Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1878-08-28
volunteer guide, who insisted on tell
ing his story in wretched patois or
worse English.

hB hio ntoiy w "iot,pou Poeo'o W
worse English
THE BATTLEFIELD OF WATERLOO.
1t is extremely difficult at first I,
realize or be reconciled to the scene o
the most momentous battle of moderr
times-that huge interloper ofa mounC
dominates and transforms it 80. Th,
entire conformation Of the central por
ton of the field is changed. The cen
tire Of the British position--the ridg,
on which Wellington was posted-th,
place where the great square wa'
formed, and stood like wall OF stee
and fire on that awful day-the glori
GUS ground, pounded by a shot anC
kneaded with blood, has all been dug
down many feet-the earth taken and
piled up, human dust and all, to make
the lofty mound on which has mounted
the Belgic lion, cast from French cap
tured guns, forever menacing France
Without, this mound is fair enough
with green grass and wild flowers
within, il is monstrous charnel-house
Never did lion stand guard over such
a heap of bones, and never did beast
wear 80 savage and defiant an aspect.
| rejoice that it is not the English lion
that sets himself up as an eternal taunt
and menace-a big bronze growl. Eng.
lands lion finishes his dreadful work
and then lies down to sleep in repose
more awful than this creatures snarl-
ing watchfulness. England can always
renew her grand emblem from the
noblcst types OF nature. When her
"morning drum beats round the world"
the lion of Africa looks down from his
mountain cave and the lion of Asia
stirs in his jungle lair; but this brag-
CART Belgium cannot even boast lean
and hungry specimen of the animal in
her geological collection at Brussels.
The summit of the mound, which
we reach by toilsome climb, affords
comprehensive Wow of the great
scene OF conflict, but high tower
would have served as well as this i'm
pertinent young mountain. Surely
the field should have been kept as
nearly as possible in the state in which
it was left after the dead were buried
those piteous wrecks of the mighty
flood of war which broke loose here,
and in its rehux swept away thrones
and the boundaries OF empires Doubt
less few acres right here should have
been enclosed and protected, but this
digging down, and following out, and
piling up is sin against the truth of
history and the higher truth OF poetry.
Nature, when lot alone, keeps well the
simple records, of great events and
heroic deeds. The sunken road of
Ohian, which is made such point of
in Victor Hugo's splendid description
of the battle, as long pitial and hid
den trench, wherein the quick and the
dead were piled together, has utterly
lost that characteristic earth of the
one ridge having been quite removed
By the way, an old guide, born near
Waterloo, and who at the time of the
battle was a lad Of II, and helped bury
the dead, told us that he first conducted
Victor Hugo over the field. He said
that the novelist stayed at farm house
in the neighborhood for two months,
and walked again and again over the
ground of his marvelously VIVID scenes.
That Is the way an artist works
But after all the changes of sixty
years, or from the time even when
Byron visited the field, when he needed
no guide to tell him where the slaugh-
ter had been most terrible, for the deep
shade and lush luxuriance Of grass and
grain revealed the ground where the
blood rain had been heaviest and
where the human compost was richest
retaliation vet comes to ono almost
overpoweringly while looking down on
the very spot where stood the British
squares, rigid, serried, impenetrable,
infiexible, with the fiery French cav.
airy hurting itself upon them and be.
ing forever hurled back and while
gazing off to those quiet, chcerful.look-
ing buildings, the farm bause of Mont
st. Jean, La Haye Saintc, La Bell
Alliance, and Houeoumont, around and
within which once raged the ferccst
tempest Of battlc-the hail of shot, the
red hghtnings and sudden thunder of
cannon, and the whlrlwind of smoke
and flame. At iastit all seems strange.
ly real and recent. The very air
seems to vibrato still with the concus-
sion Of that mighty shock OF arms.
Ihere IS Tragedy IN every Inc oil the
map you stuuy' IN every quiet pain
unuer your eyes by that ROAD iate
advanced on the frencn WITH Blacher
by tnis way fortune hed from them
with Napoleoni here was Their "N al