Page:Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906).djvu/30

14 throw herself into the breach, and, if possible, heal up the differences and wounds of the past, and thus avert the terrors of war. But her effort was not only in vain, but futile. The storm had already gathered; the dark clouds of passion and hatred had already formed, and each hurled black defiance at the other.

The two volcanoes, one at the South and the other at the North, whose pent-up fires had been hissing and struggling to break loose from their smothered furies, were now belching forth fire and flame, and the burning lava rolling on but mocked the feeble efforts of the Middle States for peace.

Hot blood was up, and the furies were all turned loose, and an inexorable fate led them on. What Virginia could not settle for herself was soon settled for her, and she was compelled, whether she would or not, to action.