But I magnanimously considered that there is a kind
of treason in insulating one's self from the universal fear and sorrow,
and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil war; and
could a man be so cold and hardhearted, he would better deserve to be
sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way thither on the
score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I remembered the touching
rebuke administered by King Charles to that rural squire the echo of
whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's ear on the morning before a
battle, where the sovereignty and constitution of England were to be set
at a stake. So I gave myself up to reading newspapers and listening to
the click of the telegraph, like other people; until, after a great many
months of such pastime, it grew so abominably irksome that I determined
to look a little more closely at matters with my own eyes.
Accordingly we set out--a friend and myself--towards Washington, while it
was still the long, dreary January of our Northern year, though March in
name; nor were we unwilling to clip a little margin off the five months'
winter, during which there is nothing genial in New England save the
fireside.
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