h
curiosity.

"I should say first to the woman who weeps when she looks at me, to keep
her tears for other misfortunes; for each of my wounds calls to mind
some struggle for my colors. There is room for doubting how some men
have done their duty; with me it is visible. I carry the account of my
services, written with the enemy's steel and lead, on myself; to pity me
for having done my duty is to suppose I would better have been false to
it."

"And what would you say to the countryman, father?"

"I should tell him that, to drive the plow in peace, we must first
secure the country itself; and that, as long as there are foreigners
ready to eat our harvest, there must be arms to defend it."

"But the young student, too, shook his head when he lamented such a use
of life."

"Because he does not know what self-sacrifice and suffering can teach.
The books that he studies we have put in practice, though we never
read them: the principles he applauds we have defended with powder and
bayonet."

"And at the price of your limbs and your blood. The merchant said, when
he saw your maimed body, 'See the worth of glory!"'

"Do not believe him, my son: the true glory is the bread of the soul;
it is this which nourishes self-sacrifice, patience, and courage. The
Master of all has bestowed it as a tie the more between men. When we
desire to be distinguished by our brethren, do we not thus prove our
esteem and our sympathy for them? The longing for admiration is but one
side of love. No, no; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for!
That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which prove
a generous self-sacrifice, but those which our vices or our imprudence
have called forth. Ah! if I could speak aloud to those who, when
passing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man whose
excesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, 'What have you done
with your eyes?' To the slothful man, who with difficulty drags along
his enervated mass of flesh, 'What have you done with your feet?' To the
old man, who is punished for his intemperance by the gout, 'What have
you done with your hands?' To all, 'What have you done with the days God
granted you, with the faculties you should have employed for the good of
your brethren?' If you cannot answer, bestow no more of your pity upon
the old soldier maimed in his country's cause; for he--he at least--can
show his scars without shame."

October 16th.--The lit