Almost all of the artist’s intimate friends were Southerners. To be cut by them in that way seemed to him a very bitter trial. For the moment he hesitated. Up to that time I had not known him; but I was known in St. Louis as an uncompromising Union man; so, in his hesitation as to what he should do, he called at my house, told me his whole fascinating history, and asked my advice as to whether, in view of the threats of his old friends, he should put his painting of the slave auction in the show-window. I counselled him not to be turned aside by threats from doing any right thing, and insisted that in his case his conscience was involved; that he was bound in some way to bear witness to his conviction concerning slavery, and that he should do it by his brush as well as by his lips. I told him, come what would, he ought to display his painting; that while it would cost him much so to do, there certainly would be compensations for his sacrifice; that, in my judgment, where he would lose one friend he would gain three; and that those whom he would gain would be better than those whom he would lose. At the close of our conversation he determined to act in accordance with his own judgment and conscience, even if he lost all his old friends and gained none. The next day his “Slave Mart”[37] was in the show-window. Before it all day long stood a crowd, ever going, ever coming. Thousands viewed with admiration the work of the artist. There was a soul, a life in the picture, that appealed to every onlooker. Some subtle power in it laid hold of the imagination and touched the heart. The artist became more widely known. He entered on a new career. Friends such as he never had before sprung up on every hand. He afterwards painted John Brown going out, with pinioned arms, to execution, and stooping to kiss a negro baby. This historical painting was afterwards engraved, and the engraving was extensively sold. We have written enough to show how much it cost one in St. Louis, during the war, to decide firmly with which party in the national conflict he would cast his lot. Such decisions in a multitude of cases were divisive; they often set in bitter antagonism husbands and wives, parents and children; in not a few instances destroyed old friendships and blotted out for a time the ordinary amenities of life, and even split asunder Christian churches, the very body of Christ; and the cleavage was so deep and radical that it remains to this day; some churches still being designated either “North” or “South.” The whole thing was amazing when it was enacted, the recollection of it now is weirdly strange. But we should never forget that those who uncomplainingly sacrificed for their country the tenderest relations of life were as heroically patriotic as those brave men who fell pierced with Minie balls on the “high places” of bloody battlefields. CHAPTER X BITTERNESS