The count was silent for a few minutes, and then replied:  ’Since you seriously ask my opinion, my lord, I must lay aside my own prepossessions, and endeavour to speak with impartiality.  To go into the army in these days, my lord, is, in my sober opinion, the most absurd and base, or the wisest and noblest thing a young man can do.  To enter into the army, with the hope of escaping from the application necessary to acquire knowledge, letters, and science—­I run no risk, my lord, in saying this to you—­to go into the army, with the hope of escaping from knowledge, letters, science, and morality; to wear a red coat and an epaulette; to be called captain; to figure at a ball; to lounge away time in country sports, at country quarters, was never, even in times of peace, creditable; but it is now absurd and base.  Submitting to a certain portion of ennui and contempt, this mode of life for an officer was formerly practicable—­but now cannot be submitted to without utter, irremediable disgrace.  Officers are now, in general, men of education and information; want of knowledge, sense, manners, must consequently be immediately detected, ridiculed, and despised in a military man.  Of this we have not long since seen lamentable examples in the raw officers who have lately disgraced themselves in my neighbourhood in Ireland—­that Major Benson and Captain Williamson.  But I will not advert to such insignificant individuals, such are rare exceptions—­I leave them out of the question—­I reason on general principles.  The life of an officer is not now a life of parade, of coxcombical, or of profligate idleness—­but of active service, of continual hardship and danger.  All the descriptions which we see in ancient history of a soldier’s life—­descriptions which, in times of peace, appeared like romance—­are now realised; military exploits fill every day’s newspapers, every day’s conversation.  A martial spirit is now essential to the liberty and the existence of our own country.  In the present state of things, the military must be the most honourable profession, because the most useful.  Every movement of an army is followed, wherever it goes, by the public hopes and fears.  Every officer must now feel, besides this sense of collective importance, a belief that his only dependence must be on his own merit and thus his ambition, his enthusiasm, are raised; and when once this noble ardour is kindled in the breast, it excites to exertion, and supports under endurance.  But I forget myself,’ said the count, checking his enthusiasm; ’I promised to speak soberly.  If I have said too much, your own good sense, my lord, will correct me, and your good-nature will forgive the prolixity of an old man, touched upon his favourite subject—­the passion of his youth.’