Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/242

 up; and the whole column, as with one impulse, burst into that quaint expression of the belief in the superiority of mind over matter, of confidence that a great principle does not perish, however it may fare with its first assertors:—

Thus they marched past, keeping step to words and tune, many never to return. We watched them in silence, till the last had passed out of sight, and the sounds grew faint in the distance. I, to whom the whole had been a splendid pageant, in which "uncle Thad" was the chief performer, looked on in mute astonishment when the women fell sobbing into each other's arms after we had retired from the window. What had they to cry for? I understood a little better two months later.

It may have been my vivid recollection of this scene that lent some fire to my rendering of the march, for song it can scarcely be called: at all events, both my auditors joined in the entreaty that I should give one verse in the very words employed by the men who had so freely given their lives in that struggle, the epoch-making character of which was most fully appreciated in after-ages. Seeing their interest, in order to give them a glimpse of the events of that stirring time. I described the scene above mentioned, speaking, at first, of the youthful spectator in the third person. But, carried along by the tide of swiftly recurring memories. I must have reverted unconsciously to the first person; for Reva, who had listened with kindling eye, suddenly exclaimed,—