one without; and little by little these two became merged in his
imagination. He had conceived a figure which should embody the War; and
that figure had come to be himself.
The War of which he was writing had come upon a people unsuspecting and
unprepared; they had not sought it nor desired it, they did not love
it, they did not understand it. But the nation must be preserved; and so
they set out to forge themselves into a sword. They had wealth, and they
poured it out lavishly; and they had enthusiasm--whole armies of young
men came forward. They were uniformed and armed and drilled and one
after another they marched out, with banners waving, and drums rolling,
and hearts beating high with hope; and one after another they met
the enemy, and were swallowed up in carnage and destruction, and came
reeling back in defeat and despair. It happened so often that the whole
land moaned with the horror of it--there was Bull Run and then again
Bull Run, and there was the long Peninsula Campaign--an entire year
of futility and failure; and there was the ghastly slaughter of
Fredericksburg, and the blind confusion of Chancellorsville, and the
bitter, disappointment of Antietam.
Thyrsis wished to portray all this from the point of view of the
humble private, who got none of the glory, and expected none, but only
suffering and toil; whose lot it was to march and countermarch, to delve
and sweat in the trenches, to be stifled by the heat and drenched by the
rain and frozen by the cold; to wade through seas of blood and anguish,
to be wounded and captured and imprisoned, to be lured by victory and
blasted by defeat. And into it all he was pouring the distillation of
his own experiences. For there was not much of it that he had not
known in his own person. Surely he had known what it was to be cold
and hungry; surely he had known what it was to be lured by victory
and blasted by defeat. He had watched by the death-bed of his dearest
dreams, he had listened to the moaning of multitudes of imprisoned
hopes. He had known what it was to set before him a purpose, and to
cling to it in spite of obloquy and hatred; he had known what it was
to suffer until his forehead throbbed, and all things reeled and swam
before his eyes. He had known also what it was to sacrifice for the sake
of the future, and to see others, who thought of no one but themselves,
preying upon him, and upon the community, and living in luxury and
enjoying power.
Little by little, as he studied this War, Thyrsis had come upon a
strange and sinister fact about it. Roughly speaking, the population of
the country might have been divided into two classes. There were those
to whom the Union was precious, and who gave their labor and their lives
for it; they starved and fought and agonized for it, and came home,
worn, often crippled, and always poor. On the other hand there were some
who had cared nothing for the Union, but were finding their chance to
grow rich and to establish themselves in the places of power. They were
selling shoddy blankets and paper shoes to the government; they were
speculating in cotton and gold and food. There were a few exceptions
to this, of course; but for the most part, when one came to study the
gigantic fortunes which were corrupting the nation, he discovered that
it was just here they had begun.
So this was the curious and ironic fact; the nation had been saved--but
only to be handed over to the money-changers! And these now possessed it
and dominated it; and a new generation had come forward, which knew not
how these things had come to be--which knew only the money-changers and
their power. And who was there to tell them of the War, and all that the
War had meant? Who was there to make that titan agony real to them, to
point them to the high destinies of the Republic?
Along with his war-books, Thyrsis was reading his daily newspaper, which
came to him freighted with the cynicism of the hour. It was when the
revelations of corruption in business and political affairs were at
their flood; high and low, in towns and cities, in states and in the
nation itself, one saw that the government of the country had been
bought. Everywhere throughout the land Mammon sat upon the throne, and
men cringed before him--there was only persecution and mockery for those
who believed in the things for which America stood to all the world.
And this new Lord, who had purchased the people, and held them in
bond, was extracting a toll of suffering and privation, of accident and
disease and death, that was worse than the agony of many wars. The whole
land was groaning and sweating beneath the burden of it; and Thyrsis,
who shared the pain, and knew the meaning of it, was sick with the
responsibility it put upon him, yearning for a thousand voices with
which he might cry the truth aloud.
Some one must bring America face to face with its soul again; and who
was there to do it--who was there that was even trying? Thyrsis had
seen the statues of St. Gaudens, and he knew there was one man who had
dreamed the dream of his country. But who was there to put it into song,
or into story, that the young might read? Like the newspapers and the
churches, the authors had sold out; they were writing for matinée-girls,
and for the Pullman-car book-trade; and meantime the civilization of
America was sliding down into the pit!
So here again was War! Here again were pain and sickness, hunger and
cold, solitude and despair, to be endured and defied; death itself to
be faced--madness even, and soul-decay! Armies of men had gone out, had
laid themselves down and filled up the ditches with their bodies, to
make a bridge for Freedom to pass on. And the ditches were not yet
full--another life was needed!
Nor must he think himself too good for the sacrifice; there had been
greater men than he, no doubt, burned up in the Wilderness, and blown
to pieces by the cannon at “Bloody Angle”; there had been dreamers of
mighty dreams among them--and they were dead, and all their dreams were
dead. And neither must he love his own too dearly; there had been women
who had suffered and died in that War, and babes who had perished by
tens of thousands; and they, too, had been born with agony, had been
loved and yearned for, and wept and prayed for.
So, out of the dead past, were voices calling to Thyrsis; he heard them
in the night--time as one mighty symphony of grief. They had died for
nothing, unless the Republic should be saved, unless their dream of
freedom and justice could be made real. And for what was the poet but
that? So that the new generations might know what their fathers had
done--that the youth of America might be roused and thrilled once more!
Surely it could not be that the land was all sunk in selfishness and
unfaith--that there were no longer any generous souls who could be
stirred by a trumpet-call, and led forth to strike a new blow for the
great hope of Humanity!