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- 11685
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- young acolyte of the Salii, should repeated discharges at last burst his
toy-cannon, and he go to Hades for it, what then? _Ducit amor patriae!_
That’s the inscription, sir, on General Worth’s monument you and I pass
every day. Ten to one you never noticed it--the inscription, I mean. Ah,
but he was a paladin, a homespun paladin, General Worth. And happy in
his surname, though indeed his _worth_ was of another sort than that of
the purse.’
‘And did you personally know the General, Dean?’ inquires the solitary
auditor, his curiosity here doing away with a taciturnity seldom
yielding but through the persuasive mediation of wine. ‘Did you,
personally, know the General, sir?’ ‘Ay, indeed!’ And, after losing thee
in revery awhile, and reminiscently ejaculating something to thyself,
‘The last time I saw Will Worth was on the night-boat coming down from
Albany--by Jove, it seems but a week or two ago--he then being bound for
Mexico to pay his military respects to General Santa Anna in the field.
But he came back horizontal who went forth so erect! Ay, but like the
great Gustavus, sir, from Lützen field, if dirged yet laurelled. Pray,
sir, can you repeat the battle-names on the monumental shaft?
Chermbusco, Buena Vista, Resaca de la Palma, San Antonio, Cerro Gordo.
There’s a valley for you of vowels and victory! Ay, and Monterey, too,
that superb dash of arms, one inspiring my chivalric friend, Charlie
Fenno Hoffman--remember Charlie, sir? No, no; you don’t go back so
far--inspired his fine lyric.’ Now, after a moment’s pause, to rally the
memory belike, thou didst kindle, and springing from thy seat, leaving
it spinning on its pivot, thy adorned chest expanded, thou didst
sonorously declaim this stanza:--
‘The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When striking where he strongest lay,
We swoopt his flanking batteries past,
And braving full their murderous blast
Stormed home the towers of Monterey!’
Then reseating thee, a little panting, and pressing one hand to thy
side: ‘Ay, stirring deeds beget stirring rhymes. But stirring rhymes
bestir overmuch the cardiac arteries in an old fellow like me. Well,
well,’ in reaction lapsing into a muffled mutter, a sort of audible
musing, ‘Well, well--they are gone, both gone, hero and bard--long ago.
_Sic transit._--They sleep, sleep.--_In pace, in pace--Requiescant!_’
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