"We were ordered to fire, and I took steady aim and fired on my man at a
distance of sixty yards. He dropped like a stone, at the same instant a
broadside from the ship scattered among the trees, and the enemy
vanished, we could scarcely tell how. I felt as though I must go up to
the man I had fired upon to see if he were dead or alive. I found him
quite still, and I was more afraid of him when I saw him lying so than
when he stood facing me a few minutes before. It is a strange feeling
that comes over you all at once when you have killed a man. He had
unfastened his jacket, and was pressing his hand against his chest where
the wound was. He breathed hard, and the blood poured from the wound and
his mouth at every breath. His face was white as death, and his eyes
looked big and bright as he turned them staring up at me. I shall never
forget it. He was a fine young fellow, not over five and twenty. I knelt
beside him and I felt as though my heart would burst. He had an English
face and did not look like my enemy. If my life could have saved his I
would have given it. I held his head on my knee and he tried to speak,
but his voice was gone. I could not understand a word that he said. I am
not ashamed to say that I was worse than he, for he never shed a tear
and I did. I was wondering how I could bear to leave him to die alone,
when he had some sort of convulsions, then his head rolled over and with
a sigh he was gone. I laid his head gently on the grass and left him. It
seemed so strange when I looked at him for the last time. I somehow
thought of everything I had ever read about the Turks and the Russians,
and the rest of them, but all that seemed so far off, and the dead man
so near."
This was the secret tragedy of the common fraternity of manhood driven
by custom into a sham battle of death. The European war of 1886 was a
conflict of Slav and Teuton. France will never forgive Germany for
taking Alsace and Lorraine. It was a surrender to Germany of what in the
United States would be equal to the surrender of Philadelphia and
Boston, with vast harvest fields in addition. France wanted to blot out
Sedan. England desired to keep out of the fight upon a naval report that
she was unprepared for war. The Danes were ready for insurrection
against their own Government. Only 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean and
great wisdom of Washington kept us out of the fight. The world's
statesmanship at this time was the greatest it had ever known. There was
enough of it in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London to have
achieved a great progress for peace by arbitration and treaty, but there
was no precedent by which to judge the effect of such a plan. The
nations had never before had such vast populations to change into
armies. The temptations of war were irresistible.
In America, remotely luxurious in our own prosperity from the rest of
the world, we became self-absorbed. The fashions, designed and inspired
in Europe, became the chief element of attraction among the ladies. It
was particularly noticeable in the autumn of 1886 for the brilliancy and
grandeur of bird feathers. The taxidermist's art was adapted to women's
gowns and hats to a degree that amazed the country. A precious group of
French actresses, some of them divorced two or three times, with a
system of morals entirely independent of the ten commandments, were
responsible for this outbreak of bird millinery in America. From one
village alone 70,000 birds were sent to New York for feminine adornment.
The whole sky full of birds was swept into the millinery shops. A three
months foraging trip in South Carolina furnished 11,000 birds for the
market of feathers. One sportsman supplied 10,000 aigrettes. The music
of the heavens was being destroyed. Paris was supplied by contracts made
in New York. In one month a million bobolinks were killed near
Philadelphia. Species of birds became extinct. In February of this year
I saw in one establishment 2,000,000 bird skins. One auction room alone,
in three months, sold 3,000,000 East India bird skins, and 1,000,000
West India and Brazilian feathers.
A newspaper description of a lady's hat in 1886 was to me savage in the
extreme. I quote one of many:
"She had a whole nest of sparkling, scintillating birds in her hat,
which would have puzzled an ornithologist to classify."
Here is another one I quote:
"Her gown of unrelieved black was looped up with blackbirds and a winged
creature so dusky that it could have been intended for nothing but a
crow reposed among the strands of her hair."
Public sentiment in American womanhood eventually rescued the songsters
of the world--in part, at any rate. The heavenly orchestra, with its
exquisite prelude of dawn and its tremulous evensong, was spared.
Many years ago Thomas Carlyle described us as "forty million Americans,
mostly fools." He declared we would flounder on the ballot-box, and that
the right of suffrage would be the ruin of this Government. The "forty
million of fools" had done tolerably well for the small amount of brain
Carlyle permitted them.
Better and better did America become to me as the years went by. I never
wanted to live anywhere else. Many believed that Christ was about to
return to His reign on earth, and I felt confident that if such a divine
descent could be, it would come from American skies. I did not believe
that Christ would descend from European skies, amidst alien thrones. I
foresaw the time when the Democracy of Americans would be lifted so that
the President's chair could be set aside as a relic; when penitentiaries
would be broken-down ruins; almshouses forsaken, because all would be
rich, and hospitals abandoned, because all would be well.
If Christ were really coming, as many believed, the moment of earthly
paradise was at hand.