ll solve it concealed in our own hearts.

* * * * *

THE ORDEAL BY BATTLE.

Virginia, which began by volunteering as peacemaker in our civil
troubles, seems likely to end by being their battleground; as Mr.
Pickwick, interfering between the belligerent rival editors, only
brought upon his own head the united concussion of their carpet-bags.
And as Dickens declares that the warriors engaged far more eagerly in
that mimic strife, on discovering that all blows were to be received
by deputy, so there is evidently an increased willingness to deal hard
knocks on both sides, in the present case, so long as it is clear that
only Virginia will take them. Maryland, under protection of our army,
adroitly contrives to shift the scene of action farther South. The Gulf
States, with profuse courtesies for the Old Dominion, consent to shift
it farther North. The Southern Confederacy has talked about
paying Richmond the "compliment" of selecting it for the seat of
government;--as if a bully, about to be lynched in his own house by the
crowd, should compliment his next-door neighbor by climbing in at his
window. It is very pleasant to have a hospitable friend; but it is
counting on his hospitality rather too strongly, when you make choice of
his apartments to be tarred and feathered in.

Thus fades the fancy of an "independent neutrality" for the Old
Dominion. It ought to fade;--for neutrality is a crime, where one's
mother's life is at stake; and the Border theory of independence only
reminds one of Pitt's definition of an independent statesman, "a
statesman not to be depended on". How sad has been the decline of
Virginia! How strange, that in 1790, of the ten American post-offices
yielding more than a thousand dollars annually, that stately old
commonwealth held five! Now "a poverty-stricken State", by confession of
her own newspapers,--beleaguered, blockaded,--with no imports but
hungry and moneyless soldiers, and no exports save fugitives of all
colors,--what has she to hope from the present warfare? Elsewhere riches
have wings; in Virginia they are yet more transitory, having legs. Two
hundred million dollars' worth of her property has become unsalable, if
not worthless, within two months. She has but two great staples: tobacco
to send North, and slaves to send South. The slaves at present go only
to the wrong point of the compass, at rates remunerative to themselves
alone; and the tobacco-tr