_The History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy._ By JOHN FOSTER
KIRK. Two Volumes. 8vo. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co.
There is probably no period of European history which has been so
thoroughly explored and so richly illustrated as the sixteenth
century,--that century of great men, lofty ideas, and gigantic
enterprise, of intellectual activity, and of tremendous political and
religious struggles. The numerous scholars of Continental Europe who
have made this era the subject of their researches have generally been
content to dig that others might plant and reap, sending forth in
abundance the raw material of history to be woven into forms adapted to
popular appreciation. In England, also, but only within a very recent
period, much solid labor of the same kind has been performed. But the
Anglo-Saxon mind, on some sides comparatively deficient in plastic and
inventive power, as well as in that of abstract thought, seems to
possess in a peculiar degree the faculty of comprehending, representing,
and idealizing the varied phases and incessant motion of human life and
character. In science it excels less in the discovery than in the
application of laws. In what may be termed "pure art," music, sculpture,
painting, except where the representation of the Beautiful is
subservient to that of the Real, lyrical and idyllic poetry, and all
departments of literature in which fancy predominates over reason, it
must yield the palm to the genius of Italy, of Germany, of Spain. But in
the drama, in the novel, in history, and in works partaking more or less
of the character of these, its supremacy is established. Shakespeare and
Chaucer are at once the greatest and the most characteristic of English
poets; Hogarth and Wilkie, of English painters; Fielding, Scott, Miss
Austen, Thackeray, and others whose names will at once suggest
themselves, of English writers of fiction; Gibbon, Macaulay, and
Hallam, of English historians. The drama, in its highest forms, belongs
to the past, and that past which was at once too earnest in its spirit
and too narrow in its development to allow of a less vivid or a more
expansive delineation. Fiction, to judge from a multitude of recent
specimens, seems at present on the decline, with some threatenings of a
precipitate descent into the inane. History, on the other hand, is only
at the outset of its career. Its highest achievements are in all
probability reserved for a still distant future, when loftier points of
view shall have been attained, and the haze that now hangs over even the
nearest and most conspicuous objects in some measure dissipated. Its
endeavors hitherto have only shown how much is still to be
accomplished,--how little, indeed, comparatively speaking, it will ever
be possible to accomplish. Not the less, on this account, are the
laborers deserving of the honors bestowed upon them. Every fresh
contribution is a permanent gain. Even in the same field the results of
one exploration do not interfere with or supersede those of another.
Robertson has, in many respects, been surpassed, but he has not been
supplanted, by Prescott; Froude and Motley may traverse the same ground
without impairing our interest in the researches of either.
These four distinguished writers have all devoted their efforts to the
illustration of the period of which we have before spoken,--the grand
and fruitful sixteenth century. With the men and with the events of that
age we have thus become singularly familiar. We have been made
acquainted, not only with the deeds, but with the thoughts, of Charles
V., Philip II., Elizabeth Tudor, Cortés, Alva, Farnese, William the
Silent, and a host of other actors in some of the most striking scenes
of history. But we have also been tempted into forgetting that those
were not isolated scenes, that they belonged to a drama which had long
been in progress, and that the very energy they displayed, the power put
forth, the conquests won, were indicative of previous struggles and a
long accumulation of resources. Of what are called the Middle Ages the
general notion might, perhaps, be comprised in the statement that they
were ages of barbarism and ignorance, of picturesque customs and aimless
adventure. "I desire to know nothing of those who knew nothing," was the
saying, in reference to them, of the French _philosophe_. "Classical
antiquity is nearer to us than the intervening darkness," said Hazlitt.
And Hume and Robertson both consider that the interest of European
history begins with the revival of letters, the invention of printing,
the colonization of America, and the great contests between consolidated
monarchies and between antagonistic principles and creeds.
It must be admitted that the greater portion of mediæval history,
whatever its true character, is shrouded in an obscurity which it would
be difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate. But the same cannot be
said of the close of that period,--the transitional era that preceded
what we are accustomed to consider as the dawn of modern civilization.
For Continental Europe, at least, the fifteenth century is hardly less
susceptible of a thorough revelation than the sixteenth. The chroniclers
and memoir-writers are more communicative than those of the succeeding
age. The documentary evidence, if still deficient, is rapidly
accumulating. The conspicuous personages of the time are daily becoming
more palpable and familiar to us. Joan of Arc has glided from the
luminous haze of legend and romance into the clearer light of history.
