me--I won't speak of myself, because we judge better by general views
than by particular cases--would you advise a young man at present to
go into the army?"

The count was silent for a few minutes, and then replied: "Since
you seriously ask my opinion, my lord, I must lay aside my own
prepossessions, and endeavour to speak with impartiality. To go into
the army in these days, my lord, is, in my sober opinion, the most
absurd and base, or the wisest and noblest thing a young man can do.
To enter into the army, with the hope of escaping from the application
necessary to acquire knowledge, letters, and science--I run no risk,
my lord, in saying this to you--to go into the army, with the hope of
escaping from knowledge, letters, science, and morality; to wear a red
coat and an epaulette; to be called captain; to figure at a ball; to
lounge away time in country sports, at country quarters, was never,
even in times of peace, creditable; but it is now absurd and base.
Submitting to a certain portion of ennui and contempt, this mode
of life for an officer was formerly practicable--but now cannot be
submitted to without utter, irremediable disgrace. Officers are now,
in general, men of education and information; want of knowledge,
sense, manners, must consequently be immediately detected, ridiculed,
and despised, in a military man. Of this we have not long since seen
lamentable examples in the raw officers who have lately disgraced
themselves in my neighbourhood in Ireland--that Major Benson and
Captain Williamson. But I will not advert to such insignificant
individuals, such are rare exceptions--I leave them out of the
question--I reason on general principles. The life of an officer
is not now a life of parade, of coxcombical or of profligate
idleness--but of active service, of continual hardship and danger. All
the descriptions which we see in ancient history of a soldier's life,