upon it! The man who prefers millions nowadays does not become a soldier, though in Napoleon's days, with the sacking of all Europe in view, it was perhaps the swiftest road to fortune. But he is paid for his services in the coin he loves best; and what more can he require? Why pose as the victim of his own virtues, and prate of his disinterestedness? I was very much struck by a tragic military novel written recently by two French officers: Au Tableau, a tale of army deceptions and bitternesses in preferment. Here is the truth put nakedly, and here is a revelation of military want of judgment, of justice. The general is a dense brute and a snob, who chooses his officers by their rank and fortune, and not by their merit. The hero, of Irish extraction, is a man of culture, of delicate sentiment, of intensely active conscience and brains. He is sacrificed all along the line to the base intrigues of inferior men, comrades who spy and tittle-tattle, idiot aristocrats who look down on their untitled brother officers, and dazzle by their expensive hospitality. Defeated and discouraged, he leaves the army to find himself an outcast, a déclassé, with nothing before him but suicide. The moral of the tale, of course, is, that even in the army it is better to stay there, however hard things may go with an officer; for outside there is nothing for him but suspicion, averted glances, ill-will, and slander. But the
