, at Villafranca, prematurely terminates a war of
unparalleled slaughter. They would have preferred, for the cause of
constitutional liberty and for its possible influence against the Pope,
that the fighting had continued a month longer; we hear no pathetic
remonstrances from them on the score of the killed and maimed, the
widows and orphans and the childless, of homes made desolate, by this
additional month of battle. Such is man, so inconsistent, so blinded by
party prejudice, so ready to maintain that which, in a change of persons
and places, he will denounce. He will be wholly blinded by individual
acts of suffering to all that is good in a system; and again, the good
to be effected by a war will blind him to the hundreds of thousands of
dead or mutilated soldiers, with five times that number of bleeding
hearts, rifled by the sword of their precious treasures."
I saw that I had prolonged my remarks to an undue length. We sat in
silence for a little while, looking into the fire, and listening to the
rain against the windows, when Judith called Mrs. North to the door;
and, after some whispering between them, Mrs. North said to her,
"Oh, bring them in; our company will excuse it.
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