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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
+
+Author: Laurence Sterne
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: February 12, 1997 [eBook #804]
+[Most recently updated: October 24, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Price
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY ***
+
+
+
+
+                                    A
+                           SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
+                                 THROUGH
+                            FRANCE AND ITALY;
+
+
+                              BY MR. YORICK.
+
+                     [THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE, M.A.]
+
+                        [FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1768.]
+
+THEY order, said I, this matter better in France.—You have been in
+France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil
+triumph in the world.—Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,
+That one and twenty miles sailing, for ’tis absolutely no further from
+Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights:—I’ll look into them: so,
+giving up the argument,—I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a
+dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,—“the coat I have on,”
+said I, looking at the sleeve, “will do;”—took a place in the Dover
+stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning,—by three I had
+got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in
+France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world
+could not have suspended the effects of the _droits d’aubaine_; {557}—my
+shirts, and black pair of silk breeches,—portmanteau and all, must have
+gone to the King of France;—even the little picture which I have so long
+worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my
+grave, would have been torn from my neck!—Ungenerous! to seize upon the
+wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their
+coast!—By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me,
+’tis the monarch of a people so civilized and courteous, and so renowned
+for sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with!—
+
+But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions.—
+
+
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France’s health, to
+satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary, high
+honour for the humanity of his temper,—I rose up an inch taller for the
+accommodation.
+
+—No—said I—the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be misled,
+like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.  As I
+acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek—more
+warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a
+bottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could have produced.
+
+—Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in this
+world’s goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so many
+kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by the way?
+
+When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the
+heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding it
+airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he sought for an object
+to share it with.—In doing this, I felt every vessel in my frame
+dilate,—the arteries beat all cheerily together, and every power which
+sustained life, performed it with so little friction, that ’twould have
+confounded the most _physical précieuse_ in France; with all her
+materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine.—
+
+I’m confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her creed.
+
+The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as she
+could go;—I was at peace with the world before, and this finish’d the
+treaty with myself.—
+
+—Now, was I King of France, cried I—what a moment for an orphan to have
+begg’d his father’s portmanteau of me!
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of St.
+Francis came into the room to beg something for his convent.  No man
+cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies—or one man may be
+generous, as another is puissant;—_sed non quoad hanc_—or be it as it
+may,—for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our
+humours; they may depend upon the same causes, for aught I know, which
+influence the tides themselves: ’twould oft be no discredit to us, to
+suppose it was so: I’m sure at least for myself, that in many a case I
+should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by the world, “I had had
+an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame,” than
+have it pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
+of both.
+
+—But, be this as it may,—the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I was
+predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly, I put my
+purse into my pocket—buttoned it—set myself a little more upon my centre,
+and advanced up gravely to him; there was something, I fear, forbidding
+in my look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there
+was that in it which deserved better.
+
+The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered white
+hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might be about
+seventy;—but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was in them,
+which seemed more temper’d by courtesy than years, could be no more than
+sixty:—Truth might lie between—He was certainly sixty-five; and the
+general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something seem’d to have
+been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.
+
+It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted,—mild,
+pale—penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
+ignorance looking downwards upon the earth;—it look’d forwards; but
+look’d as if it look’d at something beyond this world.—How one of his
+order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a monk’s shoulders
+best knows: but it would have suited a Bramin, and had I met it upon the
+plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.
+
+The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might put it
+into the hands of any one to design, for ’twas neither elegant nor
+otherwise, but as character and expression made it so: it was a thin,
+spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the
+distinction by a bend forward in the figure,—but it was the attitude of
+Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my imagination, it gained
+more than it lost by it.
+
+When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his
+left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journey’d
+being in his right)—when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself
+with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his
+order;—and did it with so simple a grace,—and such an air of deprecation
+was there in the whole cast of his look and figure,—I was bewitch’d not
+to have been struck with it.
+
+—A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sous.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+—’TIS very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with
+which he had concluded his address;—’tis very true,—and heaven be their
+resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of
+which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many _great claims_ which are
+hourly made upon it.
+
+As I pronounced the words _great claims_, he gave a slight glance with
+his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic:—I felt the full force of
+the appeal—I acknowledge it, said I:—a coarse habit, and that but once in
+three years with meagre diet,—are no great matters; and the true point of
+pity is, as they can be earn’d in the world with so little industry, that
+your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is
+the property of the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm;—the captive
+who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
+languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the _order of
+mercy_, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I,
+pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it have been open’d to
+you, for the ransom of the unfortunate.—The monk made me a bow.—But of
+all others, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have
+the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon our own
+shore.—The monk gave a cordial wave with his head,—as much as to say, No
+doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as
+within our convent—But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the
+sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal—we distinguish, my good
+father! betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own
+labour—and those who eat the bread of other people’s, and have no other
+plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, _for the love
+of God_.
+
+The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass’d across his
+cheek, but could not tarry—Nature seemed to have done with her
+resentments in him;—he showed none:—but letting his staff fall within his
+arms, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and
+retired.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+MY heart smote me the moment he shut the door—Psha! said I, with an air
+of carelessness, three several times—but it would not do: every
+ungracious syllable I had utter’d crowded back into my imagination: I
+reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and
+that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the
+addition of unkind language.—I consider’d his gray hairs—his courteous
+figure seem’d to re-enter and gently ask me what injury he had done
+me?—and why I could use him thus?—I would have given twenty livres for an
+advocate.—I have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only
+just set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
+along.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however,
+that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.
+Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a
+chaise,—and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest
+for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that
+kind to my purpose: an old _désobligeant_ {562} in the furthest corner of
+the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it, and
+finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to
+call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel:—but Monsieur Dessein
+being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw
+on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
+at the inn,—I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being determined
+to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote the preface to
+it in the _désobligeant_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+
+
+IT must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That nature
+has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries and
+fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her
+purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost
+insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his
+sufferings at home.  It is there only that she has provided him with the
+most suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of
+that burden which in all countries and ages has ever been too heavy for
+one pair of shoulders.  ’Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power
+of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond _her_ limits, but ’tis so
+ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and dependencies,
+and from the difference in education, customs, and habits, we lie under
+so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own
+sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility.
+
+It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
+commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what
+he has little occasion for, at their own price;—his conversation will
+seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount,—and
+this, by the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable
+brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great
+spirit of divination to guess at his party—
+
+This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw of
+this _désobligeant_ will but let me get on) into the efficient as well as
+final causes of travelling—
+
+Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for some
+reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general causes:—
+
+  Infirmity of body,
+  Imbecility of mind, or
+  Inevitable necessity.
+
+The first two include all those who travel by land or by water, labouring
+with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined _ad
+infinitum_.
+
+The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
+especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
+benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the
+direction of governors recommended by the magistrate;—or young gentlemen
+transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling under
+the direction of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.
+
+There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would not
+deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of this nature to
+observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of
+character.  And these men I speak of, are such as cross the seas and
+sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of saving money for various
+reasons and upon various pretences: but as they might also save
+themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their
+money at home,—and as their reasons for travelling are the least complex
+of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by
+the name of
+
+                            Simple Travellers.
+
+Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
+_heads_:—
+
+  Idle Travellers,
+
+  Inquisitive Travellers,
+
+  Lying Travellers,
+
+  Proud Travellers,
+
+  Vain Travellers,
+
+  Splenetic Travellers.
+
+Then follow:
+
+  The Travellers of Necessity,
+
+  The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,
+
+  The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
+
+  The Simple Traveller,
+
+And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
+thereby myself) who have travell’d, and of which I am now sitting down to
+give an account,—as much out of _Necessity_, and the _besoin de Voyager_,
+as any one in the class.
+
+I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations
+will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that I
+might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely to myself;—but I should
+break in upon the confines of the _Vain_ Traveller, in wishing to draw
+attention towards me, till I have some better grounds for it than the
+mere _Novelty of my Vehicle_.
+
+It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself, that
+with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine his own
+place and rank in the catalogue;—it will be one step towards knowing
+himself; as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and
+resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.
+
+The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good
+Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine
+at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French mountains,—he
+was too phlegmatic for that—but undoubtedly he expected to drink some
+sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent,—he knew
+enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon his choice, but
+that what is generally called _choice_, was to decide his success:
+however, he hoped for the best; and in these hopes, by an intemperate
+confidence in the fortitude of his head, and the depth of his discretion,
+_Mynheer_ might possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by
+discovering his nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.
+
+Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting through the
+politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.
+
+Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for that
+purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is all a
+lottery;—and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired stock
+must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit:—but, as
+the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition
+and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as wisely, if he
+could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or
+foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no
+absolute want of either;—and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and
+many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the
+Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into
+discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might
+have seen dry-shod at home.  It is an age so full of light, that there is
+scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed and
+interchanged with others.—Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most
+affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake
+who pay nothing.—But there is no nation under heaven—and God is my record
+(before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this
+work)—that I do not speak it vauntingly,—but there is no nation under
+heaven abounding with more variety of learning,—where the sciences may be
+more fitly woo’d, or more surely won, than here,—where art is encouraged,
+and will so soon rise high,—where Nature (take her altogether) has so
+little to answer for,—and, to close all, where there is more wit and
+variety of character to feed the mind with:—Where then, my dear
+countrymen, are you going?—
+
+We are only looking at this chaise, said they.—Your most obedient
+servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat.—We were
+wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an _Inquisitive
+Traveller_,—what could occasion its motion.—’Twas the agitation, said I,
+coolly, of writing a preface.—I never heard, said the other, who was a
+_Simple Traveller_, of a preface wrote in a _désobligeant_.—It would have
+been better, said I, in a _vis-a-vis_.
+
+—_As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen_, I retired to my
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I PERCEIVED that something darken’d the passage more than myself, as I
+stepp’d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master
+of the hôtel, who had just returned from vespers, and with his hat under
+his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my
+wants.  I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the
+_désobligeant_, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it
+would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belong’d to
+some _Innocent Traveller_, who, on his return home, had left it to Mons.
+Dessein’s honour to make the most of.  Four months had elapsed since it
+had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s
+coach-yard; and having sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at
+the first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it
+had not profited much by its adventures,—but by none so little as the
+standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s
+coach-yard.  Much indeed was not to be said for it,—but something
+might;—and when a few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I
+hate the man who can be a churl of them.
+
+—Now was I the master of this hôtel, said I, laying the point of my
+fore-finger on Mons. Dessein’s breast, I would inevitably make a point of
+getting rid of this unfortunate _désobligeant_;—it stands swinging
+reproaches at you every time you pass by it.
+
+_Mon Dieu_! said Mons. Dessein,—I have no interest—Except the interest,
+said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in their
+own sensations,—I’m persuaded, to a man who feels for others as well as
+for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, must cast a damp
+upon your spirits:—You suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine—
+
+I have always observed, when there is as much _sour_ as _sweet_ in a
+compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself,
+whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein
+made me a bow.
+
+_C’est bien vrai_, said he.—But in this case I should only exchange one
+disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir,
+that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got
+half-way to Paris,—figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in giving
+an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the mercy,
+as I must do, _d’un homme d’esprit_.
+
+The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not
+help tasting it,—and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without more
+casuistry we walk’d together towards his Remise, to take a view of his
+magazine of chaises.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+IT must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but
+of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the
+street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls
+into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same
+sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park corner to
+fight a duel.  For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a
+match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements
+within me, to which the situation is incident;—I looked at Monsieur
+Dessein through and through—eyed him as he walk’d along in profile,—then,
+_en face_;—thought like a Jew,—then a Turk,—disliked his wig,—cursed him
+by my gods,—wished him at the devil.—
+
+—And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of
+three or four louis d’ors, which is the most I can be overreached
+in?—Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally does
+upon a sudden reverse of sentiment,—base, ungentle passion! thy hand is
+against every man, and every man’s hand against thee.—Heaven forbid! said
+she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had turned full in front
+upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk:—she had
+followed us unperceived.—Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my
+own;—she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two
+fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve,—and I led her up to the
+door of the Remise.
+
+Monsieur Dessein had _diabled_ the key above fifty times before he had
+found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as impatient
+as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle that I
+continued holding her hand almost without knowing it: so that Monsieur
+Dessein left us together with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned
+towards the door of the Remise, and said he would be back in five
+minutes.
+
+Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one of as
+many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the latter case,
+’tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;—when your eyes are
+fixed upon a dead blank,—you draw purely from yourselves.  A silence of a
+single moment upon Mons. Dessein’s leaving us, had been fatal to the
+situation—she had infallibly turned about;—so I begun the conversation
+instantly.—
+
+—But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for the
+weaknesses of my heart in this tour,—but to give an account of
+them)—shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt them.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
+_désobligeant_, because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady
+just arrived at the inn—I told him the truth,—but I did not tell him the
+whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by the appearance and
+figure of the lady he was talking to.  Suspicion crossed my brain and
+said, he was telling her what had passed: something jarred upon it within
+me,—I wished him at his convent.
+
+When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment
+a world of pains.—I was certain she was of a better order of
+beings;—however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my
+preface.
+
+The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
+guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I thought, her
+good education and her good sense; and as I led her on, I felt a
+pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmness over all my
+spirits—
+
+—Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the world
+with him!—
+
+I had not yet seen her face—’twas not material: for the drawing was
+instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the
+Remise, _Fancy_ had finished the whole head, and pleased herself as much
+with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber for
+it;—but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatest
+us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with so many
+charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in the shapes
+of so many angels of light, ’tis a shame to break with thee.
+
+When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand from
+across her forehead, and let me see the original:—it was a face of about
+six-and-twenty,—of a clear transparent brown, simply set off without
+rouge or powder;—it was not critically handsome, but there was that in
+it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,—it
+was interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of a widow’d look, and
+in that state of its declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms
+of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;—but
+a thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I wish’d to
+know what they had been—and was ready to inquire, (had the same _bon ton_
+of conversation permitted, as in the days of Esdras)—“_What aileth thee_?
+_and why art thou disquieted_? _and why is thy understanding
+troubled_?”—In a word, I felt benevolence for her; and resolv’d some way
+or other to throw in my mite of courtesy,—if not of service.
