my boy; it was
the artless roguery of a dear old heart--the gentlest of cheats--the
fondest of frauds; and the very remembrance of it, at this remote
moment, not only fills my manly bosom with the softest charity, but
endows me with a nicer mental perception of actual good in seeming
wickedness, than any yet disclosed by my more obtuse fellow-countrymen.

Thus, my boy, when I note how some of our excellent Democratic daily
journals attempt to prove, with great sadness of manner and profound
sincerity of reluctant reasoning, that all the celebrated advances,
conquests, and flankings of our remarkable national armies are really
so many heart-breaking defeats in deep disguise; and that the
well-known Southern Confederacy is actually quite intoxicated with its
continued remorseless successes over us; when I note this, my boy, I am
moved to pleasant tears over that inherent and ineradicable goodness of
human nature, which instinctively inspires the nobler of our species to
first delude their fellow-beings to despondency with the most innocent
of falsehoods, only that their consummate bliss may be the greater when
the glorious truth can no longer be thus fondly concealed. Join with
me, my boy, in a noble tribute of affection to the humble but tender
Editors of these excellent Democratic daily journals, who would
lovingly make us, children of the nation, believe, that the Turkey of
Victory is not to be had at any price, though none of us need look very
far to see the plump legs of that very same turkey sticking out of the
family-basket. Thanks to thee, thou dear old Mrs. McShane, with thy
perpetual atmosphere of roast-beef gravy, and eternal rims of crusted
flour about thy finger-nails--thanks be to thee for that humanizing
remembrance of thy loving fraud, which thus enables me to rescue our
excellent Democratic daily journals from the unseemly imputations of
degenerate Black Republicans.

My long absence with our somewhat tedious national troops, my
boy,--troops now constituting a flaming about the throat of this
exciting Rebellion;--my long absence, I say, has given this Capital
City of our distracted country an opportunity to thrive apace in the
development of those public and private virtues, which so thoroughly
unpopularize Vice in this chaste locality, that even the Vice President
is never heard of. True it is, that one misses those pleasant and
gorgeous chaps of much watch-chain and an observable extent of diamond
br