February 27, 1856. The papers are talking about the prospect of war between England and America. Neither side sees how its country can avoid a long and fratricidal war without sacrificing its honor. Both nations are ready to take a desperate step, to forget the interests of civilization and Christianity and their commercial prosperity, and fly at each other's throats. When I see an individual thus beside himself, thus desperate, ready to shoot or be shot like a blackleg, who has little to lose, no serene aims to accomplish, I think he is a candidate for bedlam. What asylum is there for nations to go to?
Nations are thus ready to talk of wars and challenge one another because they are made up, to such an extent, of poor, low-spirited, despairing men, in whose eyes the chance of shooting somebody else without being shot themselves, exceeds their actual good fortune. Who, in fact, will be the first to enlist but the most desperate class, they who have lost all hope; and they may at last infect the rest. Will not war, at length, be thought disreputable like duelling between individuals?
February 27, 1857. Before I opened the window this cold morning I heard the peep of a robin, that sound which is often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first