+
+Such were my temptations;—and in this disposition to give way to them,
+was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and with our faces
+both turned closer to the door of the Remise than what was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+THIS certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little lightly as
+I began, must be one of Fortune’s whimsical doings; to take two utter
+strangers by their hands,—of different sexes, and perhaps from different
+corners of the globe, and in one moment place them together in such a
+cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have achieved for
+them, had she projected it for a month.
+
+—And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
+embarrassed you by the adventure—
+
+When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to
+hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued
+she—you had reason—the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an
+English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the brain to reverse
+the judgment?
+
+In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought a
+sufficient commentary upon the text.
+
+It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness of my
+heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier occasions could
+not have inflicted.—I was mortified with the loss of her hand, and the
+manner in which I had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound:
+I never felt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably in my life.
+
+The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these discomfitures.
+In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in
+order to finish her reply; so, some way or other, God knows how, I
+regained my situation.
+
+—She had nothing to add.
+
+I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady,
+thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been
+mistaken in her character; but upon turning her face towards me, the
+spirit which had animated the reply was fled,—the muscles relaxed, and I
+beheld the same unprotected look of distress which first won me to her
+interest:—melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey of sorrow,—I
+pitied her from my soul; and though it may seem ridiculous enough to a
+torpid heart,—I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her,
+though it was in the open street, without blushing.
+
+The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers,
+told her what was passing within me: she looked down—a silence of some
+moments followed.
+
+I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts towards a
+closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I felt in the
+palm of my own,—not as if she was going to withdraw hers—but as if she
+thought about it;—and I had infallibly lost it a second time, had not
+instinct more than reason directed me to the last resource in these
+dangers,—to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was every moment
+going to release it, of myself; so she let it continue, till Monsieur
+Dessein returned with the key; and in the mean time I set myself to
+consider how I should undo the ill impressions which the poor monk’s
+story, in case he had told it her, must have planted in her breast
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+THE SNUFF BOX.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+THE good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him crossed
+my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if
+uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no.—He stopp’d, however,
+as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness: and having a horn
+snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to me.—You shall taste
+mine—said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) and
+putting it into his hand.—’Tis most excellent, said the monk.  Then do me
+the favour, I replied, to accept of the box and all, and when you take a
+pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace offering of a man
+who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.
+
+The poor monk blush’d as red as scarlet.  _Mon Dieu_! said he, pressing
+his hands together—you never used me unkindly.—I should think, said the
+lady, he is not likely.  I blush’d in my turn; but from what movements, I
+leave to the few who feel, to analyze.—Excuse me, Madame, replied I,—I
+treated him most unkindly; and from no provocations.—’Tis impossible,
+said the lady.—My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration
+which seem’d not to belong to him—the fault was in me, and in the
+indiscretion of my zeal.—The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in
+maintaining it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his, could
+give offence to any.
+
+I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable a
+thing to the nerves as I then felt it.—We remained silent, without any
+sensation of that foolish pain which takes place, when, in such a circle,
+you look for ten minutes in one another’s faces without saying a word.
+Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his
+tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the
+friction—he made me a low bow, and said, ’twas too late to say whether it
+was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this
+contest—but be it as it would,—he begg’d we might exchange boxes.—In
+saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from
+me in the other, and having kissed it,—with a stream of good nature in
+his eyes, he put it into his bosom,—and took his leave.
+
+I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, to
+help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go abroad without
+it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit
+of its owner to regulate my own, in the justlings of the world: they had
+found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about the
+forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services ill
+requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in the
+tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and
+took sanctuary not so much in his convent as in himself.
+
+I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my last
+return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he
+had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, but,
+according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two
+leagues off: I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him,—when,
+upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking
+up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow
+there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I
+burst into a flood of tears:—but I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the
+world not to smile, but to pity me.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD never quitted the lady’s hand all this time, and had held it so
+long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go, without first
+pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had suffered a
+revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.
+
+Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard, happening
+at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our communications,
+naturally took it into their heads that we must be _man and wife_ at
+least; so, stopping as soon as they came up to the door of the Remise,
+the one of them who was the Inquisitive Traveller, ask’d us, if we set
+out for Paris the next morning?—I could only answer for myself, I said;
+and the lady added, she was for Amiens.—We dined there yesterday, said
+the Simple Traveller.—You go directly through the town, added the other,
+in your road to Paris.  I was going to return a thousand thanks for the
+intelligence, _that Amiens was in the road to Paris_, but, upon pulling
+out my poor monk’s little horn box to take a pinch of snuff, I made them
+a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage to Dover.—They left us
+alone.—
+
+—Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg of this
+distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise?—and what mighty mischief
+could ensue?
+
+Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm, as I
+stated the proposition.—It will oblige you to have a third horse, said
+Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your pocket;—You know not
+what she is, said Caution;—or what scrapes the affair may draw you into,
+whisper’d Cowardice.—
+
+Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, ’twill be said you went off with
+a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that purpose;—
+
+—You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the
+world;—or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church;—or be any thing in it,
+said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.
+
+But ’tis a civil thing, said I;—and as I generally act from the first
+impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no
+purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant—I turned
+instantly about to the lady.—
+
+—But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading, and had
+made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I had made the
+determination; so I set off after her with a long stride, to make her the
+proposal, with the best address I was master of: but observing she walk’d
+with her cheek half resting upon the palm of her hand,—with the slow
+short-measur’d step of thoughtfulness,—and with her eyes, as she went
+step by step, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same
+cause herself.—God help her! said I, she has some mother-in-law, or
+tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to consult upon the occasion,
+as well as myself: so not caring to interrupt the process, and deeming it
+more gallant to take her at discretion than by surprise, I faced about
+and took a short turn or two before the door of the Remise, whilst she
+walk’d musing on one side.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+HAVING, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my fancy
+“that she was of the better order of beings;”—and then laid it down as a
+second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she was a widow, and
+wore a character of distress,—I went no further; I got ground enough for
+the situation which pleased me;—and had she remained close beside my
+elbow till midnight, I should have held true to my system, and considered
+her only under that general idea.
+
+She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something within me
+called out for a more particular enquiry;—it brought on the idea of a
+further separation:—I might possibly never see her more:—The heart is for
+saving what it can; and I wanted the traces through which my wishes might
+find their way to her, in case I should never rejoin her myself; in a
+word, I wished to know her name,—her family’s—her condition; and as I
+knew the place to which she was going, I wanted to know from whence she
+came: but there was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred little
+delicacies stood in the way.  I form’d a score different plans.—There was
+no such thing as a man’s asking her directly;—the thing was impossible.
+
+A little French _débonnaire_ captain, who came dancing down the street,
+showed me it was the easiest thing in the world: for, popping in betwixt
+us, just as the lady was returning back to the door of the Remise, he
+introduced himself to my acquaintance, and before he had well got
+announced, begg’d I would do him the honour to present him to the lady.—I
+had not been presented myself;—so turning about to her, he did it just as
+well, by asking her if she had come from Paris?  No: she was going that
+route, she said.—_Vous n’êtes pas de Londres_?—She was not, she
+replied.—Then Madame must have come through Flanders.—_Apparemment vous
+êtes Flammande_? said the French captain.—The lady answered, she
+was.—_Peut être de Lisle_? added he.—She said, she was not of Lisle.—Nor
+Arras?—nor Cambray?—nor Ghent?—nor Brussels?—She answered, she was of
+Brussels.
+
+He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last
+war;—that it was finely situated, _pour cela_,—and full of noblesse when
+the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the lady made a slight
+courtesy)—so giving her an account of the affair, and of the share he had
+had in it,—he begg’d the honour to know her name,—so made his bow.
+
+—_Et Madame a son Mari_?—said he, looking back when he had made two
+steps,—and, without staying for an answer—danced down the street.
+
+Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could not
+have done as much.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with the key
+of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his magazine of
+chaises.
+
+The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open’d the door of
+the Remise, was another old tatter’d _désobligeant_; and notwithstanding
+it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the
+coach-yard but an hour before,—the very sight of it stirr’d up a
+disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought ’twas a churlish
+beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a
+machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who could think of using
+it.
+
+I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so Mons.
+Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast, telling us,
+as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by my lord A. and B.
+to go the grand tour, but had gone no further than Paris, so were in all
+respects as good as new.—They were too good;—so I pass’d on to a third,
+which stood behind, and forthwith begun to chaffer for the price.—But
+’twill scarce hold two, said I, opening the door and getting in.—Have the
+goodness, Madame, said Mons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in.—The
+lady hesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter that moment
+beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door of the chaise upon
+us, and left us.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+_C’EST bien comique_, ’tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from the
+reflection that this was the second time we had been left together by a
+parcel of nonsensical contingencies,—_c’est bien comique_, said she.—
+
+—There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use which the
+gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to,—to make love the first moment,
+and an offer of his person the second.
+
+’Tis their _fort_, replied the lady.
+
+It is supposed so at least;—and how it has come to pass, continued I, I
+know not; but they have certainly got the credit of understanding more of
+love, and making it better than any other nation upon earth; but, for my
+own part, I think them arrant bunglers, and in truth the worst set of
+marksmen that ever tried Cupid’s patience.
+
+—To think of making love by _sentiments_!
+
+I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of
+remnants:—and to do it—pop—at first sight, by declaration—is submitting
+the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with all their _pours_
+and _contres_, by an unheated mind.
+
+The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.
+
+Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:—
+
+That grave people hate love for the name’s sake;—
+
+That selfish people hate it for their own;—
+
+Hypocrites for heaven’s;—
+
+And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse frightened
+than hurt by the very _report_,—what a want of knowledge in this branch
+of commerce a man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of his lips,
+till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence upon it
+becomes tormenting.  A course of small, quiet attentions, not so pointed
+as to alarm,—nor so vague as to be misunderstood—with now and then a look
+of kindness, and little or nothing said upon it,—leaves nature for your
+mistress, and she fashions it to her mind.—
+
+Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been making
+love to me all this while.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+MONSIEUR DESSEIN came back to let us out of the chaise, and acquaint the
+lady, the count de L—, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel.
+Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that I
+rejoiced in my heart at the event—and could not help telling her so;—for
+it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said I, that I was going to make to
+you—
+
+—You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her hand
+upon both mine, as she interrupted me.—A man my good Sir, has seldom an
+offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment of it
+some moments before.—
+
+Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation.—But I think,
+said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend,—and, to deal
+frankly with you, had determined to accept it.—If I had—(she stopped a
+moment)—I believe your good will would have drawn a story from me, which
+would have made pity the only dangerous thing in the journey.
+
+In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with a look
+of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise,—and bid
+adieu.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I NEVER finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my life: my
+time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing every moment of
+it would be as two, till I put myself into motion,—I ordered post horses
+directly, and walked towards the hotel.
+
+Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting that I
+had been little more than a single hour in Calais,—
+
+—What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span
+of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, having
+eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he
+journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can _fairly_ lay his hands on!
+
+—If this won’t turn out something,—another will;—no matter,—’tis an assay
+upon human nature—I get my labour for my pains,—’tis enough;—the pleasure
+of the experiment has kept my senses and the best part of my blood awake,
+and laid the gross to sleep.
+
+I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ’Tis all
+barren;—and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not
+cultivate the fruits it offers.  I declare, said I, clapping my hands
+cheerily together, that were I in a desert, I would find out wherewith in
+it to call forth my affections:—if I could not do better, I would fasten
+them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect
+myself to;—I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their
+protection.—I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the
+loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither’d, I would
+teach myself to mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along
+with them.
+
+The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris,—from Paris to
+Rome,—and so on;—but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every
+object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted.—He wrote an account of
+them, but ’twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings.
+
+I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon:—he was just coming
+out of it.—’_Tis nothing but a huge cockpit_, {580} said he:—I wish you
+had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied I;—for in passing
+through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul upon the goddess, and
+used her worse than a common strumpet, without the least provocation in
+nature.
+
+I popp’d upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a sad
+tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, “wherein he spoke of moving
+accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals that each other eat:
+the Anthropophagi:”—he had been flayed alive, and bedevil’d, and used
+worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he had come at.—
+
+—I’ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world.  You had better tell it,
+said I, to your physician.
+
+Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on from
+Rome to Naples,—from Naples to Venice,—from Venice to Vienna,—to Dresden,
+to Berlin, without one generous connection or pleasurable anecdote to
+tell of; but he had travell’d straight on, looking neither to his right
+hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce him out of his road.
+
+Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
+possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give it;
+every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to hail
+their arrival.—Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus hear
+of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh
+congratulations of their common felicity.—I heartily pity them; they have
+brought up no faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion in
+heaven to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so far
+from being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus would do
+penance there to all eternity!
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I HAD once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got out
+in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to help the
+postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out what was
+wanting.—Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord’s asking
+me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that that was the
+very thing.
+
+A servant!  That I do most sadly, quoth I.—Because, Monsieur, said the
+landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who would be very proud of the
+honour to serve an Englishman.—But why an English one, more than any
+other?—They are so generous, said the landlord.—I’ll be shot if this is
+not a livre out of my pocket, quoth I to myself, this very night.—But
+they have wherewithal to be so, Monsieur, added he.—Set down one livre
+more for that, quoth I.—It was but last night, said the landlord, _qu’un
+milord Anglois présentoit un écu à la fille de chambre_.—_Tant pis pour
+Mademoiselle Janatone_, said I.
+
+Now Janatone, being the landlord’s daughter, and the landlord supposing I
+was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I should not have
+said _tant pis_—but, _tant mieux_.  _Tant mieux_, _toujours_, _Monsieur_,
+said he, when there is any thing to be got—_tant pis_, when there is
+nothing.  It comes to the same thing, said I.  _Pardonnez-moi_, said the
+landlord.
+
+I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that _tant
+pis_ and _tant mieux_, being two of the great hinges in French
+conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the use of
+them, before he gets to Paris.
+
+A prompt French marquis at our ambassador’s table demanded of Mr. H—, if
+he was H— the poet?  No, said Mr. H—, mildly.—_Tant pis_, replied the
+marquis.
+
+It is H— the historian, said another,—_Tant mieux_, said the marquis.
+And Mr. H—, who is a man of an excellent heart, return’d thanks for both.
