ted by some people, though your violence is enough for me." I
always say, "_You_ may do as you please; my brothers are fighting for
me, and doing their duty, so that excess of patriotism is unnecessary
for me, as my position is too well known to make any demonstrations
requisite."

This war has brought out wicked, malignant feelings that I did not
believe could dwell in woman's heart. I see some of the holiest eyes,
so holy one would think the very spirit of charity lived in them, and
all Christian meekness, go off in a mad tirade of abuse and say, with
the holy eyes wondrously changed, "I hope God will send down plague,
yellow fever, famine, on these vile Yankees, and that not one will
escape death." O, what unutterable horror that remark causes me as
often as I hear it! I think of the many mothers, wives, and sisters who
wait as anxiously, pray as fervently in their faraway homes for their
dear ones, as we do here; I fancy them waiting day after day for the
footsteps that will never come, growing more sad, lonely, and
heart-broken as the days wear on; I think of how awful it would be if
one would say, "Your brothers are dead"; how it would crush all life
and happiness out of me; and I say, "God forgive these poor women! They
know not what they say!" O women! into what loathsome violence you have
abased your holy mission! God will punish us for our hard-heartedness.
Not a square off, in the new theatre, lie more than a hundred sick
soldiers. What woman has stretched out her hand to save them, to give
them a cup of cold water? Where is the charity which should ignore
nations and creeds, and administer help to the Indian and Heathen
indifferently? Gone! All gone in Union versus Secession! _That_ is what
the American War has brought us. If I was independent, if I could work
my own will without causing others to suffer for my deeds, I would not
be poring over this stupid page; I would not be idly reading or sewing.
I would put aside woman's trash, take up woman's duty, and I would
stand by some forsaken man and bid him Godspeed as he closes his dying
eyes. _That_ is woman's mission! and not Preaching and Politics. I say
I would, yet here I sit! O for liberty! the liberty that _dares_ do
what conscience dictates, and scorns all smaller rules! If I could help
these dying men! Yet it is as impossible as though I was a chained
bear. I can't put out my hand. I am threatened with Coventry because I
sent a custard to a sick man w