that one stands out in a scene
big and obtrusive, and the other begins to fade into the earth as soon
as death touches the body? The horror of death is upon me, and I
cannot shake it off. It is a fearful thing to see a human soul pass
'in any shape, in any mood.' And I have seen so many deaths--we lost
one man out of every three--that I am all unnerved. I saw General
Lyon die--the only abolitionist in the regular army, they say. He
died like a soldier--but not as the soldiers die in pictures. He sank
off his horse so limp, and so like an animal with its death wound, and
gasped so weakly, 'I'm killed--take care of my body,' that when we
covered his face and bore him away, we could not realize we were
carrying a man's body. And now, my dear, if I should go as these men
go, I have neither kith nor kin to mourn me--only you, and you must
not mourn, for I shall be near you always and always, without sign or
token, and when you feel my presence near, know that it is real, and
not a seeming. For the great force of life that moves events in this
world has but one symbol, but one vital manifestation, and that is
love, and when a soul is touched with that, it is immortal."

But Martin Culpepper, with his dancing plumes, saw things in another
light. Perhaps we always see things in another light when forty years
have passed over them. But in his chapter "The Shrill Trump," in the
Biography, he writes: "'O you mortal engines, whose rude throats the
immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,' O for the 'spirit-stirring
drum, and the ear-splitting fife' 'in these piping times of peace.'
Small wonder it was that with the clang and clank of sabre and artillery
in his ears, with the huzzas of comrades and the sparkle of the wine of
war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never dying words that made him
famous. How the day comes back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned
horses, the handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, the
clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rumble of a thousand
feet upon the battle ground, going careless whether to death or
immortality in deathless fame."

A curious thing is that deathless fame which Martin speaks of--a
passing curious thing; for when word came of Henry Schnitzler's death,
Mary Murphy, of the Thayer House, put off Gabriel Carnine's ring, and
wept many tears in the stage driver's coffee and wore black in her hat
for a year, and when Gabriel came home, she married him and al