+
+When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La Fleur,
+which was the name of the young man he had spoke of,—saying only first,
+That as for his talents he would presume to say nothing,—Monsieur was the
+best judge what would suit him; but for the fidelity of La Fleur he would
+stand responsible in all he was worth.
+
+The landlord deliver’d this in a manner which instantly set my mind to
+the business I was upon;—and La Fleur, who stood waiting without, in that
+breathless expectation which every son of nature of us have felt in our
+turns, came in.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but never
+more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to so poor a
+devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment
+to draw back something on that very account,—and this more or less,
+according to the mood I am in, and the case;—and I may add, the gender
+too, of the person I am to govern.
+
+When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make for my
+soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter at
+once in his favour; so I hired him first,—and then began to enquire what
+he could do: But I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want
+them,—besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.
+
+Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, and play
+a march or two upon the fife.  I was determined to make his talents do;
+and can’t say my weakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom as in the
+attempt.
+
+La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen do,
+with _serving_ for a few years; at the end of which, having satisfied the
+sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of beating a drum was
+likely to be its own reward, as it open’d no further track of glory to
+him,—he retired _à ses terres_, and lived _comme il plaisoit à
+Dieu_;—that is to say, upon nothing.
+
+—And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in this
+tour of yours through France and Italy!—Psha! said I, and do not one half
+of our gentry go with a humdrum _compagnon du voyage_ the same round, and
+have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides?  When man can
+extricate himself with an _équivoque_ in such an unequal match,—he is not
+ill off.—But you can do something else, La Fleur? said I.—_O qu’oui_! he
+could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the fiddle.—Bravo! said
+Wisdom.—Why, I play a bass myself, said I;—we shall do very well.  You
+can shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?—He had all the
+dispositions in the world.—It is enough for heaven! said I, interrupting
+him,—and ought to be enough for me.—So, supper coming in, and having a
+frisky English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet, with
+as much hilarity in his countenance as ever Nature painted in one, on the
+other,—I was satisfied to my heart’s content with my empire; and if
+monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied as I was.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+AS La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and will be
+often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further in his
+behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses
+which generally do determine me, than in regard to this fellow;—he was a
+faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a
+philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and
+spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves, happened to be
+of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity
+of his temper;—it supplied all defects:—I had a constant resource in his
+looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own—I was going to have
+added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of every thing; for,
+whether ’twas hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or
+whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there
+was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by,—he was eternally
+the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and
+then puts it into my head I am,—it always mortifies the pride of the
+conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of
+this poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind.  With all
+this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb,—but he seemed at first
+sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before I had been
+three days in Paris with him,—he seemed to be no coxcomb at all.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+THE next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to
+him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen
+shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the
+chaise,—get the horses put to,—and desire the landlord to come in with
+his bill.
+
+_C’est un garcon de bonne fortune_, said the landlord, pointing through
+the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and
+were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postilion was leading
+out the horses.  La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again,
+and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them
+all pardons from Rome.
+
+—The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and
+there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him will not be
+felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, “he is always
+in love.”—I am heartily glad of it, said I,—’twill save me the trouble
+every night of putting my breeches under my head.  In saying this, I was
+making not so much La Fleur’s eloge as my own, having been in love with
+one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so
+till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it
+must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this
+interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up,—I can scarce
+find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of
+it as fast as I can—and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity
+and good-will again; and would do anything in the world, either for or
+with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.
+
+—But in saying this,—sure I am commanding the passion,—not myself.
+
+
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.
+
+
+—THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all
+the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most
+profligate town in all Thrace.  What for poisons, conspiracies, and
+assassinations,—libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no going
+there by day—’twas worse by night.
+
+Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda of
+Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted
+with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated
+more upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which the
+poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, _O Cupid_,
+_prince of gods and men_! &c.  Every man almost spoke pure iambics the
+next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,—“_O
+Cupid! prince of gods and men_!”—in every street of Abdera, in every
+house, “O Cupid!  Cupid!”—in every mouth, like the natural notes of some
+sweet melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,—nothing but
+“Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!”—The fire caught—and the whole
+city, like the heart of one man, open’d itself to Love.
+
+No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,—not a single
+armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;—Friendship and
+Virtue met together, and kiss’d each other in the street; the golden age
+returned, and hung over the town of Abdera—every Abderite took his eaten
+pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat
+her down and listened to the song.
+
+’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire
+extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, to
+have done this.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+WHEN all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn,
+unless you are a little sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matter
+to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that is
+with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you.  Let no man
+say, “Let them go to the devil!”—’tis a cruel journey to send a few
+miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always think
+it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every
+gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting
+down his motives for giving them;—They will be registered elsewhere.
+
+For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I
+know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of my
+charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
+
+A well-a-way! said I,—I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in
+my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for ’em.
+
+A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim,
+by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow
+on his part.  Had the whole _parterre_ cried out, _Place aux dames_, with
+one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for
+the sex with half the effect.
+
+Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary and
+urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a
+way to be at unity in this?
+
+—I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
+_politesse_.
+
+A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in the
+circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been a hat,
+took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer’d a pinch on
+both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly
+declined.—The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a nod of
+welcomeness.—_Prenez en—prenez_, said he, looking another way; so they
+each took a pinch.—Pity thy box should ever want one! said I to myself;
+so I put a couple of sous into it—taking a small pinch out of his box, to
+enhance their value, as I did it.  He felt the weight of the second
+obligation more than of the first,—’twas doing him an honour,—the other
+was only doing him a charity;—and he made me a bow down to the ground for
+it.
+
+—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned
+and worn out to death in the service—here’s a couple of sous for
+thee.—_Vive le Roi_! said the old soldier.
+
+I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, _pour l’amour de
+Dieu_, which was the footing on which it was begg’d.—The poor woman had a
+dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.
+
+_Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur_.—There’s no opposing this, said I.
+
+_Milord Anglois_—the very sound was worth the money;—so I gave _my last
+sous for it_.  But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a _pauvre
+honteux_, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe,
+would have perished, ere he could have ask’d one for himself: he stood by
+the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face
+which I thought had seen better days.—Good God! said I—and I have not one
+single sous left to give him.—But you have a thousand! cried all the
+powers of nature, stirring within me;—so I gave him—no matter what—I am
+ashamed to say _how much_ now,—and was ashamed to think how little, then:
+so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two
+fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was
+the precise sum.
+
+I could afford nothing for the rest, but _Dieu vous bénisse_!
+
+—_Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore_, said the old soldier, the dwarf,
+&c.  The _pauvre honteux_ could say nothing;—he pull’d out a little
+handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away—and I thought he
+thanked me more than them all.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIDET.
+
+
+HAVING settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with
+more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur
+having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little _bidet_, {588}
+and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)—he canter’d away
+before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.—But what is
+happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life!  A dead ass,
+before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur’s career;—his
+bidet would not pass by it,—a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor
+fellow was kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.
+
+La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more nor
+less upon it, than _Diable_!  So presently got up, and came to the charge
+again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his
+drum.
+
+The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back
+again,—then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by the
+dead ass:—La Fleur insisted upon the thing—and the bidet threw him.
+
+What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine?  Monsieur,
+said he, _c’est un cheval le plus opiniâtre du monde_.—Nay, if he is a
+conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.  So La Fleur got off
+him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and
+away he scampered back to Montreuil.—_Peste_! said La Fleur.
+
+It is not _mal-à-propos_ to take notice here, that though La Fleur
+availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this
+encounter,—namely, _Diable_! and _Peste_! that there are, nevertheless,
+three in the French language: like the positive, comparative, and
+superlative, one or the other of which serves for every unexpected throw
+of the dice in life.
+
+_Le Diable_! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally used
+upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out
+contrary to your expectations; such as—the throwing once doublets—La
+Fleur’s being kick’d off his horse, and so forth.—Cuckoldom, for the same
+reason, is always—_Le Diable_!
+
+But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of
+the bidet’s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground in
+jack-boots,—’tis the second degree.
+
+’Tis then _Peste_!
+
+And for the third—
+
+—But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I reflect
+what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so refined a
+people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it.—
+
+Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in
+distress!—what ever is my _cast_, grant me but decent words to exclaim
+in, and I will give my nature way.
+
+—But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every evil
+just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
+
+La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the bidet
+with his eyes till it was got out of sight,—and then, you may imagine, if
+you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.
+
+As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there
+remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise, or
+into it.—
+
+I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house at
+Nampont.
+
+
+
+
+NAMPONT.
+THE DEAD ASS.
+
+
+—AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet—and
+this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have
+shared it with me.—I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to
+his child; but ’twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in
+the road, which had occasioned La Fleur’s misadventure.  The man seemed
+to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’s
+lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
+
+The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass’s
+pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to
+time,—then laid them down,—look’d at them, and shook his head.  He then
+took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it
+some time in his hand,—then laid it upon the bit of his ass’s
+bridle,—looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made—and then
+gave a sigh.
+
+The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongst
+the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in
+the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.
+
+—He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest
+borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, when his ass
+died.  Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken
+so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.
+
+It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest
+lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest of them by
+the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was
+afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven would not
+take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
+
+When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’d to pay Nature her
+tribute,—and wept bitterly.
+
+He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out from
+his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of
+his journey;—that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and
+was unto him as a friend.
+
+Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern.—La Fleur
+offered him money.—The mourner said he did not want it;—it was not the
+value of the ass—but the loss of him.—The ass, he said, he was assured,
+loved him;—and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their
+passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each
+other three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as he
+had sought the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank till
+they met.
+
+Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy poor
+beast; I’m sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.—Alas! said the
+mourner, I thought so when he was alive;—but now that he is dead, I think
+otherwise.—I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together have
+been too much for him,—they have shortened the poor creature’s days, and
+I fear I have them to answer for.—Shame on the world! said I to
+myself.—Did we but love each other as this poor soul loved his
+ass—’twould be something.—
+
+
+
+
+NAMPONT.
+THE POSTILION.
+
+
+THE concern which the poor fellow’s story threw me into required some
+attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon the
+_pavé_ in a full gallop.
+
+The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not have
+wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and quiet
+movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion had he
+but stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace.—On the contrary,
+as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling
+lash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like a thousand
+devils.
+
+I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’s sake to go slower:—and
+the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped.—The deuce take
+him and his galloping too—said I,—he’ll go on tearing my nerves to pieces
+till he has worked me into a foolish passion, and then he’ll go slow that
+I may enjoy the sweets of it.
+
+The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had got to
+the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont,—he had put me
+out of temper with him,—and then with myself, for being so.
+
+My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling gallop
+would have been of real service to me.—
+
+—Then, prithee, get on—get on, my good lad, said I.
+
+The postilion pointed to the hill.—I then tried to return back to the
+story of the poor German and his ass—but I had broke the clue,—and could
+no more get into it again, than the postilion could into a trot.
+
+—The deuce go, said I, with it all!  Here am I sitting as candidly
+disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runs
+counter.
+
+There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds out to
+us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the first word
+which roused me was _Amiens_.
+
+—Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,—this is the very town where my poor
+lady is to come.
+
+
+
+
+AMIENS.
+
+
+THE words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L—’s post-chaise,
+with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me a
+bow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me she
+had not yet done with me.  She was as good as her look; for, before I had
+quite finished my supper, her brother’s servant came into the room with a
+billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a
+letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R— the first morning I
+had nothing to do at Paris.  There was only added, she was sorry, but
+from what _penchant_ she had not considered, that she had been prevented
+telling me her story,—that she still owed it to me; and if my route
+should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name
+of Madame de L—,—that Madame de L— would be glad to discharge her
+obligation.
+
+Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels;—’tis only
+returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of
+Flanders, home;—’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but, were it
+ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey, in
+sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me by such
+a sufferer?  To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of
+her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping
+them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’m
+sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside
+her?
+
+There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached
+my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.
+
+It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of
+my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one;
+and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy on the
+sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of
+Eliza but about three months before,—swearing, as I did it, that it
+should last me through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble the
+matter?  I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she had a right to my whole
+heart:—to divide my affections was to lessen them;—to expose them was to
+risk them: where there is risk there may be loss:—and what wilt thou
+have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence—so
+good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
+
+—I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself.—But my
+imagination went on,—I recalled her looks at that crisis of our
+separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu!  I look’d at the
+picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,—and blush’d as I
+look’d at it.—I would have given the world to have kiss’d it,—but was
+ashamed.—And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between my
+hands,—shall it be smitten to its very root,—and smitten, Yorick! by
+thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?
+
+Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground,—be
+thou my witness—and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witness
+also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along with
+me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
+
+In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding,
+will always say too much.
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+AMIENS.
+
+
+FORTUNE had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his
+feats of chivalry,—and not one thing had offered to signalise his zeal
+for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which was
+almost four-and-twenty hours.  The poor soul burn’d with impatience; and
+the Count de L—’s servant coming with the letter, being the first
+practicable occasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in
+order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour in
+the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in
+Picardy; and the Count de L—’s servant, in return, and not to be
+behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to
+the Count’s hotel.  La Fleur’s _prevenancy_ (for there was a passport in
+his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him;
+and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in
+showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his
+fife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the
+_fille de chambre_, the _maître d’hôtel_, the cook, the scullion, and all
+the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I
+suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.
+
+Madame de L—, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her own,
+hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her _fille de chambre_ to
+ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, who
+had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.
+
+As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded himself
+in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de L—, on the
+part of his master,—added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de
+L—’s health,—told her, that Monsieur his master was _au désespoire_ for
+her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey,—and, to close all,
+that Monsieur had received the letter which Madame had done him the
+honour—And he has done me the honour, said Madame de L—, interrupting La
+Fleur, to send a billet in return.
+
+Madame de L— had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact,
+that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations;—he trembled
+for my honour,—and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned for his
+own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting
+_en égards vis à vis d’une femme_! so that when Madame de L— asked La
+Fleur if he had brought a letter,—_O qu’oui_, said La Fleur: so laying
+down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right
+side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with
+his right;—then contrariwise.—_Diable_! then sought every pocket—pocket
+by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob:—_Peste_!—then La Fleur emptied
+them upon the floor,—pulled out a dirty cravat,—a handkerchief,—a comb,—a
+whip lash,—a nightcap,—then gave a peep into his hat,—_Quelle
+étourderie_!  He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge;—he
+would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes.
