The Atlantic Monthly, page 69 by Various Authors
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s retirement the painter of precious pictures, that he may lift the soldier's burden and gird himself for fasting through long, toilsome marches over mountains, through wilderness, swamp, and desert, and for encountering Death at every pass in one of his manifold disguises,--that he may lie on a field of blood, perchance, at last, the fragment of himself, for what? that he may say, finally, if speech be left him, he has fought under the flag, that at Memphis its buried glory may have resurrection, that at Sumter it may float again from the battlements, that at Richmond it may be unfurled above Rebellion's grave,--is it the same thing to have accomplished this by way of atonement, and in your own body to atone, by your humiliation, by suspicion endured? She deemed it a small thing that she was called to suffer,--that, when honor was won, she must bear disgrace instead. What, indeed, was a year's or a lifetime's imprisonment, looked on in the light of privation or sacrifice? Yet so to atone, since thus it was written, for the sin of one who was in arms against the nation's government! Oh, if anywhere, of any loyal citizen, it might be looked upon, accepted, as atonement!
In one thing she was happy, and of right. Music never failed her. Art keeps her great rewards for such as serve her for her sacred self. Therefore let her arise day after day to the same prospect of sky, and sea, and busy street, and silent, shadowy church-yard. I bless the birds that built their nests in the elm and willow branches for her sake. The little creatures flitting here and there, in all their home-ways and domestic management, were dear as their song to her.
But in this life, though there might be growth, it was the growth that comes through pain endured with patience, through self-control maintained in the suspense and the anguish of death.
For what, then, did she long in his behalf whose fate was shrouded in thick darkness from her? For victory? or for defeat? A prison? mutilation? disablem