers which the mad Archivarius gave us for all manner of pot-hook copies, are chinking in our pockets; we have now no Italian choruses to learn by heart; we go every day to Josephs or other houses of call, where the double-beer is sufficient, and we can look a pretty girl in the face; so we sing like real Students, Gaudeamus igitur, and are contented in spirit!"

"They of the Cross are quite right," added a Law Clerk; "I too am well furnished with speziesthalers, like my dearest colleague beside me here; and we now diligently walk about on the Weinberg, instead of scurvy Act-writing within four walls."

"But, my best, worthiest masters!" said the Student Anselmus, "do you not observe, then, that you are all and sundry corked up in glass bottles, and cannot for your hearts walk a hairsbreadth?"

Here the Cross Church Scholars and the Law Clerks set up a loud laugh, and cried: "The Student is mad; he fancies himself to be sitting in a glass bottle, and is standing on the Elbe-bridge and looking right down into the water. Let us go along!"

"Ah!" sighed the Student, "they have never seen the kind Serpentina; they know not what Freedom, and life in Love, and Belief, signifies; and so by reason of their folly and low-mindedness, they feel not the oppression of the