accounts in newspapers, from army letters, from casual conversation with
some maimed straggler fresh from the scene of war. Each boy, as he
made his periodical visit to his family, brought back something to the
general fund of anecdote. The fire that burned in their young bosoms was
fed by tales of daring, and there was a halo round deeds of blood which
effectually concealed the woe and misery they caused. There was but one
side of the medal visible, and the figures on that were so bold and
beautiful that no one cared for or thought of the ugly death's-head on
the reverse. The fearful consumption of human life which drained the
land, sweeping off almost one entire generation of able-bodied men, and
leaving the tillage of the fields to the decrepitude of age, feebly
aided by female hands, gave ample opportunity to gratify the ardent
minds panting to exchange the tame drudgery of school and college for
the limited, but to them world-wide, authority of the subaltern's sword
and epaulet. There seemed to them but one road to advancement. The
profession of arms was the sole pursuit which opened a career bounded
only by the wildest dreams of ambition. What had been could be; and the
fortunate soldier might find no check in the progressive honors of his
course, until his brows should be encircled by the insignia of royalty.
It required more than mortal courage for a young man to intimate a
preference for some more peaceful occupation. A learned profession might
be sneeringly tolerated; but woe to him who spoke of agriculture,
or commerce, or the mechanic arts! There was little comfort for the
luckless wight who, in some unguarded moment, gave utterance to such
ignoble aspirations. Henceforth he was, like the Pariah of India, cut
off from human sympathy, and the young gentlemen whose tastes and
tendencies led them to prefer the more aristocratic trade of butchery
felt that there was a line of demarcation which completely and
conclusively separated them from him.