Des Arc weekly citizen., 1869-01-05
Fran the Richmond Examiner. Po0r, old virgiDia-An Eloquent
 Reply 10 aR Epltaph.

Inc sympathy It emDOules, not WltnOu sense of mourful pride. Beyon, question we are poor; beyond ques
 ton there~is great misery among ou helpless ones and our undying grati tudc will ever ga forth in recognition of that true charity, which, as in tn case of the Baltimore ladies, has beer so omunificently bestowed upon us We are not ashamed of our misiortun, and misery, nor of the aims that hay, been so generously sent us, because O them. Those who are despoiled mus needs be poor; those who are tram pied upon must needs be miserable and we not deem it to be any crime o our own that the spoilers hand has been upon us. and his heel has ground us into the dust.
 But there is sort of compassion in the tone with which the Northern press lavishes pity upon us that is quite uncallcd for, quite surereroga- tive, quite thrown away. The sheer does not hurt us, since it is misplaced, and we can laugh at an excess of senti- mental sympathy, for which there is not q shadow of occasion. We are not poorer than we were weak when Patrick Henrv's clarion awoke the dawn of the Revolution in the House of the Burgesses, nor are we poor in fact. No one can look around with half glance at the exhubcrant and in- eyhaustible resources of our great State and call Virginia poor No- where has nature been so kind; no- where in river, mountain, slope and forest and plain; in the bend of the sky, in the mellow tith or grassy ver- due of the soil. and in the deep and secret bowels of the earth, nowhere has nature been so lavish of her good gifts as in Virginia. This kindly sky of ours is itself an endowment and a perpetual possession; one hour of Vir- ginia sunshine is worth more than a weeks sojourn under those palid rays that glimmer over Cape Cod, and lend Sickly yeliownoss to the murky fogs of Massachusetts Bay.
 Nor have these good aud generous gifts Of nature been thrown away upon a poor or mean spirited people. Vir- ginians are enphatically race of men -of men who stand erect, who honor sunshine, and look kindly nature in the face. We have inc pride, the energy, the physique, the endurance of q governing race. The pure oxygen ated blood that flows in our veins makes our hearts strong, our muscles firm, our minds serene aud self-poised. Despair and despondency hide them- selves abashed from the presence of our composed, healthy spirit, and obstacles and difficulties yield before our resolute assault. Look at our men and women, and dare to think us poor. Were those men paupers who stood in the trenches all the long months, starving and in rags? Were those wo- men paupeTs who smiled still at home and still urged us to battle, in their suits of scanty home-spun, while the children cried at their knees for bread when there was none, and every mail brought the news of another loved one slain at his post of duty? Nay, we are rich indeed in our men and women ; doubtly rich in that remnant of heroes who walked away from the lost field of battle and calmly bestowed their hands to labor in the sweet patience and Christian faith of our women, cheering us on with smiles to this task, as they smilingly cheered us on to that one. We are rich in the examples oui heroes have set us, and it is perpetual riches to us and grand legacy to oul children, that we can point to the no ble old man there at Lexington calmly sitting down to teach the coming mer of Virginia lessons in the truth anG honor that made their fathers live. illustrous.
 And we are doubly rich in ou' sacred memories. There at Lexington beside the living hero, sleeps another dead indeed, but teaching us by hi most unparalleled example how mucl Virginia's sons can do and dare wheI her honor is at stake. Never shall Vt be poor while those memories remain
 Never can we feel ourselves pool while we are able to invoke these memories. Richer than placer ol mine, more fertile than the deep val lies of the West or Indian plains, ar, our hallowed battle fields, the place
 where our glorious record was won the places where our beloved sleep. 1 No, Old Virginia is not poor, no can be! By all those graves which W, cherish, and the places which behelG their deeds; by the storm-swept. battl harried desolation of Manassas by tn, blue hills that gird the Valley and lool down upon thousand fields of vic tory; by that broad Potomac, thric crossed in iriump; by the banks of tn
 Rappahaunock, and the immortal re cord of Frederick sburg by the tangle,
 thickets of the Wilderness, and th
 blood soaked plain of Spotsylvania
 by Cold Harbor and embattled Peters | burg, and the gaps that still mark i our own streets here how stern wa
 our last despair; by the dead whom W mourn; by the maimed whom W
 honor and care for; by the survivor
 not less noble; by our brave wome
 and our patient children; by our homo
 in the past and our hope in the futur