Of the vicissitudes of this year there seem to be no end! After we have
mourned over these victims of Pekin as men mourn over those for whom
there is absolutely no hope; after we have enumerated their names, like
the names upon a death-roll, and all but held a national funeral service
in their memory; and after we have followed their last moments; gloried
in its heroism; wept over its tragedy; starved, sighed, bled, almost
died with them; lo, it appeareth now that none of them are dead at all!
Was ever an entire continent in the history of the world so mercilessly
defrauded before of its tears?
I have no notion how they may feel about it themselves, but my
impression is that were I the responsible head of a daily newspaper I
should prefer to immure myself from society for the next few days! There
is a pile of such papers at this moment in my sanctum, which I have just
been turning over, and reading a few of the headlines with some little
inward entertainment. Not that I pretend for a moment to have been one
whit wiser, or less lugubrious myself! Far from it. We have all been a
flight of ravens and screech-owls together, only that some of us have
screeched and flapped our wings a little more energetically, and in
rather a more public fashion than the rest!