The Past and Future of Hungary

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Excerpt from The Past and Future of Hungary: Being Facts, Figures, and DatesThere is a story told somewhere, of one who came back, after along absence, to the scenes of his youth. He had gone forth in early adventure to distant lands, and the hope of return had cheered his many years of foreign toil, until the noon of life found him drawing near once more to the only spot he ever could call home. His heart beat more and more quickly as the mountains around the village rose in the blue distance, then, as he saw the spire of the church, or the well remembered trees grown old but still green, and then, as he entered the cheerful street. Many a dwelling was familiar, though touched by time: but among the groups about their thresholds, and those who met him on the walk, there was not a face that he knew or that knew him. He passed on through the abodes of the living to the resting-place of the dead, and there he found graven on stones, many of the names that were written on his soul. All whom he had hoped to meet again were gone, or were buried, or had forgotten him. He was alone, a stranger in his early home. He paused to look around him. There stood the venerable edifice within which his young mind had been trained to learning. There was the green where he had leaped and shouted with his fellows. There ¿owed the littlestream from the shaded spring, which had so often slaked his summer thirst. He followed to it the path deep-beaten in the sod. He stooped and took one long cool draught, his team fell on the calm water's face, he lifted his hat from his head, breathed a prayer, and departed to return no more.With some such emotions does your orator address you now. A score of years has passed since he left, for the urgencies of mature life, these academic shades, dear from a thousand memories of happy youth. They were then populous with his friends, and their classic exercitations were directed by the kind and paternal solicitude of teachers to whose skill and fidelity grati tude can never make sufficient payment. He has trodden the college halls again today, and has seen within them many happy faces in the bloom of youth, but those whom he once loved to greet with frank re gard, are all gone. Some are in the grave: the rest widely scattered through a cold world never to know again the buoyant happiness and careless wealth of affection that here blessed them and him. But thanks be to God! The fountain of truth at which they drank, still wells forth its living waters, the path to it is still deep-beaten by youthful feet, and I have come to take one draught from it with you, to send up a prayer for you to the Father of lights, who causes it to ¿ow - and to go my way!About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.