"And I'll trust the honour of Lee and his people. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when touched again, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature."
"You'll be lucky to live to hear that chorus."
"To dream it is enough. If I fall by the hand of an assassin now, he will not come from the South. I was safer in Richmond, this week, than I am in Washington, to-day."
The cynic grunted and shuffled another step toward the door.
The President came closer.
"Look here, Stoneman; have you some deep personal motive in this vengeance on the South? Come, now, I've never in my life known you to tell a lie."
The answer was silence and a scowl.
"Am I right?"
"Yes and no. I hate the South because I hate the Satanic Institution of Slavery with consuming fury. It has long ago rotted the heart out of the Southern people. Humanity cannot live in its tainted air, and its children are doomed. If my personal wrongs have ordained me for a mighty task, no matter; I am simply the chosen instrument of Justice!"
Again the mystic light clothed the rugged face, calm and patient as Destiny, as the President slowly repeated:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives me to see the right, I
