the midst of this growth and change of historic movement, I
feel that the individual is like the single cell in a tree, or else
that we are like boys on the school-bench. We do not know the entire
educational plan. We do not know the end to which all this leads. We
must learn our lessons; and cell is built upon cell, knowledge is added
to knowledge, until--who knows the end?

In the first great struggle, in the New World's war of independence,
there were Germans sold by German princes, to fight for the English
against the Americans, and but few of our countrymen, towering up among
them like Steuben and Kalb, did battle for the Republic. At that period
the French--Lafayette's name rings out clear among them--stood foremost
among the New World's champions of freedom. To-day the Union army
contains thousands of Germans, witnesses who have emigrated or been
exiled. Why are there no Frenchmen? I know the reason, and so do you.

I see the poet of the future draw near. The great drama of our epoch,
the strife between Caesarism and self-government, is presented to his
gaze in dimensions such as no past age could know; he will compress the
struggle within narrow limits.

The Republic of the United States has not yet existed a century. Oh,
how different is the aspect of things here from what we had pictured to
ourselves! I have found many who doubt the continuance of the Union;
cultivated clergymen even told me that there was certainly more power
of endurance in the monarchical form of government. That is the feeling
of dejection and despair: but it is, I believe, only to be met with in
single instances.

How often I am obliged to hear myself called a philosophical idealist!
And they tell me I shall soon be converted. Your nephew, whose
comprehensive glance sees all sides of a subject, has solved this
enigma for me. The people here have lived so long for their own ease
alone, feeling their claims of the State only occasionally, as voters.
They must now pass through the school of military discipline, of
staking their lives for the life of the nation--only as an education,
of course, to be free again afterwards.

The so-called slavery question is not so nearly decided, by a great
deal, as we supposed.

Your nephew thinks the complete abolition of slavery will become a
necessary war measure of vital importance to the continued existence of
the nation; that patriotism must be wedded to humanity--that the pure
ideal must give p