I have seen her in the morning, when
the first flush of day had half-roused her; she lay gray and
still on the crimson soil of Georgia; then the blue smoke
began to curl from her chimneys, the tinkle of bell and
scream of whistle broke the silence, the rattle and roar of
busy life slowly gathered and swelled, until the seething whirl
of the city seemed a strange thing in a sleepy land.
Once, they say, even Atlanta slept dull and drowsy at the
foot-hills of the Alleghanies, until the iron baptism of war
awakened her with its sullen waters, aroused and maddened
her, and left her listening to the sea. And the sea cried to the
hills and the hills answered the sea, till the city rose like a
widow and cast away her weeds, and toiled for her daily
bread; toiled steadily, toiled cunningly,--perhaps with some
bitterness, with a touch, of reclame,--and yet with real ear-
nestness, and real sweat.
It is a hard thing to live haunted by the ghost of an untrue
dream; to see the wide vision of empire fade into real ashes
and dirt; to feel the pang of the conquered, and yet know that
with all the Bad that fell on one black day, something was
vanquished that deserved to live, something killed that in
justice had not dared to die; to know that with the Right that
triumphed, triumphed something of Wrong, something sordid
and mean, something less than the broadest and best.
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