+
+I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account
+of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was: and only
+added that if Monsieur had forgot (_par hazard_) to answer Madame’s
+letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the _faux
+pas_;—and if not, that things were only as they were.
+
+Now I was not altogether sure of my _étiquette_, whether I ought to have
+wrote or no;—but if I had,—a devil himself could not have been angry:
+’twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning creature for my honour;
+and, however he might have mistook the road,—or embarrassed me in so
+doing,—his heart was in no fault,—I was under no necessity to write;—and,
+what weighed more than all,—he did not look as if he had done amiss.
+
+—’Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I.—’Twas sufficient.  La Fleur flew
+out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, in
+his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me, with
+such a delight in his countenance, that I could not help taking up the
+pen.
+
+I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made half a
+dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.
+
+In short, I was in no mood to write.
+
+La Fleur stepp’d out and brought a little water in a glass to dilute my
+ink,—then fetch’d sand and seal-wax.—It was all one; I wrote, and
+blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.—_Le diable l’emporte_!
+said I, half to myself,—I cannot write this self-same letter, throwing
+the pen down despairingly as I said it.
+
+As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
+respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand apologies for
+the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his pocket
+wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal’s wife, which he durst
+say would suit the occasion.
+
+I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour.—Then prithee, said
+I, let me see it.
+
+La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm’d full of
+small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying it upon the
+table, and then untying the string which held them all together, run them
+over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question,—_La voila_!
+said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, he laid it open
+before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I read it.
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+Madame,
+
+Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plus vive, et réduit en même temps au
+désespoir par ce retour imprévù du Caporal qui rend notre entrevûe de ce
+soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.
+
+Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous.
+
+L’amour n’est _rien_ sans sentiment.
+
+Et le sentiment est encore _moins_ sans amour.
+
+On dit qu’on ne doit jamais se désesperér.
+
+On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors ce
+cera mon tour.
+
+                           _Chacun à son tour_.
+
+En attendant—Vive l’amour! et vive la bagatelle!
+
+                                                          Je suis, Madame,
+                                          Avec tous les sentimens les plus
+                                          respectueux et les plus tendres,
+                                                              tout à vous,
+                                                             JAQUES ROQUE.
+
+It was but changing the Corporal into the Count,—and saying nothing about
+mounting guard on Wednesday,—and the letter was neither right nor
+wrong:—so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for my honour,
+his own, and the honour of his letter,—I took the cream gently off it,
+and whipping it up in my own way, I seal’d it up and sent him with it to
+Madame de L—;—and the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris.
+
+
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all on
+floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple of
+cooks—’tis very well in such a place as Paris,—he may drive in at which
+end of a street he will.
+
+A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does not
+exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself in
+the cabinet, if he can get up into it;—I say _up into it_—for there is no
+descending perpendicular amongst ’em with a “_Me voici_! _mes
+enfans_”—here I am—whatever many may think.
+
+I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my
+own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had
+prefigured them.  I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black
+coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world in yellow, blue,
+and green, running at the ring of pleasure.—The old with broken lances,
+and in helmets which had lost their vizards;—the young in armour bright
+which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the
+east,—all,—all, tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of
+yore for fame and love.—
+
+Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here?  On the very first
+onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an
+atom;—seek,—seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it,
+where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays;—there thou mayest
+solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber’s
+wife, and get into such coteries!—
+
+—May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had to
+present to Madame de R—.—I’ll wait upon this lady, the very first thing I
+do.  So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly,—and come back
+and brush my coat.
+
+
+
+
+THE WIG.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with
+my wig: ’twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to
+take one ready made of his own recommendation.
+
+—But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won’t stand.—You may emerge it,
+replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand.—
+
+What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I.—The utmost
+stretch of an English periwig-maker’s ideas could have gone no further
+than to have “dipped it into a pail of water.”—What difference! ’tis like
+Time to Eternity!
+
+I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which
+engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature,
+that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison
+less than a mountain at least.  All that can be said against the French
+sublime, in this instance of it, is this:—That the grandeur is _more_ in
+the _word_, and _less_ in the _thing_.  No doubt, the ocean fills the
+mind with vast ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I
+should run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment;—the
+Parisian barber meant nothing.—
+
+The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly, but a
+sorry figure in speech;—but, ’twill be said,—it has one advantage—’tis in
+the next room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, without
+more ado, in a single moment.
+
+In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, _The
+French expression professes more than it performs_.
+
+I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national
+characters more in these nonsensical _minutiæ_ than in the most important
+matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much
+alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.
+
+I was so long in getting from under my barber’s hands, that it was too
+late to think of going with my letter to Madame R— that night: but when a
+man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections turn to
+little account; so taking down the name of the Hôtel de Modene, where I
+lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go;—I shall
+consider of that, said I, as I walk along.
+
+
+
+
+THE PULSE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+HAIL, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road
+of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first
+sight: ’tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.
+
+—Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn
+to go to the Opéra Comique?—Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying
+aside her work.—
+
+I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came along,
+in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption:
+till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.
+
+She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on the far
+side of the shop, facing the door.
+
+—_Très volontiers_, most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a
+chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with
+so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying
+out fifty louis d’ors with her, I should have said—“This woman is
+grateful.”
+
+You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop,
+and pointing the way down the street I was to take,—you must turn first
+to your left hand,—_mais prenez garde_—there are two turns; and be so
+good as to take the second—then go down a little way and you’ll see a
+church: and, when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn
+directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the Pont
+Neuf, which you must cross—and there any one will do himself the pleasure
+to show you.—
+
+She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
+goodnatur’d patience the third time as the first;—and if _tones and
+manners_ have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts
+which shut them out,—she seemed really interested that I should not lose
+myself.
+
+I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty, notwithstanding she was the
+handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the
+sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I
+was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes,—and that I
+repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.
+
+I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every
+tittle of what she had said;—so looking back, and seeing her still
+standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went right or
+not,—I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was to my right
+or left,—for that I had absolutely forgot.—Is it possible! said she, half
+laughing.  ’Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of
+a woman than of her good advice.
+
+As this was the real truth—she took it, as every woman takes a matter of
+right, with a slight curtsey.
+
+—_Attendez_! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst
+she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel of gloves.  I
+am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and
+if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a
+moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk’d in with her to
+the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she
+laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in
+her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.
+
+—He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment.—And in that moment,
+replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all
+these courtesies.  Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a
+continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and
+certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart
+which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must
+have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.—Feel it, said she,
+holding out her arm.  So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers
+in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.—
+
+—Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me
+sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the
+throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been
+watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever.—How wouldst thou have
+laugh’d and moralized upon my new profession!—and thou shouldst have
+laugh’d and moralized on.—Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said,
+“There are worse occupations in this world _than feeling a woman’s
+pulse_.”—But a grisette’s! thou wouldst have said,—and in an open shop!
+Yorick—
+
+—So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not
+if all the world saw me feel it.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUSBAND.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the
+fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into
+the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.—’Twas nobody but her
+husband, she said;—so I began a fresh score.—Monsieur is so good, quoth
+she, as he pass’d by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my
+pulse.—The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him
+too much honour—and having said that, he put on his hat and walk’d out.
+
+Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,—and can this man be the
+husband of this woman!
+
+Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of
+this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
+
+In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper’s wife seem to be one bone and
+one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one,
+sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a par, and
+totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.
+
+In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the
+legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband,
+he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits
+commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that
+Nature left him.
+
+The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is _salique_,
+having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the
+women,—by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from
+morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a
+bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and
+sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive,
+some of them, a polish like a brilliant:—Monsieur _le Mari_ is little
+better than the stone under your foot.
+
+—Surely,—surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone:—thou wast
+made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this improvement of
+our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.
+
+—And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.—With all the benignity, said
+I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected.—She was going to say
+something civil in return—but the lad came into the shop with the
+gloves.—_Apropos_, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.
+
+
+
+
+THE GLOVES.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the
+counter, reach’d down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over
+against her: they were all too large.  The beautiful grisette measured
+them one by one across my hand.—It would not alter their dimensions.—She
+begg’d I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least.—She held
+it open;—my hand slipped into it at once.—It will not do, said I, shaking
+my head a little.—No, said she, doing the same thing.
+
+There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety,—where whim, and
+sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the
+languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;—they are
+communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which
+party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of words to swell pages
+about it—it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not
+do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the
+counter—it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay
+between us.
+
+The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to
+the window, then at the gloves,—and then at me.  I was not disposed to
+break silence:—I followed her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then
+to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her,—and so on
+alternately.
+
+I found I lost considerably in every attack:—she had a quick black eye,
+and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such
+penetration, that she look’d into my very heart and reins.—It may seem
+strange, but I could actually feel she did.—
+
+It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and
+putting them into my pocket.
+
+I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single livre
+above the price.—I wish’d she had asked a livre more, and was puzzling my
+brains how to bring the matter about.—Do you think, my dear Sir, said
+she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a
+stranger—and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of
+gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy?—_M’en croyez
+capable_?—Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So
+counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally
+makes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel
+followed me.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRANSLATION.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THERE was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French
+officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man whose
+manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that
+I once knew one,—for he is no more,—and why should I not rescue one page
+from violation by writing his name in it, and telling the world it was
+Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and friends, whose
+philanthropy I never think of at this long distance from his death—but my
+eyes gush out with tears.  For his sake I have a predilection for the
+whole corps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of
+benches and placed myself beside him.
+
+The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might be the
+book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon as I sat
+down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a shagreen case,
+return’d them and the book into his pocket together.  I half rose up, and
+made him a bow.
+
+Translate this into any civilized language in the world—the sense is
+this:
+
+“Here’s a poor stranger come into the box—he seems as if he knew nobody;
+and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man he
+comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose:—’tis shutting the door of
+conversation absolutely in his face—and using him worse than a German.”
+
+The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he had, I
+should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, and told
+him, “I was sensible of his attention, and return’d him a thousand thanks
+for it.”
+
+There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get
+master of this _short hand_, and to be quick in rendering the several
+turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations,
+into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so
+mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating
+all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where
+not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different
+dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.
+
+I was going one evening to Martini’s concert at Milan, and, was just
+entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F— was coming out
+in a sort of a hurry:—she was almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave
+a spring to once side to let her pass.—She had done the same, and on the
+same side too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the
+other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been, for I
+had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again.—We both flew
+together to the other side, and then back,—and so on:—it was ridiculous:
+we both blush’d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should have
+done at first;—I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more
+difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made her so
+much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the
+passage.  She look’d back twice, and walk’d along it rather sideways, as
+if she would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her.—No, said
+I—that’s a vile translation: the Marquisina has a right to the best
+apology I can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in;—so I
+ran and begg’d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it
+was my intention to have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by
+the same intention towards me;—so we reciprocally thank’d each other.
+She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no _cicisbeo_ near her, I
+begg’d to hand her to her coach;—so we went down the stairs, stopping at
+every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure.—Upon my word,
+Madame, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six different efforts to
+let you go out.—And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter.—I
+wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said I.—With all my heart, said
+she, making room.—Life is too short to be long about the forms of it,—so
+I instantly stepp’d in, and she carried me home with her.—And what became
+of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I.
+
+I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation
+gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.
+
+
+
+
+THE DWARF.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one;
+and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that being
+pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck
+me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,—and that was, the
+unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs.—No doubt
+she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world; but in
+Paris there is no end to her amusements.—The goddess seems almost as
+merry as she is wise.
+
+As I carried my idea out of the _Opéra Comique_ with me, I measured every
+body I saw walking in the streets by it.—Melancholy application!
+especially where the size was extremely little,—the face extremely
+dark,—the eyes quick,—the nose long,—the teeth white,—the jaw
+prominent,—to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven out of
+their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me
+pain to write down:—every third man a pigmy!—some by rickety heads and
+hump backs;—others by bandy legs;—a third set arrested by the hand of
+Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth;—a fourth, in their
+perfect and natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first
+rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.
+
+A Medical Traveller might say, ’tis owing to undue bandages;—a Splenetic
+one, to want of air;—and an Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system,
+may measure the height of their houses,—the narrowness of their streets,
+and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers
+of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the
+elder, who accounted for nothing like any body else, in speaking one
+evening of these matters, averred that children, like other animals,
+might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
+world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop’d up, that
+they had not actually room enough to get them.—I do not call it getting
+anything, said he;—’tis getting nothing.—Nay, continued he, rising in his
+argument, ’tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after
+twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious
+aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.  Now,
+Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
+
+As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found it,
+and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified
+in every lane and by-lane of Paris.  I was walking down that which leads
+from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little boy in some
+distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I
+took hold of his hand and help’d him over.  Upon turning up his face to
+look at him after, I perceived he was about forty.—Never mind, said I,
+some good body will do as much for me when I am ninety.
+
+I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be merciful
+towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size nor
+strength to get on in the world.—I cannot bear to see one of them trod
+upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere the
+disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the box we
+sat in.
+
+At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side box,
+there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, numbers
+of all ranks take sanctuary.  Though you stand, as in the parterre, you
+pay the same price as in the orchestra.  A poor defenceless being of this
+order had got thrust somehow or other into this luckless place;—the night
+was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than
+himself.  The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing
+which incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet
+high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing
+either the stage or the actors.  The poor dwarf did all he could to get a
+peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening
+betwixt the German’s arm and his body, trying first on one side, then the
+other; but the German stood square in the most unaccommodating posture
+that can be imagined:—the dwarf might as well have been placed at the
+bottom of the deepest draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his
+hand to the German’s sleeve, and told him his distress.—The German turn’d
+his head back, looked down upon him as Goliah did upon David,—and
+unfeelingly resumed his posture.
+
+I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk’s little horn
+box.—And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk! so
+temper’d to _bear and forbear_!—how sweetly would it have lent an ear to
+this poor soul’s complaint!
+
+The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion, as I
+made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the matter?—I
+told him the story in three words; and added, how inhuman it was.
+
+By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first
+transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he
+would cut off his long queue with his knife.—The German look’d back
+coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.
