I see no way of
accounting for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety
of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have
disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of
the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated
and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are
not altogether extinguished in their ashes,--in their throats, I might
rather say;--for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such
a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be
loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where
these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many
remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and
forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken
by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement
put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the
matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces
than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an
extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the
rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an
interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come
hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of
finding out what they are fit for.
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