Page:Aladdin O'Brien (1902).pdf/272

 and that the Sixth Army Corps was to march to a place called Taneytown, where General Meade had headquarters. He made ready and presently was riding by his general at the head of a creaking column, under the starry sky. In the great hush and cool that is before a July dawn, God showed himself to the men, and they sang the "Battle-hymn of the Republic," but it sounded sweetly and yearningly, as if sung by thousands of lovers:

The full sunlight gives man poise and shows him the practical side of things, but in the early morning and late at night man is seldom quite rational. He weakly allows himself to dwell upon what was not, is not, and will not be. And so Aladdin, during the first period of that march, pre-