Philippe de Comines has a higher fame than any eye-witness and narrator
of later events. Louis XI. discloses to posterity those features which
he would fain have concealed from his contemporaries. And confronting
Louis stands another figure, not less prominent in their own day, not
less striking when viewed from our day,--that of Charles the Bold, of
Burgundy.
The career of this latter prince has generally been regarded as merely a
romantic episode in European history. Scott has painted it in vivid
colors in two of his most brilliant fictions,--"Quentin Durward," and
"Anne of Geierstein." But, perhaps from this very notion in regard to
its lack of historical importance, the reality has never been depicted
in fulness or with detail, except in M. de Barante's elegant
_rifacimento_ of the French chroniclers of the fifteenth century. That
the subject was, however, one of a very different character has been
apparent to the scholars in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland,
who during the last twenty years have made it a special object of their
researches. A stronger light has been thrown upon every part of it, and
an entirely new light upon many portions. Charles has assumed his
rightful position, as the "Napoleon of the Middle Ages," whose ambition
and whose fall exercised, a powerful influence on the destinies of the
principal European states.
But the labors through which this has been accomplished are as yet
unknown to the general mass of readers. The results lie scattered in
quarters difficult of access, and in forms that repel rather than
attract the glance. Chronicles written in tough French and tougher
German have been published in provincial towns, and have scarcely found
their way beyond those localities. Various learned societies and
commissions have edited documents which would be nearly unintelligible
without a wide comparison and complete elucidation. Single, isolated
points have been treated and discussed by those who took for granted a
familiarity on the part of the reader with the general facts of the
case. To combine this mass of evidence, to sift and establish it, and to
weave it into a symmetrical narrative, is the aim of the work before us.
The idea was conceived while the author was engaged in assisting the
late Mr. Prescott in cognate branches of study. That great and generous
writer entered heartily into the project, and made use of the ample
facilities which he is well known to have possessed for the collection
of the necessary materials. The correspondence which he opened for this
purpose led to the belief that he had himself undertaken the task; and
great satisfaction was expressed by the eminent Belgian archivist, M.
Gachard, that a pen which had already given so much delight and
instruction to the world was about to be engaged on so attractive a
theme. But Prescott was not more ardent in the prosecution of his own
inquiries than in furthering those of others; and he displayed in this,
as in many like instances, the same noble spirit which, since his death,
has been so gracefully acknowledged by Mr. Motley.
Of the manner in which the work is executed it would be, perhaps,
premature to speak. We have no hesitation, however, in assigning to Mr.
Kirk's most fascinating narrative a place with the great achievements of
genius in the department he has chosen to fill. His advent among the
historians will be welcomed the world over. A glance at the copy placed
in our hands has enabled us to indicate its nature. The two volumes
about to appear bring the story down to the crisis of Charles's fate,
the moment when he became involved in a war with the Swiss. A third
volume, now in course of preparation, will complete the eventful tale.
We think it not unlikely that to the American reader the first half of
the history will seem, at the present time, to possess a peculiar
interest. For this part of the work contains the last great struggle
between the French crown and the feudal princes,--a struggle involving
the question whether France was to form one nation or to be divided into
a number of petty states. Such a struggle is now going on in our own
country. The question we are debating is whether the nation is to be
disintegrated or consolidated. The theory of "State sovereignty" is
nothing more than the old theory of feudal independence. "I love France
so well," said Charles of Burgundy, "that I would fain see it ruled over
by six kings instead of one." "I love the republic founded by our
fathers so well," says Jefferson Davis, "that I would fain see it split
up into several hostile confederacies." When we see that France, under
the direction of a Louis XI., came out of that struggle triumphant, we
shall not despair of our own future, trusting rather to the guidance of
that Providence which is working out its own great designs than to
instruments little cognizant of its plans and too often unconscious of
its influence.
