the morning, and
perceptibly moved toward the scene of approaching tautology. The
emaciated aspect of my architectural steed of the desert was so
inviting to the fowls of the air, my boy, that divers disreputable
crows circled suddenly around my hat, as my animal progressed with me
by miscellaneously scattering his legs around beneath himself, and at
each particular "caw" of the winged ministers of famine, a perceptible
shudder passed through the entire framework of the deeply agitated
Pegasus. Abstractedly waving my umbrella, to inspire the sable birds
for loftier flights, I pondered deeply upon the lesson taught me by the
evident emotions of my aged architectural servant; to ride upon whose
fluted back may be likened to sitting astride the peaked roof of a
small country chapel in the midst of a hard earthquake, and holding on
by the steeple. If this Gothic creation, which is but a horse, thought
I, is so agonized by the mere breakfast notes of a few demoralized
crows in the atmosphere, how much more terrible must be the anguish of
the fellow-beings known as Southern Confederacies, who must ever have a
dreadful presentiment of being summarily expunged from the human race
by any one of our brass-buttoned generals, who happens to board in
their neighborhood for a few years. If I pity this architectural
servant of mine, thought I, for his anguish at the proximity of crows
in the abstract, how much more tender should be my feeling for Southern
fellow-beings, who are continually endangered by the much louder crows
emanating from adjacent hostile Major-General roosters. As I pondered
thus, my boy, a crow of much plumage and large-sized mien, suddenly
alighted upon the pommel of my saddle, as though impatient to breakfast
upon some pounds of horseflesh. For an instant Pegasus trembled
throughout his works; he paused suddenly in his peregrination, laid
back his ears as though in deep thought, twisted his head suddenly
about, and bit off the tail of the crow in the abstract!

Simple as was the act, it at once relieved me, in my own mind, of all
obligations to have a more tender feeling for my Southern fellow-beings
than is consistent with a proper emotion of hatred against the enemies
of my country. After all, we can learn much more from brutes than from
men; and as Balaam's ass saw the angel before his master did, so the
Angel of Victory is likely to be distinctly obvious to any poor ass in
the country, before he becomes visib