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An examination into the character and behaviour of the German student The German Mensur Uses and abuses of use Views of an impressionist The humour of the thing Recipe for making savages The Jungfrau: her peculiar taste in laces The Kneipe How to rub a Salamander Advice to the stranger A story that might have ended sadly Of two men and two wives Together with a bachelor.
I merely come forward as an impressionist, and I write purposely the impression of my first Mensur, because I believe that first impressions are more true and useful than opinions blunted by intercourse, or shaped by influence. A Frenchman or a Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull.
He fought no student's duels though a secret performance of the kind is mentioned as a probability in the chronicles or go about looking for trouble generally as the swashbuckling Junker, Bismarck, did; for in the first place his royal rank would not allow of his taking part in the bloody amusement of the Mensur, and his natural disposition, if it was quick and lively, was not choleric enough to involve him in serious quarrel.
He pushed the surgeon away when he came forward with his needles. The Count was smiling as he put up his sword, his friends crowding around him, when Ebhardt cried out that his man could fight the second mensur, though the wound was three needles long. Then Kalbach cried aloud that he would kill him. But he had not seen Carl's eyes. Something was in them that made us think as we washed the cut.
On one occasion early in the reign the Emperor spoke of the Corps system with great enthusiasm, and especially endorsed the practice of the Mensur. "I am quite convinced," he said at Bonn in 1891, three years after his accession, "that every young man who enters a Corps receives through the spirit which rules in it, and supposing he imbibes the spirit, his true directive in life.
It may be that practice of the Mensur, which is held almost weekly, has a lifelong influence on the German student's character. It probably enables him to look the adversary in the eye look "hard" at him, as the mariners in Mr. A.W. Jacobs's delightful tales look at one another when some particularly ingenious lie is being produced.
Although this professor who had his own face scarred on the mensur, pleaded for a student court of honor, with power to brand acts as infamous and even to expel students, on the ground that honor had grown more inward, the traditions in favor of dueling were too strong.
Happy were those who merely exchanged the whistling blade of the student for the heavy sabre of the soldier, the green forest glade of the mensur for larger battlefields and the hope of brighter fame, who, having shed an ounce of blood in defence of their student colours, could look forward to shedding all, to the last drop, for king and country.
But when we spoke to him he said nothing. Nor could we force the pipe stems from his teeth. "Donner Schock!" exclaimed Herr Korner, but reverently, "if I live to a hundred I never hope to see such a sight as that 'Mensur'. The word was given. The Schlager flew so fast that we only saw the light and heard the ring alone.
Regarding the Mensur, he went on: "Our Mensuren are frequently misunderstood by the public, but that must not let us be deceived. We who have been Corps students, as I myself was, know better. The word for firmness used by the Emperor was Festigkeit, which may also be translated determination, steadiness, fortitude, or resoluteness of character.
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