A Boastful Base.
The people of the North are greatly given to extravagant jubilation. Whilst representing the South as an excitable and demonstrative race, and themselves pre-eminently rational and sober- minded, the truth is directly the reverse. The Konixing of Kossuth, the crazy demonstrations over the Atlantic cable, the furious toadying of the Prince of Wales, and a hundred like examples prove what manner of men they are. These celebrities excited little sensation in the South. During the fast war with England the Yankees illuminated and hurrahed over every victory, and when the war was ended, they illuminated and hundred because peace had come. In every victory of this war they have fired salutes, rung balls, and made themselves generally frantic. The great battle of Manassas, on the other hand, was not celebrated in the South by any public demonstration, nor did any of our victories call forth any such childish exhibitions. Our people have felt and acted with the sobriety, and simplicity, of men engaged in a great work. The Yankee success at Donelson capped the climax of their madness. Such extravagance as they exhibited in their self-glorification was never before perpetrated by a people in their senses. For the hundredth tine they were sure that the war had come to an end, and that the whole South was in their clutches. The plain old saw, not to hurrah till you are out of the woods, is unworthy their consideration. What great results have followed the fall of Donelson? It has had no other effect than to awake the South from its lethargy, to redouble its energies, and intensify its determination to die in the last ditch rather than surrender its independence. The battle of Shiloh has since shown them that the work, not of conquering the South, but of taking the cities of the Mississippi Valley, is not fairly began.--We never read in print such glorification of an army, of its men, its discipline and equipments, as those which the Yankees uttered about the grand Federal army that was moving on Corinth, nor a more contemptuous account than they gave of the Southern forces at Corinth. The boasting last year about the Grand. Army of the Potomac afforded the only thing that approached a parallel. They were going to bolt Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg, &c., at a mouthful. But look at the result. No sooner were they away from the protection of their gunboats than their superior numbers, discipline and equipments availed them nothing, and another Manassas smote them to the earth. We believe that thus it will be to the end; but the South will continue to fight on, fight ever, and leaving to the North the penile part of howling itself hoarse over indecisive achievements, and boasting grandiloquently of victories before they are won, address itself with indomitable determination and inexhaustible constancy to the great work of our Independence.
