, whether fallen or surviving.
The flag and trumpet sent in next morning to recover the remains of such
as had suffered in that mad rush to the gates of the town, came back
without being permitted to pass beyond the outworks, bringing a brutal
message from the officer on duty, 'that the next flag should be fired
on,' and that the 'brave soldiers of the Republic allowed of no
compromise with the slaves of tyranny!' The bravado might be laughed at,
but it left me in the dark relative to your fate; and if you are to be
flattered by the feelings of men who cannot get at you but by
cannon-shot, you may congratulate yourself on having had as many fine
things said of you as would make an epitaph for a duke--and, I believe,
with a sincerity at least equal to the best of them. I write all this
laughingly now, but suspense makes heaviness of heart, and you cost me
some uneasy hours, of course. I send you none of _our_ news; as you will
hear all in good time, and communications on public matters might bring
your messenger or yourself into difficulties. You are alive, and in good
hands; that is the grand point. Your character is now in _my_ hands, and
I shall take care of it; I shall see you a general officer yet, if you
have not the greater luck to retire and live an honest farmer, sitting
under your own fig-tree and your own vine, with an unromantic spouse,
and some half-dozen of red-cheeked children. Farewell, we shall _soon_
see each other."

The last line evidently meant more than met the eye, and I was now just
in the mind to indulge in the fantasies of my fair correspondent. They
were like herself--a curious mixture of mirth and melancholy.

"Why I wished to write to you, or why I write at all--which, however, I
do decorously at the side of my father--are questions which I have not
taken the trouble of asking until this moment. But I am in Switzerland,
where no one has time for any thing but worshipping mountain-tops, and
falling down at the feet of cataracts. Whether it would add to Mr
Marston's satisfaction I cannot presume to say, but I feel better, much
better, than when I first came into this land of fresh breezes and
beauty of all kinds--the population, of every rank, always excepted. If
I were, like you, a philosopher, I should probably say that nature gets
tired of her work, and after having struck off some part of it with all
the spirit of an Italian painter, disdains the trouble of finishing; or,
like a French 'fa