_Good Thoughts in Bad Times, and Other Papers._ By THOMAS FULLER, D.D.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
There certainly never was a greater piece of publishing felicity, in its
seasonableness, than this entire reprint. The "Thoughts" are as good,
for whatever is bad or trying in our times, as they were hundreds of
years ago; so that one might almost suspect the title of the book for an
invention, and consider many a passage in it to be new matter,
only--after the fashion of some who, in essay or story, try to
reproduce the ancients--skilfully put in the manner of the old
preacher. To all who would have religious comfort in the distractions of
present events we especially recommend this incomparable divine's truly
devout and thoughtful pages. None of our authors have succeeded so well
in providing for our own wants. The sea of our political agitations
might become smooth under the well-beaten oil which he pours out. The
divisions made by the sword to-day would heal with the use of his
prescriptions. Human nature never grows old; and America, in her Civil
War, is the former England over again now.
Sticklers for a style of conventional dignity and smooth decorum may
think to despatch Fuller's claims by denominating him a quaint writer.
This would be what is vulgarly called a snap-judgment indeed. His
quaintness never runs into superficial conceit, but embodies always a
deep and comprehensive wisdom. He insinuates truth with a friendly
indirectness, and banters us out of our folly with a foreign instance.
Plutarch or Montaigne is not more happy in historical parallels, for
personal reflection and sober application to actual duty. Never was
fancy more alert in the service of piety. His imagination is as luminous
as Sir Thomas Browne's, and, if less peculiar and original in its
combinations, rises into identity with more child-like and lofty
worship. Ever ready to fall on his knees, there is in his adoration no
touch of cant, or of that _other-worldliness_ which Coleridge complains
of as interfering with the pressing affairs and obligations of the
present. No pen ever drew a firmer boundary between sentiment and
sentimentality. But never was shrewd knowledge of this world so humane,
keen observation so kind, wit so tender, and humor so sanctified, united
with resolution by all means to teach and save mankind so invariably
strong.
While so much of our religious literature is a weak appeal to shallow
feeling and a gross affront to reason, it is refreshing to meet with an
author who helps us to obey the great precept of the Master, and put
_mind_ and _strength_, as well as heart and soul, into our love of God.
Indeed, this precious treatise, or assemblage of little treatises, so
rational without form of logic, so convenient to be read for a moment or
all day long, and so harmonious in its diverse headings, should be
everywhere circulated as a larger sort of religious tract. We hear of
exhortations impressed in letters on little loaves for the soldiers to
eat. We wish every military man or civilian, intelligent enough for the
relish, could have Fuller's sentences to feed on, as, beyond all
rhetoric, bread of life.
So let a welcome go to the old worthy, our hearts' brother, as he seems
to rise out of his two-centuries' grave. At a time when Satan appears
again to have been let loose for a season, and we know the power of
evil, described in the Apocalypse, in the fearful headway made by the
rebellious conspiracy of his servants, carried to such a point of
success, that statesmen, and scholars, and preachers, even of so-called
liberal views, on the farther shore, bow to it the knee, while the
frowning cannon at every point shows how remote the Millennium still
is,--thanks for the counsels, fit to our need, of a writer still fresh,
while the main host of his contemporaries are long since obsolete, with
dead volumes for their tombs. How many precious quotations from his
leaves we might make, but that we prefer to invite a perusal of the
whole!
We add to our criticism no drawbacks, as we like to give to transcendent
merit unstinted praise, and have really no exceptions in mind, could we
presume in such a case to express any. Looking on the features of
Fuller's portrait, which makes the frontispiece of his work as here
reproduced for us, we note a weight of prudence strangely blending with
a buoyancy of prayer, well corresponding to the inseparable sagacity and
ecstasy of his words, teaching us the consistency of immortal aspiration
with an infallible good-sense,--a lesson never more important to be
learned than now. To be an executive mystic, an energetic saint, is the
very ideal of human excellence; and to go forward in the name of the
Divinity is the meaning of the book we have here passed in review.
_Speeches, Lectures, and Letters._ By WENDELL PHILLIPS. Boston: James
Redpath.
In vigor, in point, in command of language and felicity of phrase, in
affluence and aptness of illustration, in barbed keenness and _cling_
of sarcasm, in terror of invective, in moral weight and momentum, in
copiousness and quality of thought, in aggressive boldness of statement,
finally in equality to all audiences and readiness for all occasions,
Wendell Phillips is certainly the first orator in America,--and that we
esteem much the same as saying that he is first among those whose
vernacular is the English tongue. That no speeches are made of equal
_value_ with his, that he has an intellectual superiority to all
competitors in the forum, we do not assert; but his preeminence in pure
oratorical genius may now be considered as established and
unquestionable. Ajax has the strength, perhaps more than the strength,
of Achilles; but Achilles adds to vigor of arm incomparable swiftness of
foot. The mastiff is stout, brave, trusty, intelligent, but the hound
outruns him; and this greyhound of modern oratory, deep-chested,
light-limbed, supple, elastic, elegant, powerful, must be accredited
with his own special superiorities. Or taking a cue from the tales of
chivalry, we might say that he is the Sir Launcelot of the platform, in
all but Sir Launcelot's sin; and woe to the knight against whom in full
career he levels his lance!
