In a subsequent passage he gives a long account of the famous bombardment of the forts, which I feel obliged to suppress as not strictly biographical, he not being under fire but only an eye-witness and ear-witness of the cannonade. One paragraph alone I deem it worth while to copy, being a curious analysis of the feelings of the individual in the presence of sublime but monotonous circumstance. "Here we are, in view of what I am told is the greatest bombardment known in marine, or, as I should call it, amphibious warfare. You take it for granted, I suppose, that we are in a state of constant and noble excitement; but the extraordinary truth is that we are in a condition of wearisome _ennui_ and deplorable _désoeuvrement_. We are too ignorant of the great scientific problems of war to take an intelligent interest in the fearful equation of fleets=forts. We got tired a week ago of the mere auricular pleasure of the incessant bombing. We got tired a day or two afterward of climbing to the crosstrees to look at the fading globes of smoke left aloft in the air by the bursting shells. We are totally tired of the monotonous flow of the muddy river, and the interminable parallel curves of its natural levees and the glassy stretches of ocean which seem to slope upwards toward the eastern and western horizon. We pass our time in playing cards, smoking, grumbling at our wretched fare, exchanging dull gossip and wishing that we might be allowed to do something. Happy is the man who chances once a day to find a clear space of a dozen feet on the crowded deck where he can take a constitutional. Waiting for a belated train, alone, in a country railroad station, is not half so wearisome." But in a subsequent page of the same letter he makes record of startling events and vivid emotions. "The fleet has forced the passage of the forts. We have had a day and a night of almost crazy excitement. A battle, a victory, a glorious feat of arms has been achieved within our hearing, though beyond our sight and range of action. A submerged iron-clad, one of the wrecks of the enemy's fleet, drifted against our cable, shook us over the edge of eternity, and then floated by harmlessly. Blazing fire-ships have passed us, lighting up the midnight river until its ripples seemed of flame."