LETTER XCV.
NOTING THE CONTINUED ANGUISH OF THE CONSERVATIVE KENTUCKY CHAP, AND THE DEATH OF NEMO; AND DESCRIBING AN IMMENSE POPULAR DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE OUTRAGES OF FEDERAL OPPRESSION.
Washington, D.C., May 24th, 1863.
The beautiful Spring, my boy, is out in the sunshine once more,—bowing her pretty face over her lap, as though to breathe the odor of the fresh violets lying scattered upon her coquettish green apron, but really to hide the blush mantling the cheeks on which the hot breath of enamored young Summer is tempting the roses to premature birth. What a fine old world this is, after all, if we have plenty of money in our pockets, plenty of health in our systems, and no poor relations! As you stand on the Arlington side of the Potomac, on any one of these fair May days, and look around you in any direction, there is a beauty even about the tracks of war which enables you to comprehend why so many of our brass-buttoned generals are fond of staying in one spot so long. Behind you rise Arlington Heights, which are disliked by our excellent National Democratic Organization, only because they wear a covering of Lincoln green in summer; before you, and across the Potomac is the Capitol of our distracted country, looking like an ambitious marble-yard on its way out of town; and close beside you is one of our national troops extracting certain wonders of the insect kingdom from a Government biscuit. On Tuesday, I was standing with the Conservative Kentucky chap near Long Bridge, surveying this scene, and says I,—
"Behold, my Nestor, how the scars left upon Nature's face by the chariot wheels of War are turning into dimples, and all the twinkling curves of a placid smile."
"Yes," says he, hastily picking up the Jack of Diamonds which he had accidentally drawn from his pocket with his handkerchief,—"the scene is somewhat pleasant; but not equal to Kentucky, where there is more rye."
Here the Kentucky chap became so deeply affected that he was compelled to smell a cork which he took from his vest pocket, and says he,—
"Kentucky raised a great deal of rye before the breaking out of this here fatal war with the Southern Confederacy, with whom Kentucky is connected by marriage; she raised it by the bottle; in which form it becomes, as it were, the crowning glory of agriculture. Ah!" says the Conservative Kentucky chap, stirring an invisible beverage with an imaginary spoon, "how softly on my senses steals Kentucky's national anthem,—
"'If a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye.'