I'm
going to study music. I believe that I could perhaps do something there,
and in any case I love it more than anything else. And if you love a
thing, you have certainly a better chance of succeeding in it than in
something that you don't love at all. I was stuck into the army for no
reason except that soldiering is among the few employments which it is
considered proper for fellows in my position--good Lord! how awful it
sounds!--proper for me to adopt. The other things that were open were
that I should be a sailor or a member of Parliament. But the soldier was
what father chose. I looked round the picture gallery at home the other
day; there are twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform. So, as I shall be
Lord Ashbridge when father dies, I was stuck into uniform too, to be the
ill-starred thirteenth. But what has it all come to? If you think of it,
when did the majority of them wear their smart uniforms? Chiefly when
they went on peaceful parades or to court balls, or to the Sir Joshua
Reynolds of the period to be painted. They've been tin soldiers,
Francis! You're a tin soldier, and I've just ceased to be a tin soldier.
If there was the smallest chance of being useful in the army, by which
I mean standing up and being shot at because I am English, I would not
dream of throwing it up.
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