owards." But it did seem to
us, in our passionate grief, that the remorseless bullet, the
remorseless shell, had picked out the bravest and the purest. It is an
old cry,--

Ja, der Krieg verschlingt die Besten.

Still, when Schiller says in the poem just quoted,

Ohne Wahl vertheilt die Gaben,
Ohne Billigkeit das Glueck,
Denn Patroklus liegt begraben
Und Thersites kommt zurueck,

his illustration is only half right. The Greek Thersites did not return
to claim a pension.

[Note: Thersites--strange that Schiller in his Siegeslied should have
forgotten it--never lived to return. According to the Scholia Vetera on
Lycophron, 999, this monkey-shaped ([Greek: pithekomorphos]) creature
was slain by Achilles for gouging out the eyes of Penthesilea's maid,
with whom Achilles had fallen in love. A better point was made by Ovid,
that master of points (Am. 2, 6, 41): _Tristia Phylacidae Thersites
funera vidit._]

[Note: The French artist was GUILLAUME, who came to this country shortly
before the war. In the picture to which I refer, General LEE was the
main figure. GUILLAUME'S picture of the Surrender at Appomattox bore
evidence of minute study of every detail of that historic event.]

Of course, what was to all true Confederates beyond a question "a holy
cause," "the holiest of causes," this fight in defence of "the sacred
soil" of our native land, was to the other side "a wicked rebellion" and
"damnable treason," and both parties to the quarrel were not sparing of
epithets which, at this distance of time, may seem to our children
unnecessarily undignified; and no doubt some of these _epitheta
ornantia_ continue to flourish in remote regions, just as pictorial
representations of Yankees and rebels in all their respective
fiendishness are still cherished here and there. At the Centennial
Exposition of 1876, by way of conciliating the sections, the place of
honour in the "Art Annex," was given to Rothermel's painting of the
battle of Gettysburg, in which the face of every dying Union soldier is
lighted up with a celestial smile, while guilt and despair are stamped
on the wan countenances of the moribund rebels. At least such is my
recollection of the painting; and I hope that I may be pardoned for the
malicious pleasure I felt when I was informed of the high price that the
State of Pennsylvania had paid for that work of art. The dominant
feeling was amusement, not indignation. But as I look