"Young man," says he, hastily tying a red silk pocket-handkerchief about his head, "I am teaching these oppressed beings to spell, having extemporized a college on the very scene of their recent emancipation." "How far have the collegians progressed?" says I. "They have got," says he, "to their a-b, abs. Thus; a-b, ab; o-abo; l-i li, aboli; t-i-o-n shun--abolition." Shameful to relate, my boy, the swallow-tailed chap had no sooner said this, than a cavalry ward came charging helter-skelter, right through the college, tumbling the faculty into the mud, and bruising several sophomore graduates. Simultaneously, the patriotic democratic chap appeared on the scene, and insisted upon it that the contrabands should be immediately returned to the Southern Confederacy, as this is a white man's war. "Otherwise," says he, cholerically, "future reconciliation and reconstruction will be impossible." Fearful that I should become confused a little if I remained there any longer, my boy, I at once retired from the place, in company with two sick votes, who were going home on furlough, and reached this city again in good order. Almost the first fellow-being I met on my return was a seedy and earnest chap from New York, who was worth about a quarter in ready money, and had come to Washington post-haste to pledge the Empire State's last dollar, and last drop of blood for the vigorous prosecution of the war. "See here, my self-denying Brutus," says I, as we took Richmond together at the bar, "who commissioned you to pledge so much as all that?" "To tell the truth," says the seedy chap, confidentially, "it's all I've got left to pledge. I pledged my pinchbeck chronometer for three dollars," says he, sadly, "just before I left New York; and I'm trying this pledge on speculation." I have sometimes feared, my boy, that our Uncle Samuel's concern is turning into a pawnbroking establishment on a large scale, where they make advances on everything tangible and intangible, except Richmond, my boy--except Richmond. Yours, with a presentiment, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER LVII. SUGGESTING MENTAL RELAXATION FOR A TIME, AND INTRODUCING A FAMILIAR SKETCH OF THE WAR-STRICKEN DRAMA IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS. WASHINGTON, D. C., July 23d, 1862. Yesterday morning, my boy, I refreshed myself by a lounge across Long Bridge to the fields about Arlington Heights, where blooming Nature still has verdant spots untrampled by the iron heel of strategic war. How pleasant is it, my boy, to escape occasionally from the society of Congressmen and brigadiers, and take a lazy sprawl in the fragrant fields. It is the philosopher's way of enjoying Summer's DOLCE FAR NIENTE. I.