52G The Malcontent. [Nov. 



backing the request by much violent action ; and I thought I could not 

 do better than, under pretext of seconding his desperate enterprise, take 

 advantage of a favourable moment, and retire from the scene. For, in 

 reality, I was too much disgusted to remain even if my life had de- 

 pended upon it and the reverse would have been the case I could not 

 nave stopped an instant longer. Naturally too brave, too heroic, I turn 

 away with horror from such indiscriminate slaughter such carnage, un- 

 relieved by generous forbearance. The mere paltry evasions of Falstaff 

 upon a similar occasion I despised. Now, that man was a coward that 

 man was a flat impostor and poltroon but I, who had a bona t fide princi- 

 ple in reserve you understand ? mine was courage, cooled by circum- 

 stances over which I had no control. And yet (but what was to be 

 expected from a world like this ?) I was dismissed the service for this 

 very retreat this masterly manoeuvre, whereby I preserved not only my 

 life, but the integrity of my rule of action. Let me not think of it. I 

 threw down my commission in disgust, and retired into the privacy and 

 secure comfort of domestic life. 



Still, this kind of life, it may be readily imagined, to a man of my 

 energy and active tendencies, was not definitely " the thing" more espe- 

 cially as my pecuniary blood was oozing away after a most marvellous 

 rate. The truth is, to be plain, my resources, about this time, were, to 

 an inhuman degree, epitomized abridged cut off; my credit, as it 

 were, a mere memory a thing to be meditated upon and yearned after ; 

 and my wants (for my habits had been expensive) truly awful. By my 

 soul ! it is no less than a most lamentable fact, that my existence, and the 

 probable carrying on of the concern, were become matters of intense 

 speculation to me. I seemed to have lost all regard to my person my 

 diet was of the most elementary description, and frightfully scarce , 

 nay, my meals were such as might be supposed, when placed upon it, 

 literally to " set the table on a roar." They unconsciously reminded the 

 spectator (supposing him to possess a " microscopic eye") of the philo- 

 sophical fact of the infinite divisibility of matter ; and bore as much re- 

 semblance to a full-grown repast, as a new-born dwarf to the Irish giant, 

 or the vision of the Barmecide to the sober certainty of a vast alderman ! 

 I never dined (?) without a pair of magnifying glasses, an ingenious 

 attempt at intestine deception, which turned out vain and futile. 



Is it then, I demand, surprising that my mind gave way, and the 

 rigidity of my scruples relaxed under the pecuniary pressure alluded to ? 

 No : wild fancies possessed me took lodgings in my brain, without 

 giving references to any decent ideas, and, in fine, determined me upon 

 ' l the last infirmity of noble mind" marriage. Thus it stood with me : 

 I was young perhaps romantic; in short, too sensitive too much the 

 child of impulse a mere creature of sentiment, believe it the Rousseau 

 of lovers the Petrarch of passion. I married upon the most disinter- 

 ested principle. I dissipated every farthing before the ceremony, out of 

 a chivalrous devotion to a woman I adored, that she might (you see the 

 nobleness of the act?) be permitted to confer upon me an everlasting 

 obligation, by making over to me, for my use, the assets in her possession ; 

 in other words, by a tacit consent to my transfer and conversion of her, 

 coin to my own peculiar purposes. 



But, ah ! well has it been said by the immortal bard, " Misery makes 

 a man acquainted with strange bedfellows" for had I not been most 

 wretched I had never loved madly loved (for it was madness) this, 



