Recollections of the Eventful Life of a Soldier
9781465679734
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
I was born in Glasgow: my father held a situation in a mercantile house, that enabled him to keep his family respectable. I was the only surviving child, and no expense would have been spared on my education, had I been wise enough to appreciate the value of it; but, unfortunately for me, that was not the case. I had early learned to read; but novels, romances, and fairy tales, were my favourite books, and soon superseded all other kinds of reading. By this means, my ideas of life were warped from reality, and the world I had pictured in my imagination was very unlike the one in which I lived. The sober realities of life became tiresome and tasteless. Still panting after something unattainable, I became displeased with my situation in life, and neglected my education—not because I disliked it; on the contrary, I was fond of learning, and used to form very feasible plans of study, wherein I omitted nothing that was necessary to form the accomplished gentleman. I could pleasingly, in imagination, skim over the whole course of literature, and contemplate my future fame and wealth as the result; but when I considered how many years of arduous application would be required, I was too impatient to put it into practice. I had required too great a facility in raising castles in the air, and embellishing them with my fancy, to submit to the drudgery of building on a more stable foundation. Thus, straining at shadows, I lost substantial good. Amongst other books which fell into my hands, when very young, was Robinson Crusoe. It was a great favourite; and at that time, I believe I would willingly have suffered shipwreck, to be cast on an island like his. An island to one’s self, I thought, what a happiness! and I have dreamed for hours together, on what I would do in such a situation. I have often played truant to wander into the fields, and read my favourite books; and, when I was not reading, my mind was perfectly bewildered with the romantic notions I had formed. Often have I travelled eagerly to the summit of some neighbouring hill, where the clouds seemed to mark the limits of the world I lived in, my mind filled with an indescribable expectation that I would there meet with something to realise my wild ideas, some enchanted scene or other; and when I reached its summit, and found those expectations disappointed, still the next similar place had the same attraction. The sky, with the ever-varying figures of the clouds, was an inexhaustible field for my imagination to work in; and the sea, particularly those views of it where the land could not be seen from the shore, raised indescribable feelings in my breast. The vessels leaving the coast, thought I, must contain happy souls; for they are going far away,—all my fancied happy worlds were there. Oh, I thought, if I could once pass that blue line that separates the ocean and the sky!—then should I be content; for it seems the only barrier between me and happiness.