And yet one is half ashamed to praise his gifts, so superbly does he
himself cast those gifts behind him. He is not trying to be eloquent: he
is trying to get a grand piece of justice done in the world. No engineer
building a bridge, no ship-master in a storm at sea, was ever more
simply intent on substantive results. It is not any "Oration for the
Crown" that he stands here pronouncing: it is service, not distinction,
at which he aims, and he will be crowned only in the gladness of a
redeemed race. The story of his life is a tale of romance; he makes real
the legends of chivalry. He might have sat at meat with Arthur and the
knights of the Round Table, and looked with equal unabashed eyes into
theirs; and a thousand years hence, some skeptic, reading the history of
these days, will smile a light disdain, and say, "Very well for fiction;
but _real_ men are selfish beings, and serve themselves always to the
sweetest and biggest loaf they can find."
We praise his gifts and his nobility, not always his opinions. He was
once the apostle of a doctrine of disunion; he fervently believes in
enforcing "total abstinence" by statute; he is the strenuous advocate of
woman-suffrage. We have stood by the Union always; we have some faith in
pure wine, notwithstanding the Maine Law; and believing that women have
a right to vote, we believe also that they have a higher right to be
excused from voting. We are unwilling to consume their delicate
fitnesses in this rude labor. It is not economical. We do not believe in
using silk for ships' top-sails, or China porcelain for wash-tubs. There
are tasks for American women--tasks, we mean, of a social and public,
not alone of a domestic nature--which only women _can_ rightly perform,
while their accomplishment was never more needed than here.
Mr. Phillips is no "faultless painter." He is given to snap-judgments.
The minor element of _considerateness_ should be more liberally present.
He forgets that fast driving is not suitable to crowded streets; and
through the densest thoroughfares the hoofs of his flying charger go
ringing over the pavements, to the alarm of many and the damage of some.
Softly, Bucephalus! A little gentle ambling through these social
complications might sometimes be well.
Again, while he has the utmost of moral stability and constancy, and
also great firmness of intellectual adhesion to main principles, there
is in him a certain minor changefulness. He pours out a powerful light,
but it flickers. Momentary partialities sway him,--to be balanced,
indeed, by subsequent partialities, for his broad nature will not be
permanently one-sided; but meantime his authority suffers. Mood,
occasion, the latest event, govern overmuch the color of his statement;
so that an unsympathetic auditor--and every partiality, by the law of
the world, must push _some one_ out of the ring of sympathy--may
honestly deem him unfair, even wilfully unfair.
Finally, he relies too much upon sarcasm and personal invective as
agents. He has a theory on this matter; and we feel _sure_ that it is
erroneous. Not that invective is to be forbidden. Not that personal
criticism is always out of place, or always useless. We are among the
"all men" whom Thoreau declared to be "enamored of the beauty of plain
speech." We ask no man in public or private life to wear a satin glove
upon his tongue. We believe, too, in the "noble wrath" of Tasso's
heroes, When the heart _must_ burn, let the words be fire. It is just
where personal invective begins to be used as matter of _theory and
system_ that it begins to be used amiss. Let the rule be to spare it, if
it _can_ be spared, and to use it only under the strictest compelling of
moral indignation. And were not Mr. Phillips among the most genial and
sunny of human beings, really incapable of any malign passion, he would
fool the reactive sting of this invective in his own bosom, and so
become fearful of indulging it.
Still it must be said that he has the genius and function of a critic.
He is the censor of our statesmanship. He is the pruner of our politics.
Let his censure be broad and deliberate, that it may be weighty; let his
pruning be with care and kindness, that it may be with benefit.
_Systems of Military Bridges in Use by the United States Army, those
adopted by the Great European Powers, and such as are employed in
British India._ With Directions for the Preservation, Destruction, and
Reestablishment of Bridges. By Brigadier-General GEORGE W. CULLUM,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, Chief of Staff of the
General-in-Chief, etc., etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand.
