After he got through his school-days, his family being then abroad, he had
an offer of a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment; and he might
have been a major-general or field-marshal at this day had his schooling
made him acquainted with the French and German languages. Being, however,
entirely ignorant of these, he was obliged to study them in order to his
admission; and while he was thus employed, he received news of a vacant
clerkship in the General Post-Office, with the dazzling salary of L90 a
year. Needless to say that he jumped at such an opening, seeing before him
a vision of a splendid civil and social career, at something over twenty
pounds a quarter. But London, even fifty years ago, was a more expensive
place than Anthony imagined. Moreover, the boy was alone in the wilderness
of the city, with no one to advise or guide him. The consequence was that
these latter days of his youth were as bad or worse than the beginning. In
reviewing his plight at this period, he observes: "I had passed my life
where I had seen gay things, but had never enjoyed them. There was no
house in which I could habitually see a lady's face or hear a lady's
voice. At the Post-Office I got credit for nothing, and was reckless. I
hated my work, and, more than all, I hated my idleness. Borrowings of
money, sometimes absolute want, and almost constant misery, followed as a
matter of course. I Had a full conviction that my life was taking me down
to the lowest pits--a feeling that I had been looked upon as an evil, an
encumbrance, a useless thing, a creature of whom those connected with me
had to be ashamed. Even my few friends were half-ashamed of me. I
acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to be loved--a strong wish to
be popular. No one had ever been less so." Under these circumstances, he
remarks that, although, no doubt, if the mind be strong enough, the
temptation will not prevail, yet he is fain to admit that the temptation
prevailed with him. He did not sit at home, after his return from the
office, in the evening, to drink tea and read, but tramped out in the
streets, and tried to see life and be jolly on L90 a year. He borrowed