swear
more fiercely, or retreat more rapidly, than his predecessors did then.

One does not hear much lately of that pleasant fiction, so abundant a
year or two ago, that North and South really only needed to visit each
other and become better acquainted. How cordially these endearing words
sounded, to be sure, from the lips of Southern gentlemen, as they sat at
Northern banquets and partook unreluctantly of Northern wine! Can those
be the gay cavaliers who are now uplifting their war-whoops with such a
modest grace at Richmond and Montgomery? Can the privations of the
camp so instantaneously dethrone Bacchus and set up Mars? It is to be
regretted; they appeared more creditably in their cups, and one would
gladly appeal from Philip sober to Philip drunk. Intimate intercourse
has lost its charm. New York merchants more than ever desire an
increased acquaintance with the coffers of their repudiating debtors;
but so far as the knowledge of their peculiar moral traits is concerned,
enough is as good as a feast. No Abolitionist has ever dared to pillory
the slave-propagandists so conspicuously as they are doing it for
themselves every day. Sumner's "Barbarism of Slavery" seemed tolerably
graphic in its time, but how tamely it reads beside the "New Orleans
Delta"!

A Scotchman once asked Dr. Johnson what opinion he would form of
Scotland from what strangers had said of it.

"Sir," said the Doctor, "I should think it a region of the earth to be
avoided, so far as convenient."

"But how," persisted the patriot, "if you listened to what its natives
say of it?"

"Then, Sir," roared Old Obstinacy, "I should avoid it altogether."

Take the seceded States upon their own showing, and it is absurd to
suppose that they can ever resume their former standing in the nation.
Are there any stronger oaths than their generals have broken, any closer
ties to honesty than their financiers have spurned, any deeds more
damning than their legislatures have voted thanks for? No one supposes
that the individual traitors can be restored to confidence, that Twiggs
can re-dye his reputation, or any deep-sea-soundings fish up Maury's
drowned honor. But the influence of the States is gone with that of
their representatives. They may worship the graven image of President
Lincoln in Mobile; they may do homage to the ample stuffed regimentals
of General Butler in Charleston; but it will not make the nation forget.
Could their whole delegation resume