ere, and I remember how I raked up examples of European
and Asiatic frugality with which to reinforce my editorials and hearten
my readers,--the scanty fare of the French peasant, the raw oatmeal of
the Scotch stonecutter, the flinty bread of the Swiss mountaineer, the
Spaniard's cloves of garlic, the Greek's handful of olives, and the
Hindoo's handful of rice. The situation was often gayly accepted. The
not infrequent proclamation of fastdays always served as a text for
mutual banter, and starvation-parties were the rule, social gatherings
at which apples were the chief refreshment. Strange streaks of luxury
varied this dead level of scant and plain fare. The stock of fine wines,
notably madeiras, for which the South was famous, did not all go to the
hospitals. Here and there provident souls had laid in boxes of tea and
bags of coffee that carried them through the war, and the chief outlay
was for sugar, which rose in price as the war went on, until it almost
regained the poetical character it bore in Shakespeare's time. Sugar,
tea, and coffee once compassed, the daintiness of old times occasionally
came back, and I have been assured by those who brought gold with them
that Richmond was a paradise of cheap and good living during the war,
just as the United States will be for foreigners when our currency
becomes as abundant as it was in the last years of the Confederacy.
Gresham's law ought to be called Aristophanes' law. In all matters
pertaining to the sphere of civic life, merry Aristophanes is of more
value than sombre Thucydides, and if the gospel of peace which he
preaches is chiefly a variation on the theme of something to eat, small
blame to him. Critics have found fault with the appetite of Odysseus as
set forth by Homer. No Confederate soldier will subscribe to the
censure, and there are no scenes in Aristophanes that appeal more
strongly to the memory of the Southerner, civilian or soldier, than
those in which the pinch of war makes itself felt.

Farmers and planters made their moan during the Confederacy, and
doubtless they had much to suffer. "Impressment" is not a pleasant word
at any time, and the tribute that the countryman had to yield to the
defense of the South was ruinous,--the indirect tribute as well as the
direct. The farmers of Virginia were much to be pitied. Their homes were
filled with refugee kinsfolk; wounded Confederates preferred the private
house to the hospital. Hungry soldiers and soldie