Page:The woman in battle .djvu/144

128 Not only did I discover that fighting was not the only, or the most frequent, employment of the soldier, but I soon awakened to the fact that, in a great war, like the one in which I was now taking part, it was not always the men who wore the uniforms and handled the muskets who performed the most efficient services. As there were other things besides fighting to do, so there must be other than soldiers to perform necessary portions of the work, and to aid in advancing the interests of the cause.

Many of our hopes, anticipations, and aspirations are mere dreams of delusion, which can have no practical fulfilment in this working-day world, and it sometimes costs a pang to dismiss forever a cherished but mistaken idea, and to weave our own web of romance from the parti-colored threads of commonplace reality; it is like parting with a portion of our own being. But, the illusion once dispelled, we are able to step forward more firmly and more resolutely, to act the part which the will of Providence assigns us to play in the great drama of life. We may regret that the dreams of our youth do not come true, just as we once loved to hope that they would, almost without endeavor on our part; but who shall say that our own life romances, woven out of the tissues of events from day to day, with much labor, doubt, and pain, are not fairer and brighter than any imagination could create? It is good to do one's duty quietly amid the rush of great events, even when the path of duty lies in hidden places, where the gaze of the crowd penetrates not, where applause cannot follow; and one's own satisfaction at duty well and nobly performed, is, after all, the best recompense that can be had. To be a second Joan of Arc was a mere girlish fancy, which my very first experiences as a soldier dissipated forever; and it did not take me long to discover that I needed no model, but that, to win success in the career I had chosen, I must be simply myself, and not a copy, even in the remotest particular, of anybody else; and that the secret of success consisted in watching the current of events, and in taking advantage of circumstances as they arose.

In a life so novel as that I was now leading, however, it took me some time to become sufficiently informed to be able