When we sit down together to talk or write to each other, is it not sad to think that, instead of the old, silly lightsome topics--gossip about flirtations, guesses at probably betrothals, what was worn at Mrs. A's last night, or will be worn at Mrs. B'S to-morrow; that handsome singer at the opera, or that lovely debutante in society, fresh from boarding-school, and said to be a fortune; or the weather, or the Central Park, or any of the subjects of which we used to converse; of that talk which skimmed from one thing to the other, like a humming-bird over a flower-garden.
It is sad that, instead of these, the first words upon our lips are of the war? "Have you heard that Willie Blair was mortally wounded in the last battle?" or that Lieutenant B.'s wife is a widow, or that that handsome fellow with whom all the girls fell in love last year at Saratoga has been so frightfully maimed and disfigured, that his dearest friend would not recognise him? And then we wonder when this will end, and how, and speak of dear ones far away, and of friends from whom we may be called to part, and grow sad and sick at heart.
I did not mean to write a word of war or of war's horrors when I opened my portfolio, and I think I should not but for the thoughts that would fill my mind of the sad fate of Anna Pickens, and which would be written down. Have you wept as I have over the sad fate of that beautiful girl? Have you forgotten in your womanly sympathy that she was "a Rebel?" I think so; I am sure you have. I know that any one of you would have done much to stay that Union shell had such a thing been possible. The tenderest emotions of the soul are involved in this sad occurrence--human love blighted--human hopes crushed--a bride in the full flush of hope and beauty done to death.
We were less than women if we did not grieve. Oh, cruel War, scourge of our once happy country, God banish thee, and send us, instead of thee, Peace, with her green olive branch.
Time was when we read such tales in old romances, or heard them from the lips of the aged, who, in their turn, had heard them from those old when they were young, and scarcely credited them, or, if we believed such things could happen, thought of them as we might of the cruelties of Nero, or the tortures of the Inquisition, horrors belonging to an age gone by, which we could never see repeated in our own.
We know a great deal about war now; but, dear readers, the Southern women know more; blood has not dripped on our doorsills yet, shells have not burst above our homesteads--let us pray they never may.
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