We
visited Barnum, of course. I think a conversational and communicative
Albino was the most note-worthy curiosity in the Museum, chiefly, from
his intense appreciation of the imposture of the whole concern,
originated and directed by the King of Humbugdom.
The sanguine popular mind was unusually depressed just then. The
President's emancipatory proclamation had recently issued, and seemed to
adapt itself, with wonderful elasticity, to the discontents of all
parties; not comprehensive enough for the ultra-Abolitionists, it was
stigmatized by the Democrats as unconstitutional and oppressive; while
moderate politicians agreed that, beyond irritating feelings already
bitter enough, it would be practically invalid as an offensive measure.
We shall see, hereafter, how these prognostications were justified.
But the first word in all men's mouths, for a day or two at least after
my arrival, was--Monitor. That same gale which had buffeted the Asia so
rudely on the high seas, had raged yet more savagely shorewards: the
Merrimac's antagonist, like a drowning paladin of the mail-clad days,
had sunk under her mighty armor, and now, with half her crew in their
iron coffin, lay at rest in the crowded burial-ground on which Cape
Hatteras looks down. Great discouragement and consternation--greater
than has often been caused by the loss of any single vessel--fell upon
all the North when the news came in.
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