Excerpt from A Soldier's Honor: With Reminiscences of Major-General Earl Van Dorn

Fellow pilgrim of earth, in this work-a-day world, let us for a brief time turn back the wheels of progress from the tumult and turmoil of trade, the roar of factories and noise of com merce, the odors of coal oil and smoke, the rush and scurry of busi ness, and return to the beauty and repose of the long ago, before industry had taken the place of art, the useful the place of the beautiful, and arithmetic the place of poetry, and take a plunge into the joys of the infinite, feel a sense of the blessings of the God of life, and become, as it were, drunk with poetry, - and go to a green spot of earth where a bit of the kingdom had come down, and the men, women and children loved God and kept His com mandments; where the sun and moon shone unobstructed, the blue vault was magnificently starred, the air vibrated with the melody of birds and the incense of flowers, and where all nature smiled in love and crowned humanity with exquisite joy and ineffable peace.

I should be glad to put such magic words into these lines as would transport you, like the magic carpet of fairy land, to this once fair section of America, and acquaint you with the surpassing beauty of its natural and human aspects; acquaint you with its once regal homes, lovely women and noble men. I would dazzle you with tales of their heroism, and portray the delicately gifted and lofty qualities of the people that made life splendid and im pressive, and gave them a force and influence all their own. Honor truth, integrity, -virtue, gentleness, purity, formed the triumvirate basis of character and the pivot round which their daily lives' revolved.

Not that these people were exclusive and apart from the outside world, for like the robins they fled in season to cooler climes and built summer nests, to return in autumn with the spoils of grace ful contact with the gay world, its culture and literature. The women never forgot to replenish their wardrobes with the latest fabrics and fashions, and the men with outfits from the tailors of Paris and London. Eureopean travel was included in their sum mer tours as well as the resorts of this country, and the possession of wealth afforded gratification of every desire. The men and women were not absorbed by but were simply martyrs to tailors, modistes and milliners, wearing whatsoever they prescribed, tak ing no thought or care as to style, color or cost, any more than as they made up the concomitants of a proper and becoming appear ance. To-explain the meaning of this, a lady who was an active worker in a church was fitted out by her milliner with a hat of the then prevailing corn-color she donned the appendage to her toilet entirely oblivious as to its color or mode, and wore it to church. The minister at once observed the color and remarked with an air of pity, that poor Miss Jane had to wear a yellow bonnet because it was the fashion! But the yellow hat failed to claim the thoughts of the wearer or to cool her ardor in church work, donning the hat simply as a covering to her head and be cause her milliner had supplied it.

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