+
+An injury sharpen’d by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes every man
+of sentiment a party: I could have leap’d out of the box to have
+redressed it.—The old French officer did it with much less confusion; for
+leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the
+same time with his finger at the distress,—the sentinel made his way to
+it.—There was no occasion to tell the grievance,—the thing told himself;
+so thrusting back the German instantly with his musket,—he took the poor
+dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him.—This is noble! said I,
+clapping my hands together.—And yet you would not permit this, said the
+old officer, in England.
+
+—In England, dear Sir, said I, _we sit all at our ease_.
+
+The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in case I
+had been at variance,—by saying it was a _bon mot_;—and, as a _bon mot_
+is always worth something at Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+IT was now my turn to ask the old French officer “What was the matter?”
+for a cry of “_Haussez les mains_, _Monsieur l’Abbé_!” re-echoed from a
+dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my
+apostrophe to the monk had been to him.
+
+He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper loges, who, he
+supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in order to
+see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting upon his
+holding up both his hands during the representation.—And can it be
+supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes’ pockets?
+The old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of
+knowledge which I had no idea of.
+
+Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment—is it possible, that a
+people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and
+so unlike themselves,—_Quelle grossièrté_! added I.
+
+The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church,
+which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in
+it by Molière: but like other remains of Gothic manners, was
+declining.—Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and
+_grossièrtés_, in which they take the lead, and lose it of one another by
+turns:—that he had been in most countries, but never in one where he
+found not some delicacies, which others seemed to want.  _Le_ POUR _et
+le_ CONTRE _se trouvent en chaque nation_; there is a balance, said he,
+of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can
+emancipate one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds
+against the other:—that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the
+_sçavoir vivre_, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it
+taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making
+me a bow, taught us mutual love.
+
+The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and
+good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his
+character:—I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the
+object;—’twas my own way of thinking—the difference was, I could not have
+expressed it half so well.
+
+It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast,—if the latter
+goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every object which
+he never saw before.—I have as little torment of this kind as any
+creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a thing gave me
+pain, and that I blush’d at many a word the first month,—which I found
+inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.
+
+Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her,
+had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of
+town.—Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct; and I never
+wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart.—In our return back,
+Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord.—I asked her if she
+wanted anything—_Rien que pour pisser_, said Madame de Rambouliet.
+
+Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p—ss on.—And,
+ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one _pluck your rose_, and scatter them in
+your path,—for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.—I handed Madame de
+Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest of the chaste
+Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful
+decorum.
+
+
+
+
+THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
+Polonius’s advice to his son upon the same subject into my head,—and that
+bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare’s works, I stopp’d
+at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to purchase the whole set.
+
+The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.  _Comment_! said I,
+taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt us.—He said
+they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be sent back to
+Versailles in the morning to the Count de B—.
+
+—And does the Count de B—, said I, read Shakespeare?  _C’est un esprit
+fort_, replied the bookseller.—He loves English books! and what is more
+to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too.  You speak this so
+civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an Englishman to lay out a
+louis d’or or two at your shop.—The bookseller made a bow, and was going
+to say something, when a young decent girl about twenty, who by her air
+and dress seemed to be _fille de chambre_ to some devout woman of
+fashion, come into the shop and asked for _Les Égarements du Cœur et de
+l’Esprit_: the bookseller gave her the book directly; she pulled out a
+little green satin purse run round with a riband of the same colour, and
+putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the money and paid for
+it.  As I had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both walk’d out at
+the door together.
+
+—And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with _The Wanderings of the
+Heart_, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has first told
+you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst thou ever be
+sure it is so.—_Le Dieu m’en garde_! said the girl.—With reason, said I,
+for if it is a good one, ’tis pity it should be stolen; ’tis a little
+treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face, than if it was
+dress’d out with pearls.
+
+The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her satin
+purse by its riband in her hand all the time.—’Tis a very small one, said
+I, taking hold of the bottom of it—she held it towards me—and there is
+very little in it, my dear, said I; but be but as good as thou art
+handsome, and heaven will fill it.  I had a parcel of crowns in my hand
+to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let go the purse entirely, I put
+a single one in; and, tying up the riband in a bow-knot, returned it to
+her.
+
+The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one:—’twas one
+of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows itself down,—the
+body does no more than tell it.  I never gave a girl a crown in my life
+which gave me half the pleasure.
+
+My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said I, if I
+had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the crown, you’ll
+remember it;—so don’t, my dear, lay it out in ribands.
+
+Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable;—in saying
+which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me her
+hand:—_En vérité_, _Monsieur_, _je mettrai cet argent àpart_, said she.
+
+When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it sanctifies
+their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was dusky, yet as both
+our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple of walking along the Quai
+de Conti together.
+
+She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got twenty
+yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before, she made a
+sort of a little stop to tell me again—she thank’d me.
+
+It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying to
+virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been rendering it
+to for the world;—but I see innocence, my dear, in your face,—and foul
+befall the man who ever lays a snare in its way!
+
+The girl seem’d affected some way or other with what I said;—she gave a
+low sigh:—I found I was not empowered to enquire at all after it,—so said
+nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, where, we
+were to part.
+
+—But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene?  She told
+me it was;—or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was the
+next turn.—Then I’ll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gueneguault, said I, for
+two reasons; first, I shall please myself, and next, I shall give you the
+protection of my company as far on your way as I can.  The girl was
+sensible I was civil—and said, she wished the Hotel de Modene was in the
+Rue de St. Pierre.—You live there? said I.—She told me she was _fille de
+chambre_ to Madame R—.—Good God! said I, ’tis the very lady for whom I
+have brought a letter from Amiens.—The girl told me that Madame R—, she
+believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to see
+him:—so I desired the girl to present my compliments to Madame R—, and
+say, I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.
+
+We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this pass’d.—We
+then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her _Égarements du Cœur_,
+&c. more commodiously than carrying them in her hand—they were two
+volumes: so I held the second for her whilst she put the first into her
+pocket; and then she held her pocket, and I put in the other after it.
+
+’Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn
+together.
+
+We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her hand
+within my arm.—I was just bidding her,—but she did it of herself, with
+that undeliberating simplicity, which show’d it was out of her head that
+she had never seen me before.  For my own part, I felt the conviction of
+consanguinity so strongly, that I could not help turning half round to
+look in her face, and see if I could trace out any thing in it of a
+family likeness.—Tut! said I, are we not all relations?
+
+When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I stopp’d to
+bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would thank me again for my
+company and kindness.—She bid me adieu twice.—I repeated it as often; and
+so cordial was the parting between us, that had it happened any where
+else, I’m not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of charity, as
+warm and holy as an apostle.
+
+But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,—I did, what amounted
+to the same thing—
+
+—I bid God bless her.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired after
+by the Lieutenant de Police.—The deuce take it! said I,—I know the
+reason.  It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things
+in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it was out of my head; but
+that had I told it then it might have been forgotten now;—and now is the
+time I want it.
+
+I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter’d my
+mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked
+through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented
+itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there
+without a passport.  Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal
+aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one
+of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less bear
+the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de —— had hired the packet, I
+begg’d he would take me in his suite.  The Count had some little
+knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty,—only said, his
+inclination to serve me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to
+return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass’d
+there, I might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I
+must make friends and shift for myself.—Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le
+Count, said I,—and I shall do very well.  So I embark’d, and never
+thought more of the matter.
+
+When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after
+me,—the thing instantly recurred;—and by the time La Fleur had well told
+me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing,
+with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked
+after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had
+one.—Not I, faith! said I.
+
+The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected
+person, as I declared this;—and poor La Fleur advanced three steps
+towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to
+succour a distress’d one:—the fellow won my heart by it; and from that
+single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as
+firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.
+
+_Mon seigneur_! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting himself
+as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it.—If
+Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (_apparemment_) in all likelihood
+he has friends in Paris who can procure him one.—Not that I know of,
+quoth I, with an air of indifference.—Then _certes_, replied he, you’ll
+be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet _au moins_.—Poo! said I, the King
+of France is a good natur’d soul:—he’ll hurt nobody.—_Cela n’empêche
+pas_, said he—you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow
+morning.—But I’ve taken your lodgings for a month, answer’d I, and I’ll
+not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the
+world.  La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king
+of France.
+
+_Pardi_! said my host, _ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très
+extraordinaires_;—and, having both said and sworn it,—he went out.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+THE HOTEL AT PARIS.
+
+
+I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur’s with a serious look
+upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated
+it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt
+the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk’d to
+him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opéra Comique.—La
+Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as
+far as the bookseller’s shop; but seeing me come out with the young
+_fille de chambre_, and that we walk’d down the Quai de Conti together,
+La Fleur deem’d it unnecessary to follow me a step further;—so making his
+own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut,—and got to the hotel in
+time to be inform’d of the affair of the police against my arrival.
+
+As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup
+himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation.—
+
+—And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a
+short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set
+out:—I must tell it here.
+
+Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden’d with
+money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had
+taken care for.  Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head,
+and said it would not do; so pull’d out his purse in order to empty it
+into mine.—I’ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I.—Indeed, Yorick,
+you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than
+you.—But you don’t consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
+before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do
+something or other for which I shall get clapp’d up into the Bastile, and
+that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of
+France’s expense.—I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot
+that resource.
+
+Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
+
+Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity—or what is it
+in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was
+quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than
+I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
+
+—And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word.—Make the most of it
+you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a
+tower;—and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out
+of.—Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.—But with nine
+livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man
+can’t get out, he may do very well within,—at least for a month or six
+weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence
+appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.
+
+I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I
+settled this account; and remember I walk’d down stairs in no small
+triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.—Beshrew the sombre pencil! said
+I, vauntingly—for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life
+with so hard and deadly a colouring.  The mind sits terrified at the
+objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their
+proper size and hue, she overlooks them.—’Tis true, said I, correcting
+the proposition,—the Bastile is not an evil to be despised;—but strip it
+of its towers—fill up the fosse,—unbarricade the doors—call it simply a
+confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper—and not of a
+man, which holds you in it,—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other
+half without complaint.
+
+I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I
+took to be of a child, which complained “it could not get out.”—I look’d
+up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went
+out without farther attention.
+
+In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated
+twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little
+cage.—“I can’t get out,—I can’t get out,” said the starling.
+
+I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the
+passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’d it,
+with the same lamentation of its captivity.  “I can’t get out,” said the
+starling.—God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it
+will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door: it was twisted and
+double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without
+pulling the cage to pieces.—I took both hands to it.
+
+The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and
+thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against it as
+if impatient.—I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at
+liberty.—“No,” said the starling,— “I can’t get out—I can’t get out,”
+said the starling.
+
+I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember
+an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason
+had been a bubble, were so suddenly call’d home.  Mechanical as the notes
+were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment
+they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I
+heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down
+them.
+
+Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I,—still thou art a
+bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink
+of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.—’Tis thou, thrice sweet
+and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or
+in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till
+Nature herself shall change.—No _tint_ of words can spot thy snowy
+mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron:—with thee to smile
+upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch,
+from whose court thou art exiled!—Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down
+upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great
+Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion,—and
+shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon
+those heads which are aching for them!
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to my
+table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the
+miseries of confinement.  I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave
+full scope to my imagination.
+
+I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no
+inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture was,
+that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups
+in it did but distract me.—
+
+—I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I
+then look’d through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.
+
+I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement,
+and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope
+deferr’d.  Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty
+years the western breeze had not once fann’d his blood;—he had seen no
+sun, no moon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend or kinsman
+breathed through his lattice.—His children—
+
+But here my heart began to bleed—and I was forced to go on with another
+part of the portrait.
+
+He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
+corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little
+calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch’d all over with the
+dismal days and nights he had passed there;—he had one of these little
+sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching another day of
+misery to add to the heap.  As I darkened the little light he had, he
+lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down,—shook his
+head, and went on with his work of affliction.  I heard his chains upon
+his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the
+bundle.—He gave a deep sigh.—I saw the iron enter into his soul!—I burst
+into tears.—I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy
+had drawn.—I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur: I bid him
+bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine
+in the morning.
+
+I’ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.
+
+La Fleur would have put me to bed; but—not willing he should see anything
+upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ache,—I told him
+I would go to bed by myself,—and bid him go do the same.
+
+
+
+
+THE STARLING.
+ROAD TO VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I GOT into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I
+bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.
+
+As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in
+travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history
+of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.
+
+Whilst the Honourable Mr. — was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had been
+caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an English lad who
+was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in his breast
+into the packet;—and, by course of feeding it, and taking it once under
+his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got it safe along
+with him to Paris.
+
+At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling,
+and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there,
+he taught it, in his mother’s tongue, the four simple words—(and no
+more)—to which I own’d myself so much its debtor.
+
+Upon his master’s going on for Italy, the lad had given it to the master
+of the hotel.  But his little song for liberty being in an _unknown_
+language at Paris, the bird had little or no store set by him: so La
+Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy.
+
+In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in whose
+language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of him to Lord
+A—, Lord A— begg’d the bird of me;—in a week Lord A— gave him to Lord B—;
+Lord B— made a present of him to Lord C—; and Lord C—’s gentleman sold
+him to Lord D—’s for a shilling; Lord D— gave him to Lord E—; and so
+on—half round the alphabet.  From that rank he pass’d into the lower
+house, and pass’d the hands of as many commoners.  But as all these
+wanted to _get in_, and my bird wanted to _get out_, he had almost as
+little store set by him in London as in Paris.
+
+It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and if
+any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform them, that
+that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to represent him.
+
+[Picture: The starling as the crest of arms] I have nothing farther to
+add upon him, but that from that time to this I have borne this poor
+starling as the crest to my arms.—Thus:
+
+—And let the herald’s officers twist his neck about if they dare.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADDRESS.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I SHOULD not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I am going
+to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally endeavour to
+protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C— was an act of
+compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have done it, I
+suppose, like other people.
+
+How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my servile
+heart form!  I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.
+
+Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles, but
+putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes and tones
+to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C—’s good graces.—This will do,
+said I.—Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat carried up to him by an
+adventurous tailor, without taking his measure.  Fool! continued I,—see
+Monsieur le Duc’s face first;—observe what character is written in
+it;—take notice in what posture he stands to hear you;—mark the turns and
+expressions of his body and limbs;—and for the tone,—the first sound
+which comes from his lips will give it you; and from all these together
+you’ll compound an address at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust
+the Duke;—the ingredients are his own, and most likely to go down.
