Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended.

Oh, and of course you will say, "When the time comes, you will be ready."
Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so?
What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel?
Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct?
Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception?
Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight,
For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action?
Must we, walking o'er earth, discerning a little, and hoping
Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,--
Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present,
Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbor,
To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim?
And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble repining,
Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent?

V.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning, as usual,
_Murray_, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffè Nuovo;
Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather,
Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray,
And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles,
_Caffè-latte!_ I call to the waiter,--and _Non c' è latte_,
This is the answer he makes me, and this the sign of a battle.
So I sit; and truly they seem to think any one else more
Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless _nero_,
Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons,
Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and