had
undergone, as well as the authentic assurances he had received of my
good conduct, were more than sufficient to bury all my errors in
oblivion; and he appeared, and I have no doubt really was, fonder and
prouder of me than ever.

As to what my own feelings were on this occasion, I shall not attempt to
disguise them. Sorry I certainly was for the death of my nearest
relatives; but when the intelligence reached me, I was in the midst of
the most active service. Death in all its forms had become familiar to
me; and so little impression did the event make on my mind, that I did
not interrupt the thread of my history to speak of it when it occurred.
I take shame to myself for not feeling more; but I am quite sure from
this one instance in my life, that the feelings are blunted in
proportion to the increase of misery around us; that the parent, who, in
a moment of peace and domestic tranquillity, would be agonised at the
loss of one child, would view the death of ten with comparative
indifference, when surrounded by war, pestilence, or famine.

My feelings, never very acute in this respect, were completely blunted
by my course of life. These fond recollections which, in a calm scene,
would have wrung from me some tears to their memory, were now drowned or
absorbed in the waste, the profligacy, and the dissipation of war: and
shall I add, that I easily reconciled myself to a loss which was likely
so much to increase my worldly gain. For my eldest brother, I own that,
even from childhood, I had felt a jealousy and dislike, fostered, as I
think, in some measure unwisely, and in part unavoidably, by the conduct
of my parents. In all matters of choice or distinction, Tom was to have
the preference, because he was the oldest: this I thought hard enough;
but when Tom had new clothes at Midsummer and Christmas, and his old
ones were converted to my use, I honestly own that I wished the devil
had Tom. As a point of economy, perhaps, this could not be avoided; but
it engendered a hatred towards my brother which often made me, in my own
little malignant mind, find excuses for the conduct of Cain.

Tom was to be sure, what is called a good boy; _he_ never soiled his
clothes, as I did. I was always considered as a rantipole, for whom
anything was good enough. But when I saw my brother tricked out in new
clothes, and his old duds covering me like a scarecrow, I appeal to any
honourable mind whether it was in human nature to