University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

Page 5 text:

Dedication; O the fragrant memory of our soldier alumni, Who, in the Civil War, T yielded up their lives for hearth, and home, and country, and to their surviving brothers, nourished 0n the breast of the same ll Good Motherf' this volume is dedicated. It was their lot to be tried in great events, and their i fortune to be equal to the trial. To those who survive and who still illustrate by their same constancy and courage in the honme'lie-r fray of daily life that ii the ? reward of one duty isthe power to fulfill another, we, their younger brothers, yield loyal love and admiration. If, as the great Roman patriot said, it the life of the dead is in the remembrance of the living? then, too, in noblest sense live for us those dauntless spirits to whom was accorded 0n held of battle the death counted sweet and honorable. F orty years and more have passed since, in instant obedience to the 'trumpet-call of duty, these men went forth to battle in all the joyous valor of their youth, counting their lives as worthless things. Yet untouched by mists of envious Oblivion, their bright and gracious figures still shine out in austere beauty in the broad light of that heroic time and still we ponder in our heart the wondrous story of their antique valor, their incor- ruptible patriotism, and of all those stern and gentle virtues that made them strong to Ameetwith unshaken front the very stroke of Fate. tHere, encircled by the everlasting hills, Our Mother sits enthroine-d in calm and regnant beauty. ll Age can not wither her? and when we, and our children, and our childrenis children shall be gathered to the dust, still from her lofty sight shall she send forth with each recurring year a brave array of stalwart sons, touching their hearts as with sacred fire, as she bids them keep unspottezd 0f the world that chastity of honor and single-minded loyalty to. duty bequeathed them as a precious legacy by those valiant sons of the Long Ago, who, when all the land was girded with steel and fire, died at her feet, their faces radiant with the light of truth, in obedience to those high and noble lessons of courage, co.n- stancy. and patriotic devotion to principle, in which they had been nourished upon her heroic breast.