DeFrance has now stooped to do the very thing that Col. Mann tried vainly to get me to do.
***
I wonder if those New York rascals really thought that I would quietly sit down and twiddle my thumbs while they were making off with “Watson’s Magazine”? I wonder if it never entered into those heads, which were bent together to plot and to scheme, that the consequence of their pretty little game MIGHT be a Revolt of Watson and HIS FRIENDS.
Unless I am greatly mistaken, the subscribers to “Watson’s Magazine” are Mr. Watson’s friends, and THEY ARE GOING TO STAND BY HIM. We shall see.
***
After all, why worry over it? Life is too short to waste many of its precious hours upon such a theme. Looked at in one way, those who thought to crush me have done me a service.
They have put into me, once more, that intensity of energy and purpose which, otherwise, might never have been mine again. What the spur is to the thoroughbred, what the bugle-call is to the cavalier, the recent attempts of my enemies to compass my ruin has been to me.
By the living God! Here is no thought of surrender, no weakness of doubt or hesitation, but a resolution, fixed as hardened steel, to MARCH ON.
What! Be a quitter NOW? Falter or flicker NOW? Lower the flag and stack arms, NOW?
Rather, would I die.