sublime in its necessity and purpose, was but a minor part of
the struggle; and they gladly put aside all that proclaimed it as their
vocation, and returned to the arts of peace.

The idea of our war seems to have interpreted itself to us all as faith
in the justice of our cause, and in our immutable destiny, as God's
agents, to give freedom to mankind; and the ideas of our peace are
gratitude and exultant industry. Somehow, we imagine, these ideas should
be represented in every memorial work of the time, though we should be
sorry to have this done by the dreary means of conventional allegory. A
military despotism of martial statues would be far better than a
demagogy of these virtues, posed in their well-known attitudes, to
confront perplexed posterity with lifted brows and superhuman simpers. A
sublime parable, like Ward's statue of the Freedman, is the full
expression of one idea that should be commemorated, and would better
celebrate the great deeds of our soldiers than bass-reliefs of battles,
and statues of captains, and groups of privates, or many
scantily-draped, improper figures, happily called Liberties.

With the people chosen to keep pure the instinct of the Beautiful, as
the Hebrews were chosen to preserve a knowledge of the Divine, it was
not felt that commemorative art need be descriptive. He who triumphed
the first and second time in the Olympic games was honored with a
statue, but not a statue in his own likeness. Neither need the
commemorative art of our time be directly descriptive of the actions it
celebrates. There is hardly any work of beautiful use which cannot be
made to serve the pride we feel in those who fought to enlarge and
confirm the freedom of our country, and we need only guard that our
monuments shall in no case express funereal sentiment. Their place
should be, not in the cemeteries, but in the busy hearts of towns, and
they should celebrate not only those who fought and died for us in the
war, but also those who fought and lived, for both are equally worthy of
gratitude and honor. The ruling sentiment of our time is triumphant and
trustful, and all symbols and images of death are alien to it.

While the commemoration of the late President may chiefly take visible
shape at the capital, or at Springfield, near the quiet home from which
he was called to his great glory, the era of which he was so grand a
part should be remembered by some work of art in every community. The
perpetuation