This life did not tend to awaken spiritual thoughts, or religious observations. When, after a long lapse from piety, I strove to correct my erring disposition with the aid of prayer, how very faint-hearted I felt! I shrank from the least allusion to any goody-goodiness manifested; I became shame-faced if I was accused of being pious; the Bible was only opened by stealth; and I was as ready to deny that I prayed, as Peter was to deny Christ. A word or act of my neighbour became as perilous to my spiritual feelings as a gust of east wind is to a sufferer from Influenza. Every hour brought its obstacle; but I came, by degrees, to realise that, just as one must concentrate his reasoning faculties for the solution of a problem, I must, if I hoped to win in the great fight, summon every good thought to my assistance, and resolutely banish all false pride. But these were not my worst faults. Tomasson’s mad humour was as infectious as Dan’s dissertations upon Southern chivalry. Indoors he was jestive, amusing, vulgarly-entertaining; outdoors, he made us all join him in uproarious laughter. The prank of a mule, the sight of a tall hat, the apparition of a black coat, a child, a woman, a duel between two cocks, a culprit undergoing penance, it mattered not what, tickled his humorous nerve, and instigated him to bawl, and yell, and break out into explosions of laughter; and whether we laughed at him, or at that which had caught his fancy, in a second we had joined in the yelling, the company became smitten with it, then the regiment, and, finally, the army, was convulsed in idiotic cachinnations. I really blushed at the follies that people like Tomasson often led us into; but, after all, these occasional bursts of jolly imbecility were only a way these free-born natures took to express their animal discontent and mild melancholy, under the humiliating circumstances of that crude period. It was really pathetic, after a mild paroxysm of this kind, to hear them sigh, and turn to each other and ask, ‘Who would sell a farm to become a soldier?’ From the day when personal decoration was not expected from the private soldiers, and we learned that endurance was more esteemed than comeliness, a steady deterioration in our appearance took place. We allowed weeks to pass by without a bath; our hair was mown, not cut, making a comb unnecessary; a bottle of water sufficed for ablution, a pocket-hand-kerchief, or the sleeve of our jacket, served for a towel; a dab of bacon-fat was all that was needed for our boots; our dingy grey uniforms required no brushing. Soldiering, as practised in time of war, was most demoralising in many ways; for the conflict against hunger, fatigue, cold, and exposure, exhausted the energies and strength of each individual.