+
+Well! said I, I wish it well over.—Coward again! as if man to man was not
+equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the field—why
+not face to face in the cabinet too?  And trust me, Yorick, whenever it
+is not so, man is false to himself and betrays his own succours ten times
+where nature does it once.  Go to the Duc de C— with the Bastile in thy
+looks;—my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to Paris in half an hour
+with an escort.
+
+I believe so, said I.—Then I’ll go to the Duke, by heaven! with all the
+gaiety and debonairness in the world.—
+
+—And there you are wrong again, replied I.—A heart at ease, Yorick, flies
+into no extremes—’tis ever on its centre.—Well! well! cried I, as the
+coachman turn’d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well: and by the
+time he had wheel’d round the court, and brought me up to the door, I
+found myself so much the better for my own lecture, that I neither
+ascended the steps like a victim to justice, who was to part with life
+upon the top most,—nor did I mount them with a skip and a couple of
+strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.
+
+As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who possibly
+might be the _maître d’hôtel_, but had more the air of one of the under
+secretaries, who told me the Duc de C— was busy.—I am utterly ignorant,
+said I, of the forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolute
+stranger, and what is worse in the present conjuncture of affairs, being
+an Englishman too.—He replied, that did not increase the difficulty.—I
+made him a slight bow, and told him, I had something of importance to say
+to Monsieur le Duc.  The secretary look’d towards the stairs, as if he
+was about to leave me to carry up this account to some one.—But I must
+not mislead you, said I,—for what I have to say is of no manner of
+importance to Monsieur le Duc de C— —but of great importance to
+myself.—_C’est une autre affaire_, replied he.—Not at all, said I, to a
+man of gallantry.—But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger
+hope to have access?—In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his
+watch.  The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify the
+calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect;—and as walking
+backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul to commune with, was
+for the time as bad as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back
+to my remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the _Cordon Bleu_, which
+was the nearest hotel.
+
+I think there is a fatality in it;—I seldom go to the place I set out
+for.
+
+
+
+
+LE PATISSIER.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+BEFORE I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I am at
+Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town; so I
+pull’d the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of the
+principal streets.—I suppose the town is not very large, said I.—The
+coachman begg’d pardon for setting me right, and told me it was very
+superb, and that numbers of the first dukes and marquises and counts had
+hotels.—The Count de B—, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had
+spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind.—And
+why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B—, who has so high an
+idea of English books and English men—and tell him my story? so I changed
+my mind a second time.—In truth it was the third; for I had intended that
+day for Madame de R—, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her
+word by her _fille de chambre_ that I would assuredly wait upon her;—but
+I am governed by circumstances;—I cannot govern them: so seeing a man
+standing with a basket on the other side of the street, as if he had
+something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him, and enquire for the
+Count’s hotel.
+
+La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de St.
+Louis selling pâtés.—It is impossible, La Fleur, said I.—La Fleur could
+no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his
+story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said,
+tied to his buttonhole—and had looked into the basket and seen the pâtés
+which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.
+
+Such a reverse in man’s life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I
+could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise:—the
+more I look’d at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove
+themselves into my brain.—I got out of the remise, and went towards him.
+
+He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and
+with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the top of
+this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix.  His basket of little
+pâtés was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same
+kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of _propreté_ and
+neatness throughout, that one might have bought his pâtés of him, as much
+from appetite as sentiment.
+
+He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at the
+corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without solicitation.
+
+He was about forty-eight;—of a sedate look, something approaching to
+gravity.  I did not wonder.—I went up rather to the basket than him, and
+having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pâtés into my hand,—I
+begg’d he would explain the appearance which affected me.
+
+He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed in
+the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained
+a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the last
+peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those of
+some other regiments, left without any provision, he found himself in a
+wide world without friends, without a livre,—and indeed, said he, without
+anything but this,—(pointing, as he said it, to his croix).—The poor
+Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem
+too.
+
+The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his generosity
+could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was only his misfortune
+to be amongst the number.  He had a little wife, he said, whom he loved,
+who did the _pâtisserie_; and added, he felt no dishonour in defending
+her and himself from want in this way—unless Providence had offer’d him a
+better.
+
+It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing over
+what happen’d to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine months
+after.
+
+It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead up to
+the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers had
+made the same enquiry which I had done.—He had told them the same story,
+and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reach’d at
+last the king’s ears;—who, hearing the Chevalier had been a gallant
+officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man of honour and
+integrity,—he broke up his little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred
+livres a year.
+
+As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to
+relate another, out of its order, to please myself:—the two stories
+reflect light upon each other,—and ’tis a pity they should be parted.
+
+
+
+
+THE SWORD.
+RENNES.
+
+
+WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel in
+their turns what distress and poverty is,—I stop not to tell the causes
+which gradually brought the house d’E—, in Brittany, into decay.  The
+Marquis d’E— had fought up against his condition with great firmness;
+wishing to preserve, and still show to the world, some little fragments
+of what his ancestors had been;—their indiscretions had put it out of his
+power.  There was enough left for the little exigencies of
+_obscurity_.—But he had two boys who looked up to him for _light_;—he
+thought they deserved it.  He had tried his sword—it could not open the
+way,—the _mounting_ was too expensive,—and simple economy was not a match
+for it:—there was no resource but commerce.
+
+In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting the root
+for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish’d to see
+re-blossom.—But in Brittany, there being a provision for this, he avail’d
+himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the states were assembled at
+Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; and
+having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which, though
+seldom claim’d, he said, was no less in force, he took his sword from his
+side:—Here, said he, take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better
+times put me in condition to reclaim it.
+
+The president accepted the Marquis’s sword: he staid a few minutes to see
+it deposited in the archives of his house—and departed.
+
+The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for Martinico,
+and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to
+business, with some unlook’d for bequests from distant branches of his
+house, return home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.
+
+It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any
+traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very
+time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn;—it was so to me.
+
+The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he supported his
+lady,—his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was at the
+other extreme of the line next his mother;—he put his handkerchief to his
+face twice.—
+
+—There was a dead silence.  When the Marquis had approached within six
+paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and
+advancing three steps before his family,—he reclaim’d his sword.  His
+sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it
+almost out of the scabbard:—’twas the shining face of a friend he had
+once given up—he look’d attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as
+if to see whether it was the same,—when, observing a little rust which it
+had contracted near the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending
+his head down over it,—I think—I saw a tear fall upon the place.  I could
+not be deceived by what followed.
+
+“I shall find,” said he, “some _other way_ to get it off.”
+
+When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard,
+made a bow to the guardians of it,—and, with his wife and daughter, and
+his two sons following him, walk’d out.
+
+O, how I envied him his feelings!
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B—.
+The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them
+over.  I walk’d up close to the table, and giving first such a look at
+the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were,—I told him I had
+come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend
+in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me:—it is my
+countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works—_et ayez
+la bonté_, _mon cher ami_, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, _de me
+faire cet honneur-là_.—
+
+The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I
+look’d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair; so
+I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule,
+I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller’s shop, and how that
+had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little
+embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France.—And what is
+your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count.  So I told him the
+story just as I have told it the reader.
+
+—And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have
+it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile;—but I have no
+apprehensions, continued I;—for, in falling into the hands of the most
+polish’d people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and
+not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at
+their mercy.—It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le
+Count, said I, to show it against invalids.
+
+An animated blush came into the Count de B—’s cheeks as I spoke this.—_Ne
+craignez rien_—Don’t fear, said he.—Indeed, I don’t, replied I
+again.—Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have come laughing
+all the way from London to Paris, and I do not think Monsieur le Duc de
+Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying for my
+pains.
+
+—My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B— (making him a low bow),
+is to desire he will not.
+
+The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half as
+much,—and once or twice said,—_C’est bien dit_.  So I rested my cause
+there—and determined to say no more about it.
+
+The Count led the discourse: we talk’d of indifferent things,—of books,
+and politics, and men;—and then of women.—God bless them all! said I,
+after much discourse about them—there is not a man upon earth who loves
+them so much as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all the
+satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly
+persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex,
+is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.
+
+_Eh bien_!  _Monsieur l’Anglois_, said the Count, gaily;—you are not come
+to spy the nakedness of the land;—I believe you;—_ni encore_, I dare say,
+_that_ of our women!—But permit me to conjecture,—if, _par hazard_, they
+fell into your way, that the prospect would not affect you.
+
+I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
+indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often
+endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a
+thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,—the least of which I
+could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.
+
+Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I;—as for the nakedness of your land,
+if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them;—and for
+that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in me) I am so
+evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak
+about them, that I would cover it with a garment if I knew how to throw
+it on:—But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their
+hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and
+religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by:—and
+therefore am I come.
+
+It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have not
+seen the Palais Royal,—nor the Luxembourg,—nor the Façade of the
+Louvre,—nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures,
+statues, and churches.—I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would
+rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up
+in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.
+
+The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames the
+breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France,—and
+from France will lead me through Italy;—’tis a quiet journey of the heart
+in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which
+make us love each other,—and the world, better than we do.
+
+The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; and
+added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making
+me known to him.—But _à propos_, said he;—Shakespeare is full of great
+things;—he forgot a small punctilio of announcing your name:—it puts you
+under a necessity of doing it yourself.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+THERE is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about
+telling any one who I am,—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a
+better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it in a
+single word,—and have an end of it.  It was the only time and occasion in
+my life I could accomplish this to any purpose;—for Shakespeare lying
+upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet,
+and turning immediately to the grave-diggers’ scene in the fifth act, I
+laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
+finger all the way over the name,—_Me voici_! said I.
+
+Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick’s skull was put out of the Count’s
+mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of
+seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account;—’tis certain
+the French conceive better than they combine;—I wonder at nothing in this
+world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first of our own
+Church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest
+veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case:—“He could
+not bear,” he said, “to look into the sermons wrote by the King of
+Denmark’s jester.”  Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.  The
+Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred
+years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus’s court;—the other Yorick is
+myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.—He shook his head.
+Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great with
+Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord!—“’Twas all one,” he replied.—
+
+—If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship, said
+I, I’m sure your Lordship would not have said so.
+
+The poor Count de B— fell but into the same _error_.
+
+—_Et_, _Monsieur_, _est-il Yorick_? cried the Count.—_Je le suis_, said
+I.—_Vous_?—_Moi_,—_moi qui ai l’honneur de vous parler_, _Monsieur le
+Comte_.—_Mon Dieu_! said he, embracing me,—_Vous êtes Yorick_!
+
+The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left me
+alone in his room.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I COULD not conceive why the Count de B— had gone so abruptly out of the
+room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into
+his pocket.—_Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the
+loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up_: ’twas better to
+read Shakespeare; so taking up “_Much Ado About Nothing_,” I transported
+myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got so
+busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I thought not of
+Versailles, the Count, or the passport.
+
+Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to
+illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary
+moments!—Long,—long since had ye number’d out my days, had I not trod so
+great a part of them upon this enchanted ground.  When my way is too
+rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some
+smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of
+delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and
+refresh’d.—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat from
+them in this world, then I take a new course;—I leave it,—and as I have a
+clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself,
+like Æneas, into them.—I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken
+Dido, and wish to recognise it;—I see the injured spirit wave her head,
+and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;—I
+lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were
+wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school.
+
+_Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow—nor does man disquiet
+himself_ in vain _by it_:—he oftener does so in trusting the issue of his
+commotions to reason only.—I can safely say for myself, I was never able
+to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as
+beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation to
+fight it upon its own ground.
+
+When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B— entered, with
+my passport in his hand.  Monsieur le Duc de C—, said the Count, is as
+good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman.  _Un homme qui rit_,
+said the Duke, _ne sera jamais dangereux_.—Had it been for any one but
+the king’s jester, added the Count, I could not have got it these two
+hours.—_Pardonnez moi_, Monsieur le Count, said I—I am not the king’s
+jester.—But you are Yorick?—Yes.—_Et vous plaisantez_?—I answered, Indeed
+I did jest,—but was not paid for it;—’twas entirely at my own expense.
+
+We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we had
+was in the licentious reign of Charles II.;—since which time our manners
+have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is so full of
+patriots, who wish for _nothing_ but the honours and wealth of their
+country;—and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so
+devout,—there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of.—
+
+_Voilà un persiflage_! cried the Count.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AS the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors, governors, and
+commandants of cities, generals of armies, justiciaries, and all officers
+of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the king’s jester, and his baggage, travel
+quietly along, I own the triumph of obtaining the passport was not a
+little tarnish’d by the figure I cut in it.—But there is nothing unmix’d
+in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so
+far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a
+sigh,—and that the greatest _they knew of_ terminated, _in a general
+way_, in little better than a convulsion.
+
+I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary upon the
+Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of a note
+to give an account to the world of a couple of sparrows upon the out-edge
+of his window, which had incommoded him all the time he wrote, and at
+last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy.
+
+—’Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain, for I have
+had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen;—but the cock
+sparrow, during the little time that I could have finished the other half
+of this note, has actually interrupted me with the reiteration of his
+caresses three-and-twenty times and a half.
+
+How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!
+
+Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able to
+write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to copy, even
+in thy study.
+
+But this is nothing to my travels.—So I twice,—twice beg pardon for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AND how do you find the French? said the Count de B—, after he had given
+me the passport.
+
+The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy, I
+could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.
+
+—_Mais passe_, _pour cela_.—Speak frankly, said he: do you find all the
+urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour of?—I had found
+every thing, I said, which confirmed it.—_Vraiment_, said the Count, _les
+François sont polis_.—To an excess, replied I.
+
+The Count took notice of the word _excès_; and would have it I meant more
+than I said.  I defended myself a long time as well as I could against
+it.—He insisted I had a reserve, and that I would speak my opinion
+frankly.
