bequeath to my children other decorations.

I have just returned from a ten years' campaign against all nations,
bringing back a marvellous quantity of trophies, but without causing one
mother to mourn. In the light of a conqueror, Caesar, Alexander, and
Hannibal pale in comparison, and yet to a certainty my military future
could not have gained me the epaulettes of these illustrious commanders.

You would not, my dear Edgar, suppose, from the gaiety of this letter,
that I had passed a frightful night.

You shall see what becomes of life when not taken care of; when there is
an unguarded moment in the incessant duel that, forced by nature, we
wage with her from the cradle to the grave.

What a long and glorious voyage I had just accomplished! What dangers I
escaped! The treacherous sea defeated by a motion of the helm! The
sirens to whom I turned a deaf ear. The Circes deserted under a baleful
moon, ere the brutalizing change had come!

I returned to Paris, a man with soul so dead that his country was not
dear to him--I felt guilty of an unknown crime, but reflection reduced
the enormity of the offence. Long voyages impart to us a nameless
virtue--or vice, made up of tolerance, stoicism and disdain. After
having trodden over the graveyards of all nations, it seems as if we had
assisted at the funeral ceremonies of the world, and they who survive on
its surface seem like a band of adroit fugitives who have discovered the
secret of prolonging to-day's agony until to-morrow.

I walked upon the Boulevard Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or