Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/8

Rh overwhelmed with lassitude, and fell asleep in my chair. When I awoke, I found a piece of paper pinned to my sleeve, on which I read the following lines: "They say Tom is dead, but the truth I deny, So cease all his friends to be grieved; How can it be said that a man can quite die, Who ne'er in his life has quite lived?"

I never knew who played me this trick, but I shall ever feel grateful for the lesson, severe as it was. "What Diomed, nor Thetis' greater son, "A thousand ships, nor ten years' siege had done," this well-timed sarcasm achieved. It mortified my pride : it roused my anger; it inflamed my vanity; in short, it created a turmoil, a complete bouleversement in my system ; the atoms were set in motion, the waters had broken loose, nature was convulsed, and subsided into a newly-constituted world. I started up with a degree of energy, unknown for many a year; I paced the room with unnatural activity, and asked myself if it were possible, that I had passed forty years of my life without quite living; that I had been thus far a burden to myself, useless to the world, and an object of laughter to my companions. The struggle was a painful one, and put me into a fine perspiration-but I felt all the better for it. That night I had something to think of besides my aches and infirmities, and the nightmare eschewed my couch. I made up my mind to begin the world anew, and falling fast asleep, did not awake till the broad beams of morning darted into my windows. I made an unheard of effort, and getting up, dressed myself, and was actually down stairs before breakfast was over -whereupon they predicted an earthquake.

From this day I resolved to do something, and be useful. "I'll let them see," quoth I, " I can quite live as well as other people. I will qualify myself to defend my country ; there is a speck of war in the horizon, and every good subject ought to be prepared." I enrolled myself in a volunteer corps, the captain of which having a mistress in a distant part of the town, always marched us home that way after every turn out, which was every day. The reader may possibly form some remote conception of what I underwent in the service of my country, though he can never realize the extent of my sufferings. Conceive the idea of a man of my habits, carrying a musket offourteen pounds three hours before breakfast, and marching through thick and thin, mud, dirt, and glory, three miles to pass muster before Dulcinea's windows. I felt inclined to mutiny, and