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 feel otherwise than I did, without possessing an angelic disposition, to which I never pretended; and I fairly own that I did shed not one-fiftieth part so many tears over Tom's grave as I did over his dirty pantaloons, when forced to put them on.