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Updated: May 13, 2025
The bugles blow Retreat on a beautiful spring-like evening, and after the "First Post" the pipers discoursed those ancient melodies that sounded years ago amid the brown heath and shaggy wood, and that are now calling the descendants of those ancient warriors from farm, city and many peaceful and cheerful firesides to fight for King and Country like their ancestors, and if need be to die that the Empire may live.
The whole population seemed to be out-of-doors and collecting in the sun, like flies, a very animated and voluble population and of a democratic complexion; the proportion of poor folks was noticeable, and the number of women, who seemed to camp out in the squares and market-places, and there gossip and do their knitting, as other women might at their firesides; but here the sun is the only fire.
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, when genial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the kindly tales of the forgotten Emile Zola kept our firesides merry and pure, it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood. It may be doubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage.
It appears, however, that men who are fighting for their lives, their firesides, their property, and their false religion, for their own cause, in short, are contented to receive rations only, without receiving pay."
That evening was a very sad one at all the firesides where a member was missing. As the night passed without any of the absent men making their appearance, the anxieties of their families increased. In Mr. Hersebom's house nobody went to bed. They passed the long hours of waiting seated in a circle around the fire, silent and anxious.
Veterans flocked together, reminiscent of former days when another mammoth had been driven over this same cliff; the young grouped about different firesides, and there was talk of feats of strength and daring and an occasional friendly grapple.
Neither high taxes, nor the high price of dry-goods, nor the exorbitancy of labor, could excuse much that the city has witnessed in the behavior of the yeomanry. By the quiet firesides of Westchester and Bucks counties I hope there may be seasons of deep reflection and hearty repentance.
And to Pachmann all this is as strange as mortal firesides to a fairy. He wanders round it, wondering at the great walls and bars that have been set about the faint, escaping spirit of flame. There is nothing human in him, and as music turns towards humanity it slips from between his hands. What he seeks and finds in music is the inarticulate, ultimate thing in sound: the music, in fact.
To those who read, as well as to those who describe, the account of a winter passed in these regions can no longer be expected to afford the interest of novelty it once possessed; more especially in a station already delineated with tolerable geographical precision on our maps, and thus, as it were, brought near to our firesides at home.
Reasoning upon this state of things from the sound and judicious principles of Washington, must we not say that the period which he predicted as then not far off has arrived; that America has a set of primary interests which have none or a remote relation to Europe; that the interference of Europe, therefore, in those concerns should be spontaneously withheld by her upon the same principles that we have never interfered with hers, and that if she should interfere, as she may, by measures which may have a great and dangerous recoil upon ourselves, we might be called in defense of our own altars and firesides to take an attitude which would cause our neutrality to be respected, and choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, should counsel.
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