Various

“ The army of the United States at the present day contains within itself the best part of such free labor and intellect as is needed to reform the South. That dashing and daring energy which gladly enters on new fields, and loves bold enterprises, has streamed by scores of thousands from the farm and factory toward the camp and the battle-field. There it is doing brave service for God and for freedom. Every day sees martyrs for the holy cause drawn from the ranks of these good and noble volunteers. ”

“ The science of wealth now takes a more philosophic turn, and may be summed up in one word, debt. To be rich is simply to have brought the community in debt to yourself; and the greater it is, the greater, of course, your riches. To be poor is simply to reverse this condition, and to be in debt to others. The richest of all mankind may not have on hand, in specie, at any one time, more than the amount of a single day's income, and may be only able to show for his entire capital sundry pieces of paper, representing value. ”

“ It is pleasant to see the process of reconstruction going on so well in New-Orleans under the bayonets of our troops. But neither in New-Orleans nor elsewhere has it any vitality save under Northern direction, aided by Northern industry. The hatred of the South for the old Union is insane, terrible, and ineradicable. The real secessionists will never come back, they will never be conciliated. They will oppose Union, oppose free labor, hinder our every effort to benefit them, and be our deadly foes to the last. ”

“ Then if we can't say conversely all poetry is truth, yet poetry gives to every thing she touches with her magic wand, the charm of reality. Are not Ariel, Puck, Oberon, real characters, though but 'beings of the mind'? Shylock and Lady Macbeth are to me as real as John Wesley and Hannah More, and far more real than the dimly defined heroes of Plutarch, except those that Shakspeare has thrilled with his own life-blood—his very ghosts have an awful individuality—they are enough to make you believe in ghosts. ”

“ You will never make an artist—never, never—you are too, too superficiall, too much of the earth, dirty.'
'Oh! now I understand,' answered Caper; 'give it to me, I deserve it.'
'I was studying water, its shadows and its superficiality, in that basin,' continued Phlamm, 'and I study the ocean there, and have devolved great principles from it. What makes my pictures sought for by the high and the low, wealthy? What? It's the Truth in 'em, the Mystery, the Naychure. The old masters were humbugs, they weren't mysterious, they had no inner sight into the workings of Naychure. ”

“ Accessible only to the gods, there they live, as unconcernedly as though the earth were not. Thor, and Odin, and Freia live in the 'Shining Walhalla,' whither go the souls of brave and good warriors. Their way thither is over the heavenly bridge, the many-colored rainbow, thrown over between heaven and earth for the passage of the happy souls. And there in this dim, ghostly Walhalla they sit like the Grecian gods, and drink mead instead of ambrosia and nectar. They do not share in the earthly vices of the Southern gods. ”

“ Democracy among the 'Yankees' as well as all North-Americans who are free from a servile respect for simple rank and money, is something very different from that mere form which Brougham, and with him nearly all Europe, believe it to be. We are not Frenchmen, or Englishmen, or Orientals, to quietly sit down under any kind of government which chance may impose, and exclaim: 'It is fate.' Democracy with us is not the mere form which they imagine. It is, like the English government, like the German, like the Pachalik of the Oriental, something as much a part of us as our national physiognomy. ”

“ The war is on their own soil, and their own armies are a scourge and a curse to their own estates. Every where the plantation and the farm are made desolate—every where the direst distress is taking the place of comfort. And all this they brought on themselves by the most determined will. They believed that Northern men were all cowards and half-traitors—their allies and friends among us promised them easy victories and certain independence—they thought that the greed of money was stronger among us than the sense of dignity and honor—and now they are reaping their reward. ”

“ And the strange old man, who could not ride a few squares in the omnibus without attracting the attention of every body and exciting public curiosity to such a degree, was the millionaire, the Crœsus of the South, the largest land-owner in the United States. He had reached the advanced age of seventy, and his remarkable vigor and health had never given way under the pressure of the severest and most incessant labor. Generation upon generation had lapsed into the grave under his eye. ”

“ But the traveler who travels only to travel, and has the means and spirit to find pleasure wherever he goes, thinking only of what he sees, enjoys to its fullest extent the luxurious seat of the hired, white-damask-lined carriage, drawn by stalwart, heavy-limbed, coal-black horses, with sweeping tails, the white foam flying from the champed silver bits, the whole turn-out driven by a handsome, white-gloved, black-coated Roman. ”

“ Lest some one who has not seen the slave and the poor white man of the South, as he actually is, should deem my picture overdrawn, I will say that 'the half has not been told!' If the whole were related—if the Southern system, in all its naked ugliness, were fully exposed—the truth would read like fiction, and the baldest relation of fact like the wildest dream of romance. ”

