And perhaps I am wrong,—for there are those who maintain that I have a bee in my theological bonnet,—but, were I a preacher, I should stand up for my side. I should not go about proclaiming it from the house-tops that in the vast majority of these struggles the good spirit is worsted; nor glory in announcing to the world that Satan held the field, and that the only hope was that a few of us poor captives might elude his vigilance and escape. Captives! They told us that we were his when we were born! Is there any harm in saying that to a mere Bushwhacker (who has not had the privilege of passing through a theological seminary) it seems that we have hardly a fair chance? It were better we were born orphans! Better that than to be the children of sin and Satan, as those who know tell me we are,—though I will say that I cannot help hoping that there is some mistake about it. But if it be, indeed, too true,—if it be a fact that all the poor souls that flit darkly, for a season, about this little ball of earth, are, in very deed, condemned before they are born, may we not hope that it is otherwise in Venus, for example, or Mars? I, at least, sometimes, overborne by the immense tragedy of human life, steal forth alone into the night; and lifting my weary eyes to the blue spangled dome above, try to drown the darkness here in the light I see shining there; and ofttimes I find myself wondering whether they be indeed as bright as they seem,—find myself praying, even, that it may be so. For indeed it were pitiful, were all those worlds such as ours! And sometimes I have felt, as I swept, with brimming eyes, constellation after constellation, and galaxy after galaxy, that I could bear up with a braver heart could I but know that there was, wandering somewhere in the immensity of space, one little planet, at least, upon which the prince of darkness had not set his foot,—one little world in which poverty and hunger and thirst, and toil and failure, and blood and tears, and disease and eternal farewells were unknown,—one world where a mother could smile back upon her babe, as it lay kicking and crowing in her lap, and laughing in her face, and not feel that the Grip of Hell was upon its throat. Alice buried her face in her hands; but Charley sat bolt upright in his seat. For such was our creed in those days. If any one shall say that Virginians do not believe that now, I shall not argue the point. It was notoriously orthodox _then_ to hold that every infant came into the world under sentence. Not under sentence to be hanged by the neck, as murderers are— Alice shivered. Charley lifted his hand. I ceased reading. [Illustration: SYMPHONY OF LIFE. MOVEMENT III. _Allegro molto._ L. van Beethoven, _“Eroica” Symphony_. {The first page of the score of the third movement, Allegro molto, of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony is shown.}] SYMPHONY OF LIFE. MOVEMENT III.