第97章
He, not a politician, nor a horse-jockey, nor a footpad, but a man who talks of honor and integrity,--a man of standing and influence, whose virtue is not tempted by hunger, whose life has been such that he may be supposed intelligently to comprehend the interests which are at stake, and the measures which should be taken to secure them,--is he successful because he obtains in a few months, by the perquisites--not illegal, but strained to the extreme verge of legal --of an office,--not illegal, but accidental, not in the line of promotion,--a sum of money which the greatest merit and the highest office in the land cannot claim for years? He is shrewd. He understands his business. He knows the ins and outs. He can manage the sharpers. He can turn an honest penny, and a good many of them. He need not refuse to do himself a good turn with his left hand, while he is doing his country a good turn with his right. It is all fair and aboveboard. He does the business assigned him, and does it well. He takes no more compensation than the law allows. The money may as well go to him as to shoddy contractors, Shylock sutlers, and the legion of plebeian rascals. But it was a good stroke. It was a great chance.
It was a rare success.
O wretched failure! O pitiful abortion! O accursed hunger for gold! When the nation struggles in a death-agony, when her life-blood is poured out from hundreds of noble hearts, when men and women and children are sending up to the Lord the incense of daily sacrifice in her behalf, and we know not yet whether prayer and effort, whether faith and works, shall avail,--whether our lost birthright, sought carefully, and with tears, shall be restored to us once more,--in this solemn and awful hour, a man can close his eyes and ears to the fearful sights and great signs in the heavens, and, stooping earthward, delve with his muck-rake in the gutter for the paltry pennies!
A man? A MAN! Is this manhood? Is this manliness? Is this the race that our institutions engender? Is this the best production which we have a right to expect? Is this the result which Christianity and civilization combine to offer? Is this the advantage which the nineteenth century claims over its predecessors? Is this the flower of all the ages,--earth's last, best gift to heaven?
No,--no,--no,--this is a changeling, and no child. The true brother's blood cries to us from Baltimore. It rings out from the East where Winthrop fell. It swells up from the West with Lyon's dirge. And all along, from hill and valley and river-depths, where the soil is drenched, and the waters are reddened, and nameless graves are scattered,--cleaving clearly through the rattle of musketry, mingling grandly with the "diapason of the cannonade," or floating softly up under the silent stars, "the thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice"ceases not to cry unto us day and night; its echoes linger tenderly and tearfully around every hearth-stone, and vibrate with a royal resonance from mountain to sea-shore. The mother bends to it in her silent watches. The soldier, tempest-tost, hears it through the creaking cordage, and every true heart knows its brother, and takes up the magnificent strain,--victorious, triumphant, exultant,--"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."
Sweet and honorable is it for country to die.