Frank\'s Campaign, or, Farm and Camp
CHAPTER I. THE WAR MEETING The Town Hall in Rossville stands on a moderate elevation overlooking the principal street. It is generally open only when a meeting has been called by the Selectmen to transact town business, or occasionally in the evening when a lecture on temperance or a political address is to be delivered. Rossville is not large enough to sustain a course of lyceum lectures, and the townspeople are obliged to depend for intellectual nutriment upon such chance occasions as these. The majority of the inhabitants being engaged in agricultural pursuits, the population is somewhat scattered, and the houses, with the exception of a few grouped around the stores, stand at respectable distances, each encamped on a farm of its own. One Wednesday afternoon, toward the close of September, 1862, a group of men and boys might have been seen standing on the steps and in the entry of the Town House. Why they had met will best appear from a large placard, which had been posted up on barns and fences and inside the village store and postoffice.
still think of it myself.
'Tis so far from me, to believe this perfect; that I am apt to conclude
our best plays are scarcely so. For the Stage being the Representation of
the World and the actions in it; how can it be imagined that the Picture
of Human Life can be more exact than Life itself is?
He may be allowed sometimes to err, who undertakes to move so many
Characters and Humours (as are requisite in a Play) in those narrow
channels, which are proper to each of them; to conduct his Imaginary
Persons through so many various intrigues and chances, as the labouring
Audience shall think them lost under every billow: and then, at length,
to work them so naturally out of their distresses, that when the whole
Plot is laid open, the Spectators may rest satisfied that every Cause was
powerful enough to produce the Effect it had; and that the whole Chain of
them was, with such due order, linked together, that the first Accident
[_Incident_], would, naturally, beget the second, till they All rendered
the Conclusion necessary.
These difficulties, my Lord! may reasonably excuse the errors of my
Undertaking: but for this confidence of my Dedication, I have an
argument, which is too advantageous for me not to publish it to the
World. 'Tis the kindness your Lordship has continually shown to all my
writings. You have been pleased, my Lord! they should sometimes cross the
Irish seas, to kiss your hands; which passage, contrary to the experience
of others, I have found the least dangerous in the world. Your favour has
CHAPTER I. THE WAR MEETING The Town Hall in Rossville stands on a moderate elevation overlooking the principal street. It is generally open only when a meeting has been called by the Selectmen to transact town business, or occasionally in the evening when a lecture on temperance or a political address is to be delivered. Rossville is not large enough to sustain a course of lyceum lectures, and the townspeople are obliged to depend for intellectual nutriment upon such chance occasions as these. The majority of the inhabitants being engaged in agricultural pursuits, the population is somewhat scattered, and the houses, with the exception of a few grouped around the stores, stand at respectable distances, each encamped on a farm of its own. One Wednesday afternoon, toward the close of September, 1862, a group of men and boys might have been seen standing on the steps and in the entry of the Town House. Why they had met will best appear from a large placard, which had been posted up on barns and fences and inside the village store and postoffice.