an author with my work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth
Objection: But am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was
at first. I am not much now. I see what a dreary, friendless,
miserable, God-forgotten business it will be. And anyway, is not
excitement the proper reward of doing anything both right and a
little dangerous? Tenth Objection: But am I not taken with a
notion of glory? I dare say I am. Yet I see quite clearly how all
points to nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by disease
and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be knocked on
the head, as these poor Irish promise, how little any one will
care. It will be a smile at a thousand breakfast-tables. I am
nearly forty now; I have not many illusions. And if I had? I do
not love this health-tending, housekeeping life of mine. I have a
taste for danger, which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a
fair cause; a just cause; no knight ever set lance in rest for a
juster. Yet it needs not the strength I have not, only the passive
courage that I hope I could muster, and the watchfulness that I am
sure I could learn.

Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; with you.
Please let me hear. But I charge you this: if you see in this
idea of mine the finger of duty, do not dissuade me. I am nearing
forty, I begin to love my ease and my home and my habits, I never
knew how much till this arose; do not falsely counsel me to put my
head under the bed-clothes. And I will say this to you: my wife,
who hates the idea, does not refuse. 'It is nonsense,' says she,
'but if you go, I will go.' Poor girl, and her home and her garden
that she was so proud of! I feel her garden most of all, because
it is a pleasure (I suppose) that I do not feel myself to share.