to sink into
oblivion, forgotten and forgot.

I record this painful feeling here, while it is still a painful memory, as
one of the dark shadows that cross the bright sky of our happiest days.

Happy, indeed, are they, as we look back to them and remember the times we
have pronounced ourselves "the most miserable of mankind." This, somehow,
is a confession we never make later on in life, when real troubles and true
afflictions assail us. Whether we call in more philosophy to our aid, or
that our senses become less acute and discerning, I'm sure I know not.

As for me, I confess by far the greater portion of my sorrows seemed to
come in that budding period of existence when life is ever fairest and most
captivating. Not, perhaps, that the fact was really so, but the spoiled
and humored child, whose caprices were a law, felt heavily the threatening
difficulties of his first voyage; while as he continued to sail over the
ocean of life, he braved the storm and the squall, and felt only gratitude
for the favoring breeze that wafted him upon his course.

What an admirable remedy for misanthropy is the being placed in a
subordinate condition in life! Had I, at the period that I write, been Sir
Arthur Wellesley; had I even been Marshal Beresford,--to all certainty I'd
have played the very devil with his Majesty's forces; I'd have brought my
rascals to where they'd have been well-peppered, that's certain.

But as, luckily for the sake of humanity in general and the well-being of
the service in particular, I was merely Lieutenant O'Malley, 14th Light
Dragoons, the case was very different. With what heavy censure did I
condemn the commander of the forces in my own mind for his want of daring
and enterprise! Whole nights did I pass in endeavoring to account for his
inactivity and lethargy. Why he did not _seriatim_ fall upon Soult, Ney,
and Victor, annihilate the French forces, and sack Madrid, I looked upon as
little less than a riddle; and yet there he waited, drilling, exercising,
and foraging, as if he were at Hounslow. Now most fortunately here again I
was not Sir Arthur.

Something in this frame of mind, I was taking one evening a solitary ride
some miles from the camp. Without noticing the circumstance, I had entered
a little mountain tract, when, the ground being broken and uneven, I
dismounted and proceeded a-foot, with the bridle within my arm. I had not
gone far when the clatter of a horse's hoofs came rapidly towar