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