The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



The field 

 ofNovara 



[36] 



of the town, in a wheat-field, the farmers 

 have ploughed up skulls of men till they 

 have piled up a pyramid ten or twelve feet 

 high. Over this pyramid some one has built 

 a canopy to keep off the rain. These were 

 the skulls of young men of Savoy, Sardinia, 

 and Austria, — men of eighteen to thirty- 

 five years of age, without physical blemish 

 so far as may be, — peasants from the farms 

 and workmen from the shops, who met at 

 Novara to kill each other over a matter in 

 which they had very little concern. Should 

 Charles Albert, the Prince of Savoy, sit on 

 his unstable throne or must he yield it to 

 some one else? This was the question, and 

 this question the battle of Novara tried to 

 decide. 1 1 matters not what this decision was. 

 History records it, as she does many matters 

 of less moment. But this fact concerns us, 

 — here in thousands they died. Farther on. 

 Frenchmen, Austrians, and Italians fell to- 

 gether at Magenta, in the same cause. You 

 know the color that we call Magenta, the 

 hue of the blood that flowed out under the 

 olive-trees. Solferino, once that battle-field 

 gave its name to scarlet ribbons, the hue of 



