I AM not insensible, brother _Shandy_, that when a man whose profession
is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,—it has an ill aspect to the
world;——and that, how just and right soever his motives the intentions
may be,—he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from
private views in doing it.
For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without
being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in
the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not
believe him.——He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,—lest he
may suffer in his esteem:——But if his heart is overcharged, and a
secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear
of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true
notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I _hope_, I
have been in all these, brother _Shandy_, would be unbecoming in me to
say:——much worse, I know, have I been than I ought,—and something
worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother
_Shandy_, who have sucked the same breasts with me,—and with whom I
have been brought up from my cradle,—and from whose knowledge, from the
first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no
one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it——Such as I am,
brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all
my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my
understanding.
Tell me then, my dear brother _Shandy_, upon which of them it is, that
when I condemned the peace of _Utrecht_, and grieved the war was not
carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother
did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be
bad enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain,—more slaves
made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely
for his own pleasure:——Tell me, brother _Shandy_, upon what one deed of
mine do you ground it? [_The devil a deed do I know of, dear_ Toby,
_but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these
cursed sieges._]
If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart
beat with it—was it my fault?——Did I plant the propensity there?——Did I
sound the alarm within, or Nature?
When _Guy_, Earl of _Warwick_, and _Parismus_ and _Parismenus_, and
_Valentine_ and _Orson_, and the _Seven Champions of England_, were
handed around the school,—were they not all purchased with my own
pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother _Shandy_? When we read over the
siege of _Troy_, which lasted ten years and eight months,——though with
such a train of artillery as we had at _Namur_, the town might have
been carried in a week—was I not as much concerned for the destruction
of the _Greeks_ and _Trojans_ as any boy of the whole school? Had I not
three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my
left, for calling _Helena_ a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more
tears for _Hector?_ And when king _Priam_ came to the camp to beg his
body, and returned weeping back to _Troy_ without it,—you know,
brother, I could not eat my dinner.——
——Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother _Shandy_, my blood
flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war,—was it a proof it
could not ache for the distresses of war too?
O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,—and ’tis
another to scatter cypress.——[_Who told thee, my dear Toby, that
cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_ ]
——’Tis one thing, brother _Shandy_, for a soldier to hazard his own
life—to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in
pieces:——’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to
enter the breach the first man,—to stand in the foremost rank, and
march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his
ears:——’Tis one thing, I say, brother _Shandy_, to do this,—and ’tis
another thing to reflect on the miseries of war;—to view the
desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues
and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them,
is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo.
Need I be told, dear _Yorick_, as I was by you, in _Le Fever_’s funeral
sermon, _That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy,
and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?_——But why did you not
add, _Yorick_,—if not by NATURE—that he is so by NECESSITY?——For what
is war? what is it, _Yorick_, when fought as ours has been, upon
principles of _liberty_, and upon principles of _honour_—what is it,
but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their
swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within
bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother _Shandy_, that the pleasure I
have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular,
which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me,
and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had,
that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our
creation.