er place of honor, and now stands in the middle of the floor.
The spot it formerly occupied has been lately filled by a hospital
bed, on which a capital operation was performed. The spouting blood
from the bleeding arteries of some poor patient has covered the
wall with crimson marks. In fact, everywhere all over the house,
every wall and floor is saturated with blood, and the whole house,
from an elegant gentleman's residence, seems to have been suddenly
transformed into a butcher's shamble. The old clock has stopped;
the child's rocking horse is rotting away in a disused balcony; the
costly exotics in the garden are destroyed, or perhaps the hardiest
are now used for horse posts. All that was elegant is wretched; all
that was noble is shabby; all that once told of civilized elegance
now speaks of ruthless barbarism.'

Take another illustration--that of the incongruous juxtaposition of old
family sepulchres and fresh soldiers' graves--the associations of the
past and the sad memorials of recent strife even among the dead:

'Yesterday,' writes a thoughtful observer, from near Stafford Court
House, in December, 1862, 'for the first time since leaving
Harper's Ferry, I met with an evidence of the old-time aristocracy,
of which the present race of Virginians boast so much and possess
so little. About four miles from here, standing remote and alone in
the centre of a dense wood, I found an antiquated house of worship,
reminding one of the old heathen temples hidden in the recesses of
some deep forest, whither the followers after unknown gods were
wont to repair for worship or to consult the oracles. On every side
are seen venerable trees overtowering its not unpretentious
steeple. The structure is built of brick (probably brought from
England), in the form of a cross, semi-gothic, with entrances on
three sides, and was erected in the year 1794. On entering, the
first object which attracted my attention was the variously carved
pulpit, about twenty-five feet from the floor, with a winding
staircase leading to it. Beneath were the seats for the attendants,
who, in accordance with the customs of the old English Episcopacy,
waited upon the dominie. The floor is of stone, a large cross of
granite lying in the centre, where the broad aisles intersect. To
to the left of thi