midnight
Indeed , so important to the general system of intellect is the system of taking no less note of small things than of great ones , that a multitude of writers who deal only in the smallest kind of matters all their lives may themselves be denominated intellectual pins . I hold Mr. Tupper to be an intellectual pin , and Mr. Willis has also become somewhat of a pin in these his later years . To the youthful soul , still steeped in those romantic dreams , of which a supper of pig 's feet is the best artificial provocative I know , this war is a vast phantasmagoria of almighty giants struggling together in the clouds . There was a time when I , too , was able to see it to that extent ; but time , and some experience in Virginia , have reduced my giants in the clouds to brigadiers in the mud ; and from seeing our national banner in the character of a rainbow dipped in stars , I have come to regard it as an ambitious attempt to represent sunrise in muslin , the unexpected scantiness of the material compelling the ingenious artist to use a section of midnight to fill up . Down in Accomac , the other day , I overheard a sentimental Mackerel chap , to whom I had imparted this flagging idea , inflicting it upon another Mackerel as original ; but he was anxious to improve upon the comparison , and says he : `` Our National Standard is so much like a beautiful sunrise , that I could almost wish the full idea of an eternal morning could be further expressed in it by something to represent the dew . '' The inferior Mackerel scratched his head , and says he : `` Why , my pay has been due for some time , and I myself am eternally mourning for it . '' If we cast pearls before swine , my boy , we must not be surprised to find them taken for the seeds of cabbage-heads .