How else can I account for the intense childish
eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who
sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I,
in my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the
garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun
against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's
Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the
narrative of the grand Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon
in the valley? Why did I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields,
exulting in the vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen
enemies? Still later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects
for hero-worship in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti
at the head of his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only in the
supposition that the mischief was inhered,--an heirloom from the old
sea-kings of the ninth century.
Education and reflection have, indeed, since wrought a change in my
feelings. The trumpet of the Cid, or Ziska's drum even, could not now
waken that old martial spirit. The bull-dog ferocity of a half-
intoxicated Anglo-Saxon, pushing his blind way against the converging
cannon-fire from the shattered walls of Ciudad Rodrigo, commends itself
neither to my reason nor my fancy.
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