ok for it. There is no need that we should feebly vaunt and
madden ourselves over our self-seen rights, whatever they may be,
forgetting what broken shadows they are of eternal truths in that calm
where He sits and with His quiet hand controls us.

Patriotism and Chivalry are powers in the tranquil, unlimited lives to
come, as well as here, I know; but there are less partial truths,
higher hierarchies who serve the God-man, that do not speak to us in
bayonets and victories,--Mercy and Love. Let us not quite neglect
them, unpopular angels though they be. Very humble their voices are,
just now: yet not altogether dead, I think. Why, the very low glow of
the fire upon the hearth tells me something of recompense coming in the
hereafter,--Christmas-days, and heartsome warmth; in these bare hills
trampled down by armed men, the yellow clay is quick with pulsing
fibres, hints of the great heart of life and love throbbing within;
slanted sunlight would show me, in these sullen smoke-clouds from the
camp, walls of amethyst and jasper, outer ramparts of the Promised
Land. Do not call us traitors, then, who choose to be cool and silent
through the fever of the hour,--who choose to search in common things
for auguries of the hopeful, helpful calm to come, finding even in
these poor sweet-peas, thrusting their tendrils through the brown
mould; a deeper, more healthful lesson for the eye and soul than
warring truths. Do not call me a traitor, if I dare weakly to hint
that there are yet other characters besides that of Patriot in which a
man may appear creditably in the great masquerade, and not blush when
it is over; or if I tell you a story of To-Day, in which there shall be
no bloody glare,--only those homelier, subtiler lights which we have
overlooked. If it prove to you that the sun of old times still shines,
and the God of old times still lives, is not that enough?

My story is very crude and homely, as I said,--only a rough sketch of
one or two of those people whom you see every day, and call "dregs,"
sometimes,--a dull, plain bit of prose, such as you might pick for
yourself out of any of these warehouses or back-streets. I expect you
to call it stale and plebeian, for I know the glimpses of life it
pleases you best to find; idyls delicately tinted; passion-veined
hearts, cut bare for curious eyes; prophetic utterances, concrete and
clear; or some word of pathos or fun from the old friends who have
endenizened thems