“ And the only effective means of doing this will be to settle our army in the South. The task before us is a tremendous one, but so is the war, and we must not flinch from it.
We have come to an era of great ideas and great deeds, such as rarely overtake nations in history, and which when they do, either crush them to the dust or elevate them to the topmost pinnacle of glory. Petty expediency, timid measures, small politics, will no longer help this country. ”

“ How the Great Teacher has lavished on us illustrations of his goodness, as if he would in some way make it plain to all, 'what use.' There must be a use in every thing he creates. Every dew-drop that the meanest weed has wooed and won from the atmosphere, is as tenderly cared for by him, as the stream is that supplies your mill-pond; every briny tear on the infant's cheek, as the ocean that bears on its bosom your merchant-vessels. ”

“ The truth simply is, that English thinkers wrongly judge our people to be like their own, and as capable of promptly submitting to acknowledged superiors. In the same blindness and ignorance, they see only two parties, equal in all respects in this war, and realize nothing of the innate vitality and irresistibly accretive power of free-labor, science, and progress, when brought into opposition with a conservatism which scorns every thing pertaining to the rights of the majority. ”

“ There is often a magic element connected with their music. The music of the elves is like that of the sirens and of Orpheus, often irresistible. Through many of their ballads runs the same legendary undertone. A maiden's song moves the king's heart, and one by one he offers in vain every gift in his power, to the very half of his kingdom, and ends by placing a crown of gold upon her head, and seating her beside him on his throne as his lawful queen. ”

“ Let there be meetings, speeches, subscriptions—let every thing that is vigorous and impulsive and patriotic thrill the people forthwith: Let there be no lagging in the good cause. Never since the war begun was there a time when a fierce rally was more needed. We have it in our power to crush this rebellion to atoms, if the people will but once arouse in their might. ”

“ Egypt is a paradise compared to Rome.
The advantages of foreign travel to an intelligent American are to teach him ... the disadvantages of living any where save in America. And though the artistic eye dwells with such loving repose on the soothing colors of Italy, and particularly on the subdued white and gray tones of Roman ruins and palaces, walls and houses, yet the owner of that artistic eye should restrain his wrath at the fiery red bricks of our own cities, for let him reflect that this color goads him on, as it doth a bull, to make valorous efforts—to do something! ”

“ It may be said with great truth of The Pines, that it would be difficult to find a book in which such striking facts and vivid pictures are set forth with such perfect simplicity of language. There is no effort at fine writing in it, and no consciousness of its absence. The author never seems to have realized that a story could be told for effect, and the natural result has been the most unintentional yet the strongest effect. The practical eye of one familiar with planks and turpentine, building and farming, business and furniture, economy and comfort, betrays itself continually. ”

“ Round the boards of the rougher Vikings, among the muscular, sun-browned champions, hardened to blood and strife, the minstrel is ever present, and as the huge cups pass around the long line, they sing the triumphs and praises of their hosts. They are like the old Grecian minstrels; like Phemius and Demodocus, they chant old memories of great sea-kings and champions, legends of magic elves and dwarfs, and wondrous and often touchingly beautiful stories of love and passion. The vague impressions of music seem to harmonize marvelously with the Northern nature. ”

“ While Southern eloquence seemed to endeavor to elicit feeling and passion, Northern orators looked for their success rather to the conviction of the understanding than to the indulgence of the weaker elements of human nature. By pleasing and subtle sophistries, by enthusiastic ebullitions of resentment and indignation, or by the more amiable contrivances of patriotic and virtuous sentiment, Benjamin and Davis sought, if they could not convince legislators, at least to attract to their peculiar doctrines the impulsive and credulous masses among their own people. ”

“ Genuine romance is a real element in our natures, and so long as we preserve it, we are young. When Joel found himself placed in the position of Ellen's sole protector, he took prompt and decisive steps for her protection. But while he hoped to win her for his wife, he could not endure the thought that possibly a part of his success might be due to the change in Ellen's fortunes, or that her choice should not be free and unrestrained. ”

“ They are blindly running up scores of hatred, which at some day may call for fearful settlement. Their influence is very great on the rank-loving multitude in their own country—a multitude which, after all, is, in the majority, more miserable and nearly as ignorant as that of any realm in Europe, or even the East, for there are fewer paupers in Turkey or Syria than in wealthy England. Yet, quite unheeding this, they continue to express sympathy for the South, declare with Brougham that the bubble of Democracy has at length burst, and chuckle over every Northern defeat. ”

“ The great principles of free labor, scientific reforms and culture, the enlargement of capital, the feeding and teaching the poor, should become as a deep-seated religion in our hearts, and we should live and labor to promote this great and holy faith which is in reality the practical side of Christianity—that great shield of the poor. To extend these doctrines over the whole continent is a noble mission, and one not to be balked or hindered by foolish scruples or weak pity for a pitiless foe. ”

