So I didn't pass. It was the army's decision that they didn't want me to go into the service. They're the boss. I don't want to say no whole lot about it.
The proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause people's substance to be drained away. When their substance is drained away, they will be afflicted by heavy exactions. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and their incomes dissipated.
But when I looked at a lot of the questions they had on them army tests, I just didn't know the answers. I don't even know how to start after finding the answers. That's all.
It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.
The army ages men sooner than the law and philosophy; it exposes them more freely to germs, which undermine and destroy, and it shelters them more completely from thought, which stimulates and preserves.
For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
No rent-roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation: and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all the forms of good-breeding point that way.
I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus ( It's all one, says the Sapper) There's only one Corps which is perfect - that's us; An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers, With the rank and pay of a Sapper!
Send me 300 francs; that sum will enable me to go to Paris. There, at least, one can cut a figure and surmount obstacles. Everything tells me I shall succeed. Will you prevent me from doing so for the want of 100 crowns?