--
But here comes the youth of the foreign air.
I will dance and forget,--and you must, too.
A BUNDLE OF OLD LETTERS.
To struggle painfully for years, spending all of life's energies for
others, and then to be forgotten by those for whom all was hazarded and
consumed, is a lot demanding the most unselfish aims. Yet this befell
many a suffering patriot in our Revolutionary struggle. The names of
those who were the leaders in battle and in council, men whose
position in the field or whose words in Congress gave them a country's
immortality, have remained bright in our memory. But others there were
who cheerfully surrendered eminence in their private walks and happiness
in social life to endure the hardships of a protracted contest till life
was spent, and who, from the very nature of the services they rendered,
have remained in obscurity. They would not themselves repine at this;
for they gave their strength, not for their country's applause, but
their country's good. They sought, not our remembrance, but our freedom.
In many an old garret, or treasured up in some old man's safest nook,
are worn-out, faded letters, telling of struggles and hopes in that long
contest, that would make their writers' names bright on the nation's
record, were not the number of those who rendered that our golden age
so countless.
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