Crime, To The Man Of

I Have Never Seen An Adequate Description Anywhere Of The Amazement, The Uncomprehending Horror Of The Bulk Of The American People Which Preceded The Firing Of That Gun At Sumter. Politicians Or Far-sighted Leaders On Both Sides Knew What Was Coming. And It Is They Who Have Written Histories Of The War. But To The Easy-going Millions, Busied With Their Farms Or Shops, The Onrushing Disaster Was As Inexplicable As An Earthquake. Their Protest Arose From Sea To Sea Like The Clamor Of A Gigantic Hive Of Frightened Bees.

Before The Birth Of The New Woman The Country Was Not An Intellectual Desert, As She Is Apt To Suppose. There Were Teachers Of Thehighest Grade, And Libraries, And Countless Circles In Our Towns And Villages Of Scholarly, Leisurely Folk, Who Loved Books, And Music, And Nature, And Lived Much Apart With Them. The Mad Craze For Money, Which Clutches At Our Souls To-day As La Grippe Does At Our Bodies, Was Hardly Known Then.

Reform Is Born Of Need, Not Pity. No Vital Movement Of The People Has Worked Down, For Good Or Evil; Fermented, Instead, Carried Up The Heaving, Cloggy Mass.

Sitting By The Chimney Corner As We Grow Old, The Commonest Things Around Us Take On Live Meanings And Hint At The Difference Between These Driving Times And The Calm, Slow Moving Days When We Were Young.

The Histories Which We Have Of The Great Tragedy Give No Idea Of The General Wretchedness, The Squalid Misery, Which Entered Into Every Individual Life In The Region Given Up To The War. Where The Armies Camped The Destruction Was Absolute.