A cry which said, "There are wrongs to be redressed already long enough
endured,--wrongs against the flag of the nation, against the integrity
of the Union, against the life of the republic; wrongs against the cause
of order, of law, of good government, against right, and justice, and
liberty, against humanity and the world; not merely in the present, but
in the great future, its countless ages and its generations yet unborn."
To this cry there sounded one universal response, as men dropped their
work at loom, or forge, or wheel, in counting-room, bank, and merchant's
store, in pulpit, office, or platform, and with one accord rushed to
arms, to save these rights so frightfully and arrogantly assailed.
One voice that went to swell this chorus was Surrey's; one hand quick to
grasp rifle and cartridge-box, one soul eager to fling its body into the
breach at this majestic call, was his. He felt to the full all the
divine frenzy and passion of those first days of the war, days
unequalled in the history of nations and of the world. All the elegant
dilettanteism, the delicious idleness, the luxurious ease, fell away,
and were as though they had never been. All the airy dreams of a renewed
chivalrous age, of courage, of heroism, of sublime daring and
self-sacrifice, took substance and shape, and were for him no longer
visions of the night, but realities of the day.
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