SOLDIER 77 



Teutonic"; and he does not find the mixture palatable. 

 He dips into literature, both grave and gay; reads Charles 

 Lamb's works with great delight; Renan's "Life of Jesus," 

 — finds the author "an arrant doubter," and wants a good 

 review of him. Ticknor's "Life of Prescott" he thinks 

 "capital." "That's a curious thought," he writes, "that 

 Prescott expresses in a letter to Ticknor on the greater 

 difficulty of representing happiness than misery, and the 

 faultiness of the Scripture in that respect, offering nothing 

 but singing and dancing as the happiness of Heaven, an idea 

 which he says to many would be positively disagreeable. 

 I can't help laughing every time I think of it, and yet the 

 criticism is just." He reads Kirk's "Charles the Bold' 3 

 and finds it as fascinating as a novel, and is interested in 

 the articles in the "North American Review," especially in 

 the one on McClellan; thinks "it uses him up most com- 

 pletely as a politician and a soldier." The article was by 

 James Russell Lowell. 



To turn to the other side of his nature — he keeps in close 

 touch with his classmates, especially with those in the army. 

 He hears that one of them (Captain Rufus P. Lincoln, of 

 the 37th Massachusetts, afterwards a distinguished surgeon 

 in New York) had been wounded, and writes : "Those boys! 

 I am thinking of them all the time. May they come out 

 safe from these horrid battles! I am as uneasy as a fish 

 out of water here at home, lying round like an old cow at my 

 ease and all these brave fellows periling their lives." He paid 

 flying visits to those of his class who were near him, and 

 writes of one after another, "the same good fellow as ever." 

 He calls on his "beloved D.D." at Cambridge, and informs 

 him by letter that he "found the Theologi-cuss out." 



