“An officer, like a good sword, should be well-tempered, whether he belong to the army or navy.”
“You have never described to us a soldier’s burial! The funeral of a general must be grand and solemn.”
“Some other time! some other time! When a soldier, fighting for plunder and empty glory, dies, he merits little sympathy; but when in a good cause, and in a battle that cannot be avoided, he draws his sword, falling on the field not for idle renown but in the defence of the weak and oppressed, and for the preservation of his country, then the words of the poet appear more suitable to him—
“There is a tear for all that die,
A mourner o’er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And triumph sweeps above the brave.
“For then is sorrow’s purest sigh
O’er ocean’s heaving bosom sent;
In vain their bones unburied lie,