His
face had a healthy hue of exposure and an expression of careless
hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the war had
brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none beside; since
they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and handle a sword,
instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, occupations,
pleasures--all tedious alike--to which the artificial state of society
limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the camp and the smoke
of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the hardy virtues flourish
in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted weed. The enervating effects of
centuries of civilization vanish at once, and leave these young men to
enjoy a life of hardship, and the exhilarating sense of danger,--to kill
men blamelessly, or to be killed gloriously,--and to be happy in
following out their native instincts of destruction, precisely in the
spirit of Homer's heroes, only with some considerable change of mode.
One touch of Nature makes not only the whole world, but all time, akin.
Set men face to face, with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready
to slaughter one another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so
many years, as in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies,
and thought no wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's
skull.
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