Imagine yourself, for instance, an invited guest at a Cincinnati dinner in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my dear boy, none of your ancestors rose even to the rank of drummer in the army of the Revolution. Your great-grandfather's brother had Chastellux to dinner one day. If you can, make your speech out of that. But I do not think you can. Still, you are called up to speak: "Our friend from New England,"--"Connecticut,--Israel Putnam,--Bunker Hill,--Groton,--Wooster," &c., &c. What will you do, my boy? You must do something, and you must not disgrace old Wooster. Do! You have your thunderbolts. "This army,"--"gathered from North and South and East and West,"--"like another army,"--"whose brave officers still linger among us,--cheer us," &c., &c.,--"this army,"--"combining such various elements of power, endurance, and wisdom,--this army, always when I think of it,--more than ever to-day, sir, when I see these who represent it in another generation,--when I think of Manly coming from the yeasty waves of the outstretched Cape,--of Ethan Allen descending from the cloudy tops of the Green Mountains,--of Knox, sweaty and black from the hot furnace work of Salisbury, where 'He created all the stores of war,'-- all meeting at the same moment with the Morgans, and Marions, and the one Washington from the distant South,--this army always seems to me to be the prefigured thunderbolt which the Cyclops forged for Jupiter. 'Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri.' 'Three from the sultry South, three from the storm-beat shore, Three parts from distant mountains' cloudy store, While raging heat fused all with three parts more!'" You see, dear Tom, these audiences are always good-natured, and by no means critical of your version. Why, at the only time I was ever at a regimental dinner on the Plains, long before the war, you know, when to the untaught mind it did seem as if there was no reason why we were there, and no pretence for mutual congratulation, I remember when poor Pendergrast called me up to represent science, (I was at that time in the telegraph business,) the dear old quotation came to my relief like an inspiration. I got round to the Flag. Do you remember how safe General Halleck always found it to allude to the Flag? "The Flag, gentlemen,"--"colors,"--"rainbow of our liberties,"--"Liberty everywhere." "Blue, white, and red of Low Countries,"--"Red, white, and blue of France,"--"English Constitution,"--"Puritan fathers, Cavaliers," &c., &c.