he profitableness of a
soldier's life, and would not think of trying it, were it not for a
muddled and twisted idea that somehow or other this fight was going to
be one in which decent men ought to engage for the sake of humanity,--I
use the word in its ordinary sense. It seems to me that within a year
the slavery question will again take a prominent place, and that many
cases will arise in which we may get fearfully in the wrong if we put
our cause wholly in the hands of fighting men and foreign legions.

In June, 1863, he wrote:

I wonder whether my theories about self-culture, etc., would ever have
been modified so much, whether I should ever have seen what a necessary
failure they lead to, had it not been for this war. Now I feel every
day, more and more, that a man has no right to himself at all; that,
indeed, he can do nothing useful unless he recognizes this clearly. Here
again, on July 3, is a sentence which it is well to take to heart, and
for all men to remember when their ears are deafened with the cry that
war, no matter what the cause, is the worst thing possible, because it
interferes with comfort, trade, and money-making: "Wars are bad," Lowell
writes, "but there are many things far worse. Anything immediately
comfortable in our affairs I don't see; but comfortable times are not
the ones t hat make a nation great." On July 24, he says:

Many nations fail, that one may become great; ours will fail, unless we
gird up our loins and do humble and honest days' work, without trying
to do the thing by the job, or to get a great nation made by a patent
process. It is not safe to say that we shall not have victories till we
are ready for them. We shall have victories, and whether or no we are
ready for them depends upon ourselves; if we are not ready, we shall
fail,--voila tout. If you ask, what if we do fail? I have nothing to
say; I shouldn't cry over a nation or two, more or less, gone under.

Finally, on September 10, a little more than a month before his death,
he wrote to a disabled officer:

I hope that you are going to live like a plain republican, mindful of
the beauty and of the duty of simplicity. Nothing fancy now, sir, if you
please; it's disreputable to spend money when the government is so
hard up, and when there are so many poor officers. I hope that you have
outgrown all foolish ambitions, and are now content to become a "useful
citizen." Don't grow rich; if you once begin, you will find it mu