the day when we lay
in the earth all that was mortal of one dearer to us than sunshine or
bird-music; and the moon does not turn red or veil her light, even in
the presence of midnight murder. If the skies weep rain upon Waterloo,
it does not fall because the powers in heaven are making lamentation
over the slaughter so soon to be accomplished, but because the crops of
the Flemish farmers have called up to the skies for moisture.

The sun peeps lovingly down even on many a battle-field, and it kisses
the tips of bayonets soon to be wet with the blood of brothers and the
blades of swords that are to be hacked and hammered in deadly conflict,
just as it might glint upon the polished barrel of the sportsman or
flash from the diamond aigrette of the lady riding forth on her white
palfrey to catch the breath of early morning. And how man, with the
capacity of thought, shrinks and shrivels within himself when he marks
the eternity of the course of nature and the very silent scorn bestowed
upon him when he is committing crimes or displaying heroisms that make
all _his_ little world one overwhelming convulsion! It was the reply of
an officer of undaunted bravery, when asked what was the predominant
feeling in his mind when he headed the forlorn-hope in one of the
desperate assaults that preceded the taking of the City of Mexico: "I
think I heard the singing of the birds in the trees, more distinctly
than anything else, and I felt a little vexed that they seemed to care
nothing about the terrible scrape we were pitching into." And something
of the same dissatisfaction, though more tinged with melancholy, has
been felt by many who stood beside the closing grave and heard the same
bird-music making harsh discord with the rumbling of the clods falling
on the lid of the coffin, and who saw the pleasant sunshine tinging the
very sods that were in a few moments to form an impassable barrier
between the beloved dead and the miserable living.

Nature smiled upon the field of Malvern, on the morning of the First of
July, however the powers that wheel the courses of the sun may have
frowned behind their battlements at the sacrifice of life then beginning
and the fearful passions then being called into more active exertion. A
slight mist lay over wood and river, in the very early morning, but the
first beams of the sun dispelled it, and the picturesque Virginia
landscape was exposed to full view, with its long stretches of hill and
plain,