CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THOUGHTS UPON MATRIMONY IN GENERAL, AND IN THE ARMY IN PARTICULAR--THE KNIGHT OF KERRY AND BILLY M'CABE.
"So," thought I, as I closed the door of my room behind me, "I am accepted--the die is cast which makes me a Benedict: yet heaven knows that never was a man less disposed to be over joyous at his good fortune!" What a happy invention it were, if when adopting any road in life, we could only manage to forget that we had ever contemplated any other! It is the eternal looking back in this world that forms the staple of all our misery; and we are but ill-requited for such unhappiness by the brightest anticipations we can conjure up for the future.

How much of all that "past" was now to become a source of painful recollection, and to how little of the future could I look forward with even hope! Our weaknesses are much more constantly the spring of all our annoyances and troubles than even our vices.

The one we have in some sort of subjection: we are perfectly slaves to the others.

This thought came home most forcibly to my bosom, as I reflected upon the step which led me on imperceptibly to my present embarrassment.

"Well, c'est fini, now," said I, drawing upon that bountiful source of consolation ever open to the man who mars his fortune--that "what is past can't be amended;" which piece of philosophy, as well as its twin brother, that "all will be the same a hundred years hence," have been golden rules to me from my childhood.
The transition from one mode of life to another perfectly different has ever seemed to me a great trial of a man's moral courage; besides that the fact of quitting for ever any thing, no matter how insignificant or valueless, is always attended with painful misgivings.