The poor lace-makers whom we saw were in nervous trepidation at the expected approach of the dreaded French, whom they reviled with all the bitterness and volubility of female eloquence. The same sentiments were written upon every countenance, and uttered by every tongue. In every village and every hamlet through which we passed, the utmost consternation seemed to reign. We met officers on horseback, and detachments of troops marching to join the army. It was with difficulty I refrained from beseeching them to hasten forwards: it seemed to me that every man was of importance. At another time I might have been interested with seeing the country; but now--I could not look at it--I could not think of it; and as my eye rested with a vacant gaze upon the waving fields of luxuriant corn through which we passed, I could only feel the heart-sickening dread, that the harvests of Belgium, though they had been sown in peace, would be reaped in blood. We had every reason to think that the mortal struggle had been renewed; Lord Wellington himself, the whole army expected it. How then was it possible, believing, as we did, that, within a few leagues of us, the battle was at that time raging that was to decide the fate of Europe, and give or take from our gallant countrymen the palm of victory and of glory--that we could for a single instant feel the smallest interest about anything else? At a distance, we saw the lofty spire of the cathedral of Antwerp, without _then_ admiring its beauty, or even being conscious that it was beautiful. We looked, we felt, indeed, like moving automatons. Our persons were there, but our minds were absent. Every step we took only seemed to increase our solicitude for all we left behind. Our thoughts still to the battle "turned with ceaseless pain, And dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." A tremendous storm of thunder and lightning and rain burst over our heads. It was peculiarly awful. But what are the thunder and lightnings of heaven to the thunder and lightnings of war, which, perhaps, at this very moment, were sweeping away thousands! The thunderbolts of God are merciful and harmless; those of men deadly and destructive. We thought of this storm, as of everything else, only with reference to our army--to those who were fighting, and those who were bleeding on the field of battle, and who were exposed unsheltered to its rage.