+
+I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain compass, as
+well as an instrument; and that the social and other calls have occasion
+by turns for every key in him; so that if you begin a note too high or
+too low, there must be a want either in the upper or under part, to fill
+up the system of harmony.—The Count de B— did not understand music, so
+desired me to explain it some other way.  A polish’d nation, my dear
+Count, said I, makes every one its debtor: and besides, Urbanity itself,
+like the fair sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say
+it can do ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain line of
+perfection, that man, take him altogether, is empower’d to arrive at:—if
+he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets them.  I must not
+presume to say how far this has affected the French in the subject we are
+speaking of;—but, should it ever be the case of the English, in the
+progress of their refinements, to arrive at the same polish which
+distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the _politesse du cœur_,
+which inclines men more to humane actions than courteous ones,—we should
+at least lose that distinct variety and originality of character, which
+distinguishes them, not only from each other, but from all the world
+besides.
+
+I had a few of King William’s shillings, as smooth as glass, in my
+pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of my
+hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so far:—
+
+See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before him
+upon the table,—by jingling and rubbing one against another for seventy
+years together in one body’s pocket or another’s, they are become so much
+alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling from another.
+
+The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few
+people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of
+Nature has given them;—they are not so pleasant to feel,—but in return
+the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and
+superscription they bear.—But the French, Monsieur le Count, added I
+(wishing to soften what I had said), have so many excellences, they can
+the better spare this;—they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an
+ingenious, and good temper’d people as is under heaven;—if they have a
+fault—they are too _serious_.
+
+_Mon Dieu_! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.
+
+_Mais vous plaisantez_, said he, correcting his exclamation.—I laid my
+hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him it was my most
+settled opinion.
+
+The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my reasons,
+being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C—.
+
+But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup with me,
+I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing you
+retract your opinion,—or, in what manner you support it.—But, if you do
+support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must do it with all your
+powers, because you have the whole world against you.—I promised the
+Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set out
+for Italy;—so took my leave.
+
+
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with a
+bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me.—I do not know, said the
+porter, whether she is gone away or not.  I took the key of my chamber of
+him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten steps of the top of
+the landing before my door, I met her coming easily down.
+
+It was the fair _fille de chambre_ I had walked along the Quai de Conti
+with; Madame de R— had sent her upon some commission to a _marchande des
+modes_ within a step or two of the Hôtel de Modene; and as I had fail’d
+in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris; and if so,
+whether I had not left a letter addressed to her.
+
+As the fair _fille de chambre_ was so near my door, she returned back,
+and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I wrote a card.
+
+It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,—the
+crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as those of the
+bed) were drawn close:—the sun was setting, and reflected through them so
+warm a tint into the fair _fille de chambre’s_ face,—I thought she
+blush’d;—the idea of it made me blush myself:—we were quite alone; and
+that superinduced a second blush before the first could get off.
+
+There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the blood is more
+in fault than the man:—’tis sent impetuous from the heart, and virtue
+flies after it,—not to call it back, but to make the sensation of it more
+delicious to the nerves:—’tis associated.—
+
+But I’ll not describe it;—I felt something at first within me which was
+not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had given her the night
+before.—I sought five minutes for a card;—I knew I had not one.—I took up
+a pen.—I laid it down again;—my hand trembled:—the devil was in me.
+
+I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist, he will
+fly from us;—but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, though I may
+conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat;—so I give up the triumph
+for security; and, instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly
+myself.
+
+The fair _fille de chambre_ came close up to the bureau where I was
+looking for a card—took up first the pen I cast down, then offer’d to
+hold me the ink; she offer’d it so sweetly, I was going to accept it;—but
+I durst not;—I have nothing, my dear, said I, to write upon.—Write it,
+said she, simply, upon anything.—
+
+I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon thy
+lips.—
+
+If I do, said I, I shall perish;—so I took her by the hand, and led her
+to the door, and begg’d she would not forget the lesson I had given
+her.—She said, indeed she would not;—and, as she uttered it with some
+earnestness, she turn’d about, and gave me both her hands, closed
+together, into mine;—it was impossible not to compress them in that
+situation;—I wish’d to let them go; and all the time I held them, I kept
+arguing within myself against it,—and still I held them on.—In two
+minutes I found I had all the battle to fight over again;—and I felt my
+legs and every limb about me tremble at the idea.
+
+The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where we
+were standing.—I had still hold of her hands—and how it happened I can
+give no account; but I neither ask’d her—nor drew her—nor did I think of
+the bed;—but so it did happen, we both sat down.
+
+I’ll just show you, said the fair _fille de chambre_, the little purse I
+have been making to-day to hold your crown.  So she put her hand into her
+right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some time—then into the
+left.—“She had lost it.”—I never bore expectation more quietly;—it was in
+her right pocket at last;—she pull’d it out; it was of green taffeta,
+lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and just big enough to
+hold the crown: she put it into my hand;—it was pretty; and I held it ten
+minutes with the back of my hand resting upon her lap—looking sometimes
+at the purse, sometimes on one side of it.
+
+A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair _fille
+de chambre_, without saying a word, took out her little housewife,
+threaded a small needle, and sew’d it up.—I foresaw it would hazard the
+glory of the day; and, as she pass’d her hand in silence across and
+across my neck in the manœuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy had
+wreath’d about my head.
+
+A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was just
+falling off.—See, said the _fille de chambre_, holding up her foot.—I
+could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return, and putting in
+the strap,—and lifting up the other foot with it, when I had done, to see
+both were right,—in doing it too suddenly, it unavoidably threw the fair
+_fille de chambre_ off her centre,—and then—
+
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEST.
+
+
+YES,—and then—.  Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue
+down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should
+have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father of spirits
+but for his conduct under them?
+
+If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and
+desire are entangled with the piece,—must the whole web be rent in
+drawing them out?—Whip me such stoics, great Governor of Nature! said I
+to myself:—wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials of my
+virtue;—whatever is my danger,—whatever is my situation,—let me feel the
+movements which rise out of it, and which belong to me as a man,—and, if
+I govern them as a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for
+thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.
+
+As I finished my address, I raised the fair _fille de chambre_ up by the
+hand, and led her out of the room:—she stood by me till I locked the door
+and put the key in my pocket,—and then,—the victory being quite
+decisive—and not till then, I press’d my lips to her cheek, and taking
+her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate of the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY.
+PARIS.
+
+
+If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back
+instantly to my chamber;—it was touching a cold key with a flat third to
+it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call’d forth my
+affections:—therefore, when I let go the hand of the _fille de chambre_,
+I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one
+who pass’d by,—and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got
+fix’d upon a single object which confounded all kind of reasoning upon
+him.
+
+It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which passed
+and repass’d sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty
+paces on each side of the gate of the hotel;—the man was about
+fifty-two—had a small cane under his arm—was dress’d in a dark
+drab-colour’d coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seem’d to have seen
+some years service:—they were still clean, and there was a little air of
+frugal _propreté_ throughout him.  By his pulling off his hat, and his
+attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking
+charity: so I got a sous or two out of my pocket ready to give him, as he
+took me in his turn.—He pass’d by me without asking anything—and yet did
+not go five steps further before he ask’d charity of a little woman.—I
+was much more likely to have given of the two.—He had scarce done with
+the woman, when he pull’d off his hat to another who was coming the same
+way.—An ancient gentleman came slowly—and, after him, a young smart
+one.—He let them both pass, and ask’d nothing.  I stood observing him
+half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and
+forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.
+
+There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to work,
+and to no purpose:—the first was, why the man should _only_ tell his
+story to the sex;—and, secondly,—what kind of story it was, and what
+species of eloquence it could be, which soften’d the hearts of the women,
+which he knew ’twas to no purpose to practise upon the men.
+
+There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery;—the one
+was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and in a way
+which had much more the air of a secret than a petition;—the other was,
+it was always successful.—He never stopp’d a woman, but she pull’d out
+her purse, and immediately gave him something.
+
+I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.
+
+I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I walk’d
+upstairs to my chamber.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I WAS immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came into
+my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere.—How so, friend?
+said I.—He answered, I had had a young woman lock’d up with me two hours
+that evening in my bedchamber, and ’twas against the rules of his
+house.—Very well, said I, we’ll all part friends then,—for the girl is no
+worse,—and I am no worse,—and you will be just as I found you.—It was
+enough, he said, to overthrow the credit of his hotel.—_Voyez vous_,
+Monsieur, said he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting
+upon.—I own it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my
+pride not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted
+him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that
+night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.
+
+I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
+girls—’Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever
+reckon’d upon—Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning.—And does
+the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference in the
+sin?—It made a difference, he said, in the scandal.—I like a good
+distinction in my heart; and cannot say I was intolerably out of temper
+with the man.—I own it is necessary, resumed the master of the hotel,
+that a stranger at Paris should have the opportunities presented to him
+of buying lace and silk stockings and ruffles, _et tout cela_;—and ’tis
+nothing if a woman comes with a band-box.—O, my conscience! said I, she
+had one but I never look’d into it.—Then Monsieur, said he, has bought
+nothing?—Not one earthly thing, replied I.—Because, said he, I could
+recommend one to you who would use you _en conscience_.—But I must see
+her this night, said I.—He made me a low bow, and walk’d down.
+
+Now shall I triumph over this _maître d’hôtel_, cried I,—and what then?
+Then I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.—And what then?
+What then?—I was too near myself to say it was for the sake of others.—I
+had no good answer left;—there was more of spleen than principle in my
+project, and I was sick of it before the execution.
+
+In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace.—I’ll buy
+nothing, however, said I, within myself.
+
+The grisette would show me everything.—I was hard to please: she would
+not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all her
+laces one after another before me;—unfolded and folded them up again one
+by one with the most patient sweetness.—I might buy,—or not;—she would
+let me have everything at my own price:—the poor creature seem’d anxious
+to get a penny; and laid herself out to win me, and not so much in a
+manner which seem’d artful, as in one I felt simple and caressing.
+
+If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
+worse;—my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as quietly
+as the first.—Why should I chastise one for the trespass of another?  If
+thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking up in
+her face, so much harder is thy bread.
+
+If I had not had more than four louis d’ors in my purse, there was no
+such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had first laid
+three of them out in a pair of ruffles.
+
+—The master of the hotel will share the profit with her;—no matter,—then
+I have only paid as many a poor soul has _paid_ before me, for an act he
+_could_ not do, or think of.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how sorry the
+master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change my
+lodgings.
+
+A man who values a good night’s rest will not lie down with enmity in his
+heart, if he can help it.—So I bid La Fleur tell the master of the hotel,
+that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I had given him;—and you may
+tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should
+call again, I shall not see her.
+
+This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after so
+narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it was
+possible, with all the virtue I enter’d it.
+
+_C’est déroger à noblesse_, _Monsieur_, said La Fleur, making me a bow
+down to the ground as he said it.—_Et encore_, _Monsieur_, said he, may
+change his sentiments;—and if (_par hazard_) he should like to amuse
+himself,—I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting him.—
+
+_Mon Dieu_! said La Fleur,—and took away.
+
+In an hour’s time he came to put me to bed, and was more than commonly
+officious:—something hung upon his lips to say to me, or ask me, which he
+could not get off: I could not conceive what it was, and indeed gave
+myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle so much
+more interesting upon my mind, which was that of the man’s asking charity
+before the door of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have got to
+the bottom of it; and that, not out of curiosity,—’tis so low a principle
+of enquiry, in general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with
+a two-sous piece;—but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainly
+soften’d the heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at least
+equal to the philosopher’s stone; had I both the Indies, I would have
+given up one to have been master of it.
+
+I toss’d and turn’d it almost all night long in my brains to no manner of
+purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my spirits as much
+troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of Babylon had been with his;
+and I will not hesitate to affirm, it would have puzzled all the wise men
+of Paris as much as those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
+
+
+
+
+LE DIMANCHE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+IT was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my coffee
+and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array’d, I scarce
+knew him.
+
+I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver button
+and loop, and four louis d’ors, _pour s’adoniser_, when we got to Paris;
+and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders with it.
+
+He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breeches
+of the same.—They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing.—I
+wish’d him hang’d for telling me.—They look’d so fresh, that though I
+knew the thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon my
+fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, than that they
+had come out of the Rue de Friperie.
+
+This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
+
+He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully
+enough embroidered:—this was indeed something the worse for the service
+it had done, but ’twas clean scour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, and
+upon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the blue was not
+violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well: he had squeez’d
+out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted
+with the _fripier_ upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.—He
+had purchased muslin ruffles, _bien brodées_, with four livres of his own
+money;—and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;—and to top all,
+nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.
+
+He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the first
+style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.—In a word, there was
+that look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put me in
+mind it was Sunday;—and, by combining both together, it instantly struck
+me, that the favour he wish’d to ask of me the night before, was to spend
+the day as every body in Paris spent it besides.  I had scarce made the
+conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a look of
+trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg’d I would grant him the day,
+_pour faire le galant vis-à-vis de sa maîtresse_.
+
+Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-à-vis Madame de
+R—.—I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would not have
+mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress’d as La Fleur
+was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse spared him.
+
+But we must _feel_, not argue in these embarrassments.—The sons and
+daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in their
+contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little vanities and
+wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as their
+task-masters;—no doubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,—and
+their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would often disappoint
+them, but that their condition puts it so much in my power to do it.
+
+_Behold_,—_Behold_, _I am thy servant_—disarms me at once of the powers
+of a master.—
+
+Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
+
+—And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in so
+little a time at Paris?  La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast, and said
+’twas a _petite demoiselle_, at Monsieur le Count de B—’s.—La Fleur had a
+heart made for society; and, to speak the truth of him, let as few
+occasions slip him as his master;—so that somehow or other,—but
+how,—heaven knows,—he had connected himself with the demoiselle upon the
+landing of the staircase, during the time I was taken up with my
+passport; and as there was time enough for me to win the Count to my
+interest, La Fleur had contrived to make it do to win the maid to his.
+The family, it seems, was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a
+party with her, and two or three more of the Count’s household, upon the
+boulevards.
+
+Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all your
+cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of
+grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+LA FLEUR had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more than
+I had bargain’d for, or could have enter’d either into his head or mine.
+
+He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and as the
+morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had begg’d a
+sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and his hand.—As
+that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon the table as it was;
+and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered him to call upon the
+_traîteur_, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to breakfast by myself.
+
+When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
+window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper;—but stopping to
+read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third,—I
+thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up to
+it, I sat down to read it.
