Nothing more can be added to it.

But there are accessories and surroundings which apparently make one life of much greater value than another, and make it a vastly richer sacrifice when laid on the altar of patriotism." "There are certainly degrees of merit, even in yielding up one's life," said Rachel, not altogther unmindful of the sacrifice she herself had made in coming to the front.
"Judged by this standard," the Doctor continued, "the young man whom we are about to see has made a richer offering to his country than it is possible for most men to make.

It is almost shames me as to the meagerness of the gift I bring." "If you be ashamed how must others who give much less feel ?" "He was in the first dawn of manhood," the Doctor went on, without noticing the interruption, "handsome as a heathen god, educated and wealthy, and with high aspirations for a distinguished scientific career fermenting in his young blood like new wine.

Yet he turned his back upon all this--upon the opening of a happy married life--to carry a private soldier's musket in the ranks, and to die ingloriously by the shot of a skulking bushwhacker.

He would not even take a commission, because he wanted that used to encourage some other man, who might need the inducement." "But why call his death inglorious?
If a man braves death why is any one time or place worse than another ?" "Because for a man of his temperament he is dying the cruelest death possible.