sun, and
fiercely swept by the wrathful northern wind, has been the golden bough
to many an eager seeker. Against these pitiless cliffs full many a
hope has hurtled, full many a heart has broken. Oh the eyes that have
looked longingly hither from far Southern homes! Oh the thoughts that
have vaguely wandered over these bluffs, searching among the shouting
hosts, perhaps breathlessly among the silent sleepers, for household
gods! Oh the cold forms that have lain upon these unnoting rocks! Oh
the white cheeks that have pressed this springing turf! Oh the dead
faces mutely upturned to God!

Struggle, conflict, agony,--how many of earth's Meccas have received
their chrism of blood! Thrice and four times hopeless for humanity, if
battle is indeed only murder, violence, lust of blood, or power, or
revenge,--if in that wild storm of assault and defence and deathly hurt
only the fiend and the beast meet incarnate in man. But it cannot be.
Battle is the Devil's work, but God is there. When Montgomery cheered
his men up their toilsome ascent along this scarcely visible path over
the rough rocks, and the treacherous, rugged ice, was he not upborne by
an inward power, stronger than brute's, holier than fiend's, higher
than man's? When Arnold flung himself against this fortress, when he
led his forlorn hope up to these sullen, deadly walls, when, after
repulse and loss and bodily suffering and weakness, he could still
stand stanch against the foe and exclaim, "I am in the way of my duty,
and I know no fear!" was it not the glorious moment of that dishonored
life? Battle is of the Devil, but surely God is there. The
intoxication of excitement, the sordid thirst for fame and power, the
sordid fear of defeat, may have its place; but there, too, stand high
resolve, and stern determination,--pure love of country, the immortal
longing for glory, ideal aspiration, god-like self-sacrifice, loyalty
to soul, to man, to the Highest. The meanest passions of the brute may
raven on the battle-field, but the sublimest exaltations of man have
found there fit arena.

From the moment of our passing into the citadel enclosure, a young
soldier has accompanied us,--whether from caution or courtesy,--and
gives us various interesting, and sometimes startling information. He
assures us that these guns will fire a ball eight miles,--a long range,
but not so long as his bow, I fear. I perceive several gashes or slits
in the stone wall of the