A nation can hardly achieve military success without paying special heed
to its _material_ of war. It is the explicit duty of a nation's
constituted guardians assiduously to apply all the resources of science
and art, of theory and practice, of experience and invention, of
judgment and genius, to the systematic production of the best military
apparatus. Ordnance and ordnance stores, arms and equipments, commissary
and quartermaster supplies, the means of transportation, fortifications
and engineer-trains, navies and naval appliances,--these are the
material elements of military strength, which decide the fate of
nations. If in these we are behind the age, our delinquency must be
atoned by disaster and wasted lives. Civilization conquers barbarism
chiefly by its superior skill in the construction and use of the
material instruments of warfare. Courage and conduct are certainly
important factors in all legitimate successes; but they must work
through material means, and are emphasized or nullified by the skill or
rudeness exhibited in the device and fabrication of those means. The
great contest now in progress has taught us afresh the potency of those
material agencies through which patriotic zeal must act, and we shall
hereafter lack all good excuse for _not_ having the very best attainable
system of producing, preserving, providing, and using whatever
implements, supplies, and muniments our future may demand.
As an aid in this direction, we welcome the truly valuable book which
General Cullum has now supplied on one of the Special brandies of
military _matériel_. We owe him thanks for his treatise on military
bridges, which was nearly as much needed as though we had not already
the works of Sir Howard Douglas, Drien, Haillot, and Meurdra, and the
chapters on bridges by Laisné and Duane. General Cullum's work has more
precision and is more available for practical guidance than any other.
The absolute thoroughness with which the India-rubber pontoon system is
described by him gives a basis for appreciating the other systems
described in outline.
It is hardly too much to say that we owe to General Cullum more than to
any other person the development in our service of systematic
instruction in pontoniering. Before the Mexican War, Cullum and Halleck
had ably argued the necessity of organizing engineer troops to be
specially instructed as sappers, miners, and pontoniers. In an article
on "Army Organization," in the "Democratic Review," were cited a
striking series of instances in which bridge-trains or their lack had
decided the issue of grand operations. The history of Napoleon's
campaigns abounds in proofs of their necessity, and the testimony of the
Great Captain was most emphatic on this point. His Placentia and
Beresina crossings are specially instructive. The well-sustained
argument of the article on "Army Organization" was a most effective aid
to General Totten's efforts as Chief Engineer to secure the organization
of our first engineer company. This company proved to be the well-timed
and successful school in which our pontoon-drill grew up and became
available for use in the present war. There are now four regular
companies and several volunteer regiments of engineer troops, whose
services are too highly valued to be hereafter ignored.
In 1846, General Taylor reported, that, after the victories of Palo Alto
and Resaca de la Palma, a pontoon-train would have enabled him to cross
the Rio Grande "on the evening of the battle," take Matamoras "with all
the artillery and stores of the enemy and a great number of
prisoners,--in short, to destroy entirely the Mexican army." This
striking evidence of the necessity of bridge-equipages as part of the
material of army-trains coincided with the organization of the first
engineer company, and led to the preparation of pontoon-trains for
General Taylor and General Scott. General (then Captain) Cullum "had the
almost exclusive supervision, devising, building, and preparing for
service" of these trains, and of that used for instruction at West
Point. To him is chiefly due the formation of the system of military
bridges with India-rubber pontoons, which was most fully described and
illustrated in the original memoir from which the volume now just
published has grown. He subsequently, as Professor of Practical
Engineering at the Military Academy, aided in developing and perfecting
the pontoon-drill,--a department in which G.W. Smith, McClellan, and
Duane ably and successfully labored.
We suppose that all profound and sincere students of military operations
are agreed in accepting bridge-trains and skilled pontoniers as among
the necessities of grand armies. In proportion as the campaigns which an
army is to make are to be conducted on theatres intersected by rivers
will be the importance of its bridge-service. Our own country, abounding
in rivers of the grandest proportions, will need to be always ready for
applying the highest skill and the best bridge-equipage in facilitating
such movements as may prove necessary. We accept this as an
indispensable part of our organized system of war-_matériel_. Were other
evidences lacking, the experiences of the Chickahominy, Rappahannock,
Potomac, and Tennessee will perpetually enforce the argument. The
generation which has fought the Battle of Fredericksburg, and which has
witnessed Lee's narrow escape near Williamsport, is sufficiently
instructed not to question the saving virtues and mobilizing influences
of bridge-trains.
