No
doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a
quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their
blood to.
Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the
moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable,
and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you
plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to
spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not
ask our leave to germinate.
The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering
command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has,
properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady,
and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some
years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely
higher command, is as much more memorable than that as an
intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you
think that that will go unsung?
"Served him right"- "A dangerous man"- "He is undoubtedly insane."
So they proceed to live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable
lives, reading their Plutarch a little, but chiefly pausing at that
feat of Putnam, who was let down into a wolf's den; and in this wise
they nourish themselves for brave and patriotic deeds some time or
other.
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