“ There is seldom any appeal made by the reformer to the understandings of the people to be reformed; they must blindly adopt the innovations offered, and this without the means of contrasting what they are thus compelled to receive at the hand of the bestower with what they forsake. Tossed in the billows of doubt, they are exposed to the rocks of misconception, and are too often wrecked through the total absence of any chart to guide them in their new voyage of life. ”

“ America has shaken down more eminencies into notorieties than any other country in the world—it is a severe and terrible ordeal for great foreigners. Our eagerness to behold them is simply a keen curiosity and a natural love of amusement which is soon appeased. An American would crowd foremost to see Queen Victoria for the first time in his life—the second opportunity would be neglected. But the London shop-keeper who has seen that lady perhaps hundreds of times, still rushes out in wild haste, with eyes wide open, to behold her when she drives past. ”

“ We may, perhaps, consider the Grecian gods as mere personifications and idealities, but those of the North are essentially real. They are the creations of a powerful but vague imagination, forms which resemble a Norwegian mountain, distinct in itself by its glittering snows and icy rocks, but which shrouds its head in a perpetual mist, except when some adverse wind with its indiscreet blowing, displays it in all its nakedness, and plain though grand reality. ”

“ A pause followed, when the Colonel rose, and aided by Jim and two other blacks, with his own hands nailed down the lid, and lowered the rude coffin into the ground. Then the earth was thrown upon it, and then the long, low chant which the negroes raise over the dead, mingling now with sobs and moans, and breaking into a strange wild wail, went up among the pines, and floating off on the still night air, echoed through the dark woods, till it sounded like music from the grave. I have been in the chamber of the dying; I have seen the young and the beautiful laid away in the earth ”

“ His peculiar fitness as a presiding officer made him popular in that capacity. Seldom, indeed, has a Vice-President occupied the chair with such perfect ease and such stately dignity. His oratory was worthy of a Senator, elevated, earnest, and partaking less of passion and rancor than other Southern speakers; but it rather lacked the substance and solidity which a maturer stage of life would undoubtedly have given to it. He seemed to be a fair representative of the Kentucky aristocracy, possessing a delicate sense of honor, a bold spirit, though hardly enthusiasm of soul. ”

“ In deep caverns distorted, strange little dwarfs work by the aid of supernatural powers wondrous weapons, swords of incredible qualities, armor that defies mortal blades, bracelets of wondrous and cunning finish and singular properties—all here is miraculous, the workman, the process, and the work. The vividness with which Homer presents to us the one-eyed Polyphemus, with his tree-staff and his ponderous body, is exchanged by the Scandinavian for smallness, indistinctness of form and of power. The grand in the South is obtained by giving enlarged pictures of man as he is ”

“ But Love has always been blind to its own peril: a prudent lover would be indeed a black swan; if such there have been, these were not. And one night, when the beautiful nun would return through the friendly passage in season, that her absence might not be detected when the sisters were summoned to their matin service, the rain, whose torrents she had not noticed while her lover's arm sheltered her, had filled up the only pathway to her cell, and not even by the hazard of life could she recover her room once more. ”

“ It was the lowest and most tyrannical form of an aristocracy—that of slaveholding planterdom—which caused and is still causing all this trouble, and it is beginning to work its way into the minds of the multitude that it is hardly worth while to risk every thing, and see the real criminals reïnstated after all in their privileges and possessions, when the one can only serve to continue the old sore, while the other might be better employed in free labor. And better employed, we may add, in rewarding those noble men whose lives were risked in defense of our liberties. ”

“ In private life, he is genial and always good-natured, ready for a joke at all times, and enjoys his leisure hours with a zest which is quickened by previous earnest toil. Although as bitter and unconciliatory as any of his colleagues in his treatment of the Southern statesmen on the floor of the Senate, he always manifested the utmost good temper toward them in social intercourse, and was frequently seen, after a sharp and irritating episode in debate, laughing and talking with Green or Benjamin in the most cheerful manner imaginable. ”

“ Fleet of foot as he is, it is thought that Young America, with his telegraphs, will, in the long run—that is, in the race round the world—come out 'a leetle ahead' of him. Indeed, Young America talks of annihilating Time. But, though he may have 'one foot on land and one on sea,' he has no commission to 'swear that time shall be no more.'
We are a fast people—no mistake. ”

“ Are you poor, and dragging out a dull, base life, more sluggishly than your abilities deserve? Go to the war—in God's name, go to the war! Who knows what changes in life you may live through—what new opportunities may open before you! In that wide Southland lie a million homes, and there will be those left behind who—if you fight bravely—will give the matter no rest till you are richly rewarded. ”