ain. He was leaving what had been his home
for years,--Paris, the gay and brilliant city in whose pleasures he had
mixed, and whose fascinations he had tasted. I was parting from one with
whom I had lived in a friendship as close as can subsist between two
natures essentially different. We both were sad.

"Adieu, Burke!" said he, as he waved his hand for the last time. "I
hope you'll command the huitieme when next we meet."

I hurried into the quarters, which already seemed lonely and deserted,
so soon does desolation throw its darkening shadow before it. The sword
that had hung above the chimney crosswise on my own was gone; the shako,
too, and the pistols were missing; the vacant chair stood opposite to
mine; and the isolation I felt became so painful that I wandered out
into the open air, glad to escape the sight of objects every one of
which only suggested how utterly alone I stood in the world when the
departure of one friend had left me companionless.

No one save he who has experienced it can form any just idea of the
intense hold a career of any kind will take of the mind of him who,
without the ties of country, of kindred, and of friends, devotes all
his energies in one direction. The affections that might, under other
influences, have grown up,--the hopes that might have flourished in the
happy sphere of a home,--become the springs of a more daring ambition.
In proportion as he deserts other roads in life, the path he has struck
out for himself seems wider and grander, and his far-seeing eye enables
him to look into the long distance with a prophetic vision, where are
rewards for his hard won victories, the recompense of long years of
toil. The pursuit, become a passion, gradually draws all into its
vortex; and that success which at first he believed only attainable by
some one mighty effort, seems at last to demand every energy of his life
and every moment of his existence: and as the miser would deem his ruin
near should the most trifling opportunity of gain escape him, so
does the ambitious man feel that every incident in life must be made
tributary to the success which is his mammon. It was thus I thought of
the profession of arms: my whole soul was in it; no other wish, no other
hope, divided my heart; that passion reigned there alone. How often do
we find it in life that the means become the end,--that the effort we
employ to reach an object takes hold upon our fancy, gains hourly upon
our affections,