LETTER LXIII.
GIVING A FAMILIAR ZOOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE "SITUATION," AND CELEBRATING THE BRILLIANT STRATEGICAL EVECUATION OF PARIS BY THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.
Washington, D. C., August 22, 1862.
On Monday morn, my boy, whilst I was pulling on a pair of new boots that have some music in their soles, there arose near my room door a sound as of one in dire agony, closely followed by a variously-undulated moan, as of some deserted woman in distress. Hastily discontinuing my toilet, and darting to the threshold, I beheld one of those scenes of civil war which impress the sensitive soul with horror and meet the just reprobation of feeling Albion.
Rampant between two marrow-bones, my boy, was my frescoed dog, Bologna, eyeing, with horrid fury, Sergeant O'Pake's canine friend, known as Jacob Barker, and ever and anon uttering sentences of supernatural wrath. To these the excited Barker responded in deep bass of great compass, his nose curling with undisguised disdain, and his eyes assimilating to that insidious and fiery squint which betokens inexpressible malignity. There was something not of earth, my boy, in the frescoed Bologna's distortion of countenance as he attempted to keep an eye on each bone,
and at the same time look full in the face of his foe; and there was that in the sounds of his strain which betokened Sirius indecision.
As I gazed upon these two infuriated wonders of natural history, my boy, and recognized the fact that the existence of two bones in contention prevented an actual battle, because neither combatant was willing to lose sight of either of them; whilst the presence of but one bone would have simplified the matter, and precipitated a decisive conflict, I could not but think that I saw symbolized before me the situation of our distracted country.
The United States of America, my boy, and the well-known Southern Confederacy, are like two irascible terriers practising defiant strategy between two bones, the one being the festive negro-question, and the other the Union. Now it seems to me, my boy—it seems to me, that if the gay animal with U. S. on his collar would only dispose of the bone nearest him without further vocalism, there would be a better chance for him to secure the other bone in the combat sure to come.
Dogs, my boy, and men, are very much alike, in their hostile meetings, neither seeming to know just exactly which is truly their magnum bonum.