civil--but we went to dinner in spite of our disappointment. Before we
rose from table the truth began to ooze out. One or two New York papers,
that had slipped on board with the pilot, were more communicative than
he would or could be.

Thousands of corpses, the full tale of which will never be known till
the day of judgment, lying rolled in blood, with a handful of earth
raked over them under the fatal Fredericksburg heights; the finest army
in Federaldom hurled back upon its intrenchments; nothing but darkness
covering a disastrous, if not shameful defeat; the papers crowded with
dreary funeral notices, showing how, to every great city of the North,
from hospital and battle-ground, the slain are being gathered in, to be
buried among their own people; a wail of widows and orphans and mothers,
from homestead, hamlet, and town, overpowering with its simple energy,
the bombastic war-notes and false stage-thunder of the press; rumors of
a terrible battle in the far West, where, after three days' hard
fighting, Rosecrans barely holds his own, and yet "_there are no
news_!"

It is an excellent quality in a soldier not to know when he is beaten,
but whether blind obstinacy will succeed when it influences the rulers
and destinies of a great nation, is more than questionable. Pondering
these things, I remembered how, four thousand years ago, a stiff-necked
generation were brought to their senses and on their knees. It was on
the morning after the visit of the Dark Angel, when Egypt awoke, and
found not a house in which there was not one dead. If such fearful waste
of life goes on here, with no decisive or final advantage on either side
attained, that ancient curse may not be long in recurring.

I rose when the sun ought to have risen, on the following morning,
intending to admire the famous harbor which Americans love to compare
with the Neapolitan Bay. But long before we reached the Narrows,

"A blinding mist came up and hid the land
As far as eye could see."

Very soon we were buried in fog, dense and Cimmerian, as ever brooded
over our own Thames or the Righi panorama. More and more slowly the
paddles turned, till they stopped altogether. It was dangerous to
advance, ever so cautiously, when the keenest sight could not pierce
half a ship's length ahead. So there we lay at anchor for weary hours,
listening to the church-bells chiming drowsily through the heavy air,
till an enterprising tug ventured out for the