failing memory.

In writing a personal narrative I take it that the most important
events to be chronicled in the life of a man are his choice of a wife
and his choice of a profession. As I am unmarried, the chief event in
my life is my choice of a profession, and as to that, as a matter of
fact, I was given no choice, but from my earliest childhood was
destined to be a soldier. My education and my daily environment each
pointed to that career, and even if I had shown a remarkable aptitude
for any other calling, which I did not, I doubt if I would have
pursued it. I am confident that had my education been directed in an
entirely different channel, I should have followed my destiny, and
come out a soldier in the end. For by inheritance as well as by
instinct I was foreordained to follow the fortunes of war, to delight
in the clash of arms and the smoke of battle; and I expect that when I
do hear the clash of arms and smell the smoke of battle, the last of
the Macklins will prove himself worthy of his ancestors.

I call myself the last of the Macklins for the reason that last year,
on my twenty-second birthday, I determined I should never marry. Women
I respect and admire, several of them, especially two of the young
ladies at Miss Butler's Academy I have deeply loved, but a soldier
cannot devote himself both to a woman and to his country. As one of
our young professors said, "The flag is a jealous mistress."

The one who, in my earliest childhood, arranged that I should follow
the profession of arms, was my mother's father, and my only surviving
grandparent. He was no less a personage than Major-General John M.
Hamilton. I am not a writer; my sword, I fear and hope, will always be
easier in my hand than my pen, but I wish for a brief moment I could