If you wish to taste the
luxury of being subdued--if you are, as you say, blue-moulded for want
of a beating, and sick at heart of a peaceful existence--why, marry a
wife. Neal, send my breeches home with all haste, for they are wanted,
you understand. Farewell!"
Mr. O'Connor, having thus expressed himself, departed, and Neal stood,
with the cudgel in his hand, looking at the door out of which he passed,
with an expression of fierceness, contempt, and reflection, strongly
blended on the ruins of his once heroic visage.
Many a man has happiness within his reach if he but knew it. The tailor
had been, hitherto, miserable because he pursued a wrong object. The
schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought upon which Neal
now fastened with all the ardor of a chivalrous temperament. Nay, he
wondered that the family spirit should have so completely seized
upon the fighting side of his heart, as to preclude all thoughts of
matrimony; for he could not but remember that his relations were as
ready for marriage as for fighting. To doubt this, would have been to
throw a blot upon his own escutcheon. He, therefore, very prudently
asked himself, to whom, if he did not marry, should he transmit his
courage. He was a single man, and, dying as such, he would be the sole
depository of his own valor, which, like Junius's secret, must perish
with, him.
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