One cannot withhold admiration from President Johnston and other officers of the canal, who made such a manful struggle to save it. But who can war against the elements? Nature herself, imitating man, seems to have taken special delight in kicking the canal after it was down. So it must go. Well, let it go. It knew Virginia in her palmiest days and it crushed the stage coach; isn’t that glory enough? I think it is. But I can’t help feeling sorry for the bull frogs; there must be a good many of them between here and Lexington. What will become of them, I wonder? They will follow their predecessors, the batteaux; and their pale, green ghosts, seated on the prows of shadowy barges, will be heard piping the roundelays of long-departed joys.
Farewell canal, frogs, musk-rats, mules, packet-horns and all, a long farewell. Welcome the rail along the winding valleys of the James. Wake up, Fluvanna! Arise, old Buckingham! Exalt thyself, O Goochland! And thou, O Powhatan, be not afraid nor shame-faced any longer, but raise thy Ebenezer freely, for the day of thy redemption is at hand. Willis J. Dance shall rejoice; yea, Wm. Pope Dabney shall be exceeding glad. And all hail our long lost brother! come to these empty, aching, arms, dear Lynch’s Ferry!
I have always thought that the unnatural separation between Lynchburg and Richmond was the source of all our troubles. In some way, not entirely clear to me, it brought on the late war, and it will bring on another, if a reunion between the two cities does not soon take place. Baltimore, that pretty and attractive, but meddlesome vixen, is at the bottom of it all. Richmond will not fear Baltimore after the rails are laid. Her prosperity will date anew from the time of her iron wedding with Lynchburg. We shall see her merchants on our streets again, and see them often. That will be a better day.
Alas! there are many we shall not see. John G. Meem, Sam’l McCorkle, John Robin McDaniel, John Hollins, Chas. Phelps, Jno. R. D. Payne, Jehu Williams, Ambrose Rucker, Wilson P. Bryant, (who died the other day,) and many, many others will not come to Richmond any more. They are gone. And if they came, they would not meet the men they used to meet; very few of them at least. Jacquelin P. Taylor, John N. Gordon, Thos. R. Price, Lewis D. Crenshaw, James Dunlop--why add to the list? They too are gone.