The chief essentials in a military bridge-system are lightness, facility
of transportation, ease of manoeuvre in bridge-formation, stability,
security, and economy. It necessarily makes heavy demands for
transportation; and on this account bridge-trains have frequently been
left behind, when their retention would have proved of the utmost
importance. Their true use is to facilitate campaign-movements; and
while they should be taken only when there is a reasonable prospect of
their being real facilites, they should not be left behind when any such
prospect exists. It was in response to the demand for easy
transportation that the system for India-rubber pontoons was elaborated.
Single supporting cylinders of rubber-coated canvas were first
experimentally used in 1836 by Captain John F. Lane, United States army,
on the Tallapoosa and Chattahoochee Rivers in Alabama. The
service-pontoon, as arranged by General Cullum, is composed of three
connected cylinders of rubber-coated canvas, each having three
compartments. On these pontoons, when inflated, the bridge-table is
built, lashed, and anchored. This bridge has remarkable portability, but
it has also serious defects. The oxidation of the sulphur in vulcanized
rubber produces sulphuric acid in sufficient amount to impair the
strength of the canvas-fibres, thus causing eventual decay, rendering it
prudent to renew the pontoons after a year's campaigning. The pontoons
are required to be air-tight, and are temporarily made partially useless
by punctures, bullet-holes, rents and chafings, although they are easily
repaired. Hence this bridge, despite its portability, is hardly equal to
all the requirements of service, though it was the main dependence in
Banks's operations in Louisiana, and was successfully used in Grant's
Mississippi campaign.
General Cullum briefly describes the various bridge-systems employed in
the different services of the world, including the galvanized iron boat
system, the Blanchard metal cylinder system, the Russian and Fowke's
systems of canvas stretched over frames, the Birigo system, the French
_bateau_ system, the various trestle systems, and many others. The
French wooden _bateau_ is the pontoon chiefly used in our service, and
it is specially commended by its thoroughly proved efficiency, and by
its utility as an independent boat. Its great weight and the consequent
difficulty of its transportation are the great drawbacks, and to this
cause may well be ascribed much of the fatal delay before the
Fredericksburg crossing.
It is a hopeless problem to devise any bridge-equipage which shall
overcome all serious objections. All that should be expected is to
reduce the faults to a practical minimum, while meeting the general
wants of the service in a satisfactory manner. The lack of mobility in
any bridge-train which can be pronounced always trustworthy may,
perhaps, compel the adoption, in addition to the _bateau_-train, of a
light equipage for use in quick movements. This will, however, create
complication, which is nearly as objectionable here as in the calibre of
guns. Thus it is that any solution may prove not exactly the best one
for the particular cases which may arise under it. All that should be
demanded is, that, by the application of sound judgment to the data
which experience and invention afford, our probable wants may be as well
met as practicable. Some system we must have; and, on the one hand, zeal
for mobility, commendable as it is, must not be permitted to invite
grand disasters through failures of the pontoons to do their allotted
work; while, on the other hand, a morbid desire to insure absolutely
trustworthy solidity of construction must be restrained from imposing
needless burdens, which may habitually make our crossings Fredericksburg
affairs. Between these extremes lies the right road. American skill has
hardly exhausted its resources on this problem. The suspension-bridge
train, a description of which General Meigs has published, is deserving
of consideration for many cases in campaigns. General Haupt's remarkable
railroad-bridges thrown over the Rappahannock River and Potomac Creek,
the latter in nine working-days, were structures of such striking and
judicious boldness as to justify most hopeful anticipations from the
designer's expected treatise on bridge-building. Our national eminence
in the art of building wooden trussed and suspension bridges is proof
enough that whatever can be done to improve on the military
bridge-trains of Europe may be expected at our hands. We shall not lack
inventiveness; let us be as careful not to lack judgment, and by all
means to be fair and honest in seeking for the best system. When the
experience of this war can be generalized, a more positive
pontoon-system will be exacted for our service. It is fortunate that
this matter is in good hands. While hoping that the close of the present
war may, for a long time, end the reign of Mars, it behooves us never
again to be caught napping when the Republic is assailed.
* * * * *