Read "The Young Lieutenant" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Like the major-generals in the army, Lieutenant Somers had strong aspirations in the direction of an independent command. Like those distinguished worthies, no doubt, he felt competent to perform bigger things than he had yet been called to achieve in the ordinary routine of duty. He had the blood of heroes in his veins; and, in spite of all he could do to keep his thoughts within the limits of modesty, he found them soaring to the regions of the improbable and fanciful. His imagination led him a wild race, and pictured him in the act of performing marvelous deeds of valor and skill.
Fancy is a blind and reckless leader; and it gave our hero oftentimes a command which his reason would not have permitted him to accept. What boys, and even what men, think, when stimulated by ambition, would be too ridiculous to put upon paper. If their thoughts could be disclosed to the impertinent eye of the world, the proprietors would blushingly disown and disclaim them.