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Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains; it is rife with temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed of will.
But the day did not seem to be at hand that should have completed the reform by sweeping and garnishing disaffected, not to say disloyal Head-Quarters removing from command men who were merely martinets, and who were in addition committed body and soul to the interests of their late Commander, and who, had they been in receipt of compensation from Richmond, could not have more completely labored by their half-hearted, inefficient, and tyrannizing course, to crush the spirit of our soldiery.
I dare say she could use such words as "martinets," "mowhairs," "brigadiers," and other terms familiar to her class. Alas! how completely all these little traces of the past are disappearing from our habits and manners! As for the Major, he appeared much better in health, and altogether altered in mien.
It never works out. Leaders of men are the ones who always cry on their wives' shoulders, and the martinets at home are imposed on by every one else." He gave out this dictum in passing: "But don't trouble about your responsibility in this, Mrs. Farron. It's out of your hands. It's our chance, and Mathilde and I mean to take it.
It occurs to me, as I explore her, that I would require a handsome sum of money to go aboard her, at midnight by the Dockyard bell, and stay aboard alone till morning; for surely she must be haunted by a crowd of ghosts of obstinate old martinets, mournfully flapping their cherubic epaulettes over the changed times.
In his selection of officers, therefore, for posts upon his staff, and in his recommendations for promotion, he considered personal characteristics rather than professional ability. He preferred men who would win the confidence of others men not only strong, but possessing warm sympathies and broad minds to mere martinets, ruling by regulation, and treating the soldier as a machine.
Morton and Molly had been so drilled in their deportment before they came, that each sat now stiff and solemn as martinets awaiting some command; Morton, eying hopelessly the tiny bouillon-cup before him, with the healthy appetite of a boy who had not eaten anything since an early breakfast; while Molly, after a stony rigidity of perhaps two minutes, suddenly gave a little twist and drew a sigh as long and lugubrious as the wail of an autumn blast.
He had won his way up to the rank he then held from before the mast. His build was rather squat, and his face was garnished with a pair of fiery red whiskers, so he was no beauty, added to which he was reckoned one of the most rigid martinets in the service; yet, for all that, his crew liked him, for they knew his heart was in the right place.
I had heard of martinets, and disciplinarians, and foul-mouthed captains; but this outdid all I ever could have conceived, and much more than I thought ever could have been submitted to by any correct officer. Roused to indignation, and determined not to be treated in this manner, I again walked up to him, and requested leave to go on shore. "You have had your answer, Sir."
But he had an innate and, perhaps, it may be, an instinctive horror of drills and early rising; a pastime in which the martinets and disciplinarians of the last century were very much given to indulge.
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