the present day still abound in
Goettingen, where, separately distinguished by the color of their caps
and pipe-tassels, they may be seen straying singly or in hordes along
the Weender Street. They still fight their battles on the bloody arena
of the _Rasenmill, Ritschenkrug_, and _Bovden_, still preserve the mode
of life peculiar to their savage ancestors, and still, as at the time of
the migrations, are governed partly by their _Duces_, whom they call
"chief cocks," and partly by their primevally ancient law-book, known as
the _Comment_, which fully deserves a place among the _leges
barbarorum_.
The inhabitants of Goettingen are generally divided into Students,
Professors, Philistines, and Cattle, the points of difference between
these castes being by no means strictly defined. The "Cattle" class is
the most important. I might be accused of prolixity should I here
enumerate the names of all the students and of all the regular and
irregular professors; besides, I do not just at present distinctly
remember the appellations of all the former gentlemen; while among the
professors are many who as yet have no name at all. The number of the
Goettingen "Philistines" must be as numerous as the sands (or, more
correctly speaking, as the mud) of the seashore; indeed, when I beheld
them of a morning, with their dirty faces and clean bills, planted
before the gate of the collegiate court of justice, I wondered greatly
that such an innumerable pack of rascals should ever have been created
by the Almighty.
[Illustration: MARKET PLACE GOeTTINGEN]
* * * * *
It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Goettingen, and the
learned ----, beyond doubt, still lay in bed, dreaming as usual that he
wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of which grew innumerable white
papers written over with citations. On these the sun shone cheerily, and
he plucked up several here and there and laboriously planted them in new
beds, while the sweetest songs of the nightingales rejoiced his old
heart.
Before the Weender Gate I met two small native schoolboys, one of whom
was saying to the other, "I don't intend to keep company any more with
Theodore; he is a low blackguard, for yesterday he didn't even know the
genitive of _Mensa_." Insignificant as these words may appear, I still
regard them as entitled to be recorded--nay, I would even write them as
town-motto on the gate of Goettingen, for the young birds
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