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The same is true of the desert, though why I cannot tell, unless it be that by day it is too hot, and by night there is nothing to read by. Soldiers—real soldiers I mean—carry no books until they have reached the grade of general officer; and what books do you think were regretfully laid down when the Brunswick went into action on the first of June, 1794?

I can indeed consider no active occupation for a man in which No Book is not a true companion, and that book shall be my companion in future, as it has been in the past, all over the world.

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Irony is that form of jest in which we ridicule a second person in the presence of a third. It is most complete when the second person is most ignorant of our intention, the third person most alive to it. Irony exists and is full even when the second person thus attacked is alone in suffering the attack, and irony exists and is full when the third person is restricted to our own expectant selves or even to God who made us and in whom is mirrored the universal truth of things. Irony enjoys an exuberant life, whether the second person so attacked is universal and the third as restricted as can be; or whether the second person so attacked is particular and singular, and the third person, the onlooker and the audience, comprehends the whole world.