Croakers and Ravens.
No man should open his ears to birds of evil men. Hickman boasted that the North could bring against the South two to one; it can't be done, and if three to one could overcome us, fighting upon our own ground and for our own homes, we would deserve to be overcome. The South is invincible; it cannot be subjugated. Even if they could overrun the country, they could not hold it. Instead of a seven years war of the Revolution, we would make it fourteen years, forty, four hundred, before our native land should be subdued. Deliver us from dyspepsia and liver complaint, and quarantine everybody who suffers from these disheartening diseases, and he South can take care of all its other enemies. Let no man believe or aid in spreading exaggerated reports of the strength of the enemy. We were much amused with a conversation reported to us between a gentleman of a desponding and one of a sanguine temperament.--Said the former, "The North has more men, money and arms than the South, and therefore has every advantage over us." "It isn't so," replied his hopeful companion; "the South is far stronger than the colonies were when they resisted Great Britain; it is full of fighting men, every man of whom is more than a match for three invaders; and even if it were not so, you oughtn't to be dimming with your desponding breath the bright mirror in which hopeful men see only the lineaments of success and glory. Such kind of talk does more harm than ten Yankees, and as I may not be able to kill ten Yankees at present, I'll kill you if you don't stop it." This pleasant badinage must have convinced his equally brave, but more melancholy companion, as it ought to other desponding spirits, that there are two stars — brighter even than any on the brilliant flag of the Confederate States--which we should permit no cloud nor storm to interrupt — Hope and Faith.
