but, on the contrary, because my brother's wrath had boiled over in such
a hubble-bubble of epithets, some only half erased, some doubtfully
erased, that it was impossible, out of the various readings, to pick
out the true classical text. "Infamous," "disgusting," and "odious"
struggled for precedency; and _infamous_ they might be; but on the
other affixes I held my own private opinions. For some days my brother's
displeasure continued to roll in reverberating thunders; but at length
it growled itself to rest; and at last he descended to mild
expostulations with me, showing clearly, in a series of general orders,
what frightful consequences must ensue, if major generals (as a general
principle) should allow themselves to be kissed by the enemy.

About this time my brother began to issue, instead of occasional
bulletins, through which hitherto he had breathed his opinions into
the ear of the public, (viz., of Mrs. Evans,) a regular gazette, which,
in imitation of the London Gazette, was published twice a week. I
suppose that no creature ever led such a life as _I_ did in that
gazette. Run up to the giddiest heights of promotion on on day, for
merits which I could not myself discern, in a week or two I was brought
to a court martial for offenses equally obscure. I was cashiered; I
was restored "on the intercession of a distinguished lady;" (Mrs.
Evans, to wit;) I was threatened with being drummed out of the army,
to the music of the "Rogue's March;" and then, in the midst of all
this misery and degradation, upon the discovery of some supposed energy
that I had manifested, I was decorated with the Order of the Bath. My
reading had been extensive enough to give me some vague aerial sense
of the honor involved in such a decoration, whilst I was profoundly
ignorant of the channels through which it could reach an individual,
and of the sole fountain from which it could flow. But, in this enormity
of disproportion between the cause and the effect, between the agency