+
+It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and for aught I know might
+have been wrote by him:—it was moreover in a Gothic letter, and that so
+faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost me infinite
+trouble to make anything of it.—I threw it down; and then wrote a letter
+to Eugenius;—then I took it up again, and embroiled my patience with it
+afresh;—and then to cure that, I wrote a letter to Eliza.—Still it kept
+hold of me; and the difficulty of understanding it increased but the
+desire.
+
+I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle of
+Burgundy; I at it again,—and, after two or three hours poring upon it,
+with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a
+nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make sure
+of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how
+it would look then;—so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,
+sometimes writing a sentence,—then taking a turn or two,—and then looking
+how the world went, out of the window; so that it was nine o’clock at
+night before I had done it.—I then began and read it as follows.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+—NOW, as the notary’s wife disputed the point with the notary with too
+much heat,—I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the parchment) that
+there was another notary here only to set down and attest all this.—
+
+—And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily up.—The
+notary’s wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary thought it
+well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply.—I would go, answered he, to
+bed.—You may go to the devil, answer’d the notary’s wife.
+
+Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two rooms
+being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not caring
+to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pell
+mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, the
+night being very windy, and walk’d out, ill at ease, towards the Pont
+Neuf.
+
+Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have pass’d
+over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest,—the finest,—the
+grandest,—the lightest,—the longest,—the broadest, that ever conjoin’d
+land and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe.
+
+    [_By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a
+                               Frenchman_.]
+
+The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can allege
+against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about Paris,
+’tis more blasphemously _sacre Dieu’d_ there than in any other aperture
+of the whole city,—and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for it
+comes against you without crying _garde d’eau_, and with such
+unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on,
+not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full
+worth.
+
+The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively
+clapp’d his cane to the side of it, but in raising it up, the point of
+his cane catching hold of the loop of the sentinel’s hat, hoisted it over
+the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.—
+
+—’_Tis an ill wind_, said a boatman, who catched it, _which blows nobody
+any good_.
+
+The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and
+levell’d his arquebuss.
+
+Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman’s paper
+lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she had
+borrow’d the sentry’s match to light it:—it gave a moment’s time for the
+Gascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his
+advantage.—’_Tis an ill wind_, said he, catching off the notary’s castor,
+and legitimating the capture with the boatman’s adage.
+
+The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de Dauphine
+into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked along
+in this manner:—
+
+Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes
+all my days:—to be born to have the storm of ill language levell’d
+against me and my profession wherever I go; to be forced into marriage by
+the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman;—to be driven forth out
+of my house by domestic winds, and despoil’d of my castor by pontific
+ones!—to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs
+and flows of accidents!—Where am I to lay my head?—Miserable man! what
+wind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto
+thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
+
+As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort,
+a voice call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary.—Now the
+notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d up
+the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was
+usher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but a long
+military pike,—a breastplate,—a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up,
+equidistant, in four different places against the wall.
+
+An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless decay of
+fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay
+supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little table with a taper
+burning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed a
+chair:—the notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a
+sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before
+him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the
+table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’s last will and
+testament.
+
+Alas!  _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, raising himself up a
+little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
+bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
+peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits arising out
+of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me.—It is a story
+so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;—it will make the fortunes of
+your house.—The notary dipp’d his pen into his inkhorn.—Almighty Director
+of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly,
+and raising his hands towards heaven,—Thou, whose hand has led me on
+through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of
+desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and
+broken-hearted man;—direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth,
+that this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
+from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be
+condemn’d or acquitted!—the notary held up the point of his pen betwixt
+the taper and his eye.—
+
+It is a story, _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, which will
+rouse up every affection in nature;—it will kill the humane, and touch
+the heart of Cruelty herself with pity.—
+
+—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third
+time into his ink-horn—and the old gentleman, turning a little more
+towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words:—
+
+—And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then enter’d
+the room.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {648}
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what
+I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had
+wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had
+presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.—Then prithee, La Fleur,
+said I, step back to her to the Count de B—’s hotel, and see if thou
+canst get it.—There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur;—and away he flew.
+
+In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with
+deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the
+simple irreparability of the fragment.  _Juste Ciel_! in less than two
+minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of
+her—his faithless mistress had given his _gage d’amour_ to one of the
+Count’s footmen,—the footman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress to
+a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortunes were
+involved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleur echoed it back again to my
+ear.
+
+—How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! said I.
+
+—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had
+lost it.—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
+
+Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+THE ACT OF CHARITY.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an
+excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to
+make a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things I
+see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, and
+hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you
+sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a
+dozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutely
+fine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than
+common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make
+my sermon out of ’em;—and for the text,—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
+Phrygia and Pamphylia,”—is as good as any one in the Bible.
+
+There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a
+narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a _fiacre_, {649}
+or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done.  At the end of
+it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light of
+which is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door—’tis
+more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the least
+magnitude; it burns,—but does little good to the world, that we know of.
+
+In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five
+or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their backs
+against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a _fiacre_;—as they were
+next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up
+within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—I was in
+black, and scarce seen.
+
+The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six;
+the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark of
+wife or widow in any one part of either of them;—they seem’d to be two
+upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender
+salutations.—I could have wish’d to have made them happy:—their happiness
+was destin’d that night, to come from another quarter.
+
+A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the end
+of it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love of
+heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an
+alms—and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually
+given in the dark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much as
+myself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece! said the other,—and
+made no reply.
+
+The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank;
+and bow’d down his head to the ground.
+
+Poo! said they,—we have no money.
+
+The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew’d his
+supplication.
+
+—Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against
+me.—Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.—Then
+God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which you can
+give to others without change!—I observed the elder sister put her hand
+into her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have a sous.  A sous! give
+twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be
+bountiful to a poor man.
+
+—I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.
+
+My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder,—what is it
+but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so sweet,
+that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and what was it
+which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you
+both as they just passed by?
+
+The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same time
+they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out a
+twelve-sous piece.
+
+The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;—it was
+continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the
+twelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to end the dispute, they both gave it
+together, and the man went away.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in asking
+charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—and
+I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twas flattery.
+
+Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly are
+all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou
+mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous
+passages to the heart!
+
+The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, had given it here in a
+larger dose: ’tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a less form,
+for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the streets: but how he
+contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not my
+spirit with the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained two twelve-sous
+pieces—and they can best tell the rest, who have gained much greater
+matters by it.
+
+
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WE get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving
+them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you
+water it, because you have planted it.
+
+Monsieur le Count de B—, merely because he had done me one kindness in
+the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few days he
+was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were
+to present me to others, and so on.
+
+I had got master of my _secret_ just in time to turn these honours to
+some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have
+dined or supp’d a single time or two round, and then, by _translating_
+French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have
+seen, that I had hold of the _couvert_ {652} of some more entertaining
+guest; and in course should have resigned all my places one after
+another, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them.—As it was,
+things did not go much amiss.
+
+I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B—: in days of
+yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the
+_Cour d’Amour_, and had dress’d himself out to the idea of tilts and
+tournaments ever since.—The Marquis de B— wish’d to have it thought the
+affair was somewhere else than in his brain.  “He could like to take a
+trip to England,” and asked much of the English ladies.—Stay where you
+are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.—_Les Messieurs Anglois_
+can scarce get a kind look from them as it is.—The Marquis invited me to
+supper.
+
+Monsieur P—, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes.
+They were very considerable, he heard.—If we knew but how to collect
+them, said I, making him a low bow.
+
+I could never have been invited to Mons. P—’s concerts upon any other
+terms.
+
+I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q— as an _esprit_.—Madame de Q—
+was an _esprit_ herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear me
+talk.  I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not care a sous
+whether I had any wit or no;—I was let in, to be convinced she had.  I
+call heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.
+
+Madame de V— vow’d to every creature she met—“She had never had a more
+improving conversation with a man in her life.”
+
+There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.—She is
+coquette,—then deist,—then _dévote_: the empire during these is never
+lost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more have
+unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it with
+slaves of infidelity,—and then with the slaves of the church.
+
+Madame de V— was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the colour
+of the rose was fading fast away;—she ought to have been a deist five
+years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.
+
+She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing the
+point of religion more closely.—In short Madame de V— told me she
+believed nothing.—I told Madame de V— it might be her principle, but I
+was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without
+which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be
+defended;—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for
+a beauty to be a deist;—that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal
+it from her;—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside
+her, but I had begun to form designs;—and what is it, but the sentiments
+of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which
+could have check’d them as they rose up?
+
+We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;—and there is need of
+all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays them on
+us.—But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,—’tis too—too soon.
+
+I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
+V—.—She affirmed to Monsieur D— and the Abbé M—, that in one half hour I
+had said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had said
+against it.—I was listed directly into Madame de V—’s _coterie_;—and she
+put off the epocha of deism for two years.
+
+I remember it was in this _coterie_, in the middle of a discourse, in
+which I was showing the necessity of a _first_ cause, when the young
+Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room,
+to tell me my _solitaire_ was pinn’d too straight about my neck.—It
+should be _plus badinant_, said the Count, looking down upon his own;—but
+a word, Monsieur Yorick, _to the wise_—
+
+And _from the wise_, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,—_is
+enough_.
+
+The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
+embraced by mortal man.
+
+For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion I met.—_Pardi_! _ce
+Monsieur Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous autres_.—_Il raisonne bien_,
+said another.—_C’est un bon enfant_, said a third.—And at this price I
+could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at
+Paris; but ’twas a dishonest _reckoning_;—I grew ashamed of it.—It was
+the gain of a slave;—every sentiment of honour revolted against it;—the
+higher I got, the more was I forced upon my _beggarly system_;—the better
+the _coterie_,—the more children of Art;—I languish’d for those of
+Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a
+dozen different people, I grew sick,—went to bed;—order’d La Fleur to get
+me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+MOULINES.
+
+
+I NEVER felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
+now,—to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of
+France,—in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
+abundance into every one’s lap, and every eye is lifted up,—a journey,
+through each step of which Music beats time to _Labour_, and all her
+children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass through
+this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before
+me,—and every one of them was pregnant with adventures.—
+
+Just heaven!—it would fill up twenty volumes;—and alas! I have but a few
+small pages left of this to crowd it into,—and half of these must be
+taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near
+Moulines.
+
+The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little in
+the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it
+returned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulse
+which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village
+where her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.
+
+’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in quest of
+melancholy adventures.  But I know not how it is, but I am never so
+perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am
+entangled in them.
+
+The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before she
+open’d her mouth.—She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of
+anguish, for the loss of Maria’s senses, about a month before.—She had
+feared at first, she added, that it would have plunder’d her poor girl of
+what little understanding was left;—but, on the contrary, it had brought
+her more to herself:—still, she could not rest.—Her poor daughter, she
+said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.
+
+Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur,
+whose heart seem’d only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand
+twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?  I beckoned to the
+postilion to turn back into the road.
+
+When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in
+the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a
+poplar.  She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning
+on one side within her hand:—a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.
+
+I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines—and La Fleur to
+bespeak my supper;—and that I would walk after him.
+
+She was dress’d in white, and much as my friend described her, except
+that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net.—She
+had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell
+across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.—Her
+goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in
+lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I
+looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string.—“Thou shalt
+not leave me, Sylvio,” said she.  I look’d in Maria’s eyes and saw she
+was thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
+for, as she utter’d them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell,
+with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it in my own,—and then in hers,—and
+then in mine,—and then I wip’d hers again;—and as I did it, I felt such
+undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for
+from any combinations of matter and motion.
+
+I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
+materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+
+
+WHEN Maria had come a little to herself, I ask’d her if she remembered a
+pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat
+about two years before?  She said she was unsettled much at that time,
+but remembered it upon two accounts:—that ill as she was, she saw the
+person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief,
+and she had beat him for the theft;—she had wash’d it, she said, in the
+brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case
+she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised
+her.  As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to
+let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves,
+tied round with a tendril;—on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of
+the corners.
+
+She had since that, she told me, stray’d as far as Rome, and walk’d round
+St. Peter’s once,—and return’d back;—that she found her way alone across
+the Apennines;—had travell’d over all Lombardy, without money,—and
+through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes:—how she had borne it,
+and how she had got supported, she could not tell;—but _God tempers the
+wind_, said Maria, _to the shorn lamb_.
+
+Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land,
+where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou
+shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup;—I would be kind to
+thy Sylvio;—in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee
+and bring thee back;—when the sun went down I would say my prayers: and
+when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor
+would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven
+along with that of a broken heart!
+
+Nature melted within me, as I utter’d this; and Maria observing, as I
+took out my handkerchief, that it was steep’d too much already to be of
+use, would needs go wash it in the stream.—And where will you dry it,
+Maria? said I.—I’ll dry it in my bosom, said she:—’twill do me good.
+
+And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.
+
+I touch’d upon the string on which hung all her sorrows:—she look’d with
+wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying any
+thing, took her pipe and play’d her service to the Virgin.—The string I
+had touched ceased to vibrate;—in a moment or two Maria returned to
+herself,—let her pipe fall,—and rose up.
+
+And where are you going, Maria? said I.—She said, to Moulines.—Let us go,
+said I, together.—Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the
+string, to let the dog follow,—in that order we enter’d Moulines.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+MOULINES.
+
+
+THOUGH I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when we
+got into the middle of this, I stopp’d to take my last look and last
+farewell of Maria.
+
+Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine
+forms:—affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce
+earthly;—still she was feminine;—and so much was there about her of all
+that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the
+traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she
+should _not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup_, but Maria
+should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.
+
+Adieu, poor luckless maiden!—Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion
+of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy
+wounds;—the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them up for
+ever.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOURBONNNOIS.
+
+
+THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous a
+riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this
+part of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, my
+sufferings have totally unfitted me.  In every scene of festivity, I saw
+Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar;
+and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across
+her.
+
+—Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys,
+or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of
+straw—and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of our
+feelings!—’tis here I trace thee—and this is thy “_divinity which stirs
+within me_;”—not that, in some sad and sickening moments, “_my soul
+shrinks back upon herself_, _and startles at destruction_;”—mere pomp of
+words!—but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond
+myself;—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world! which
+vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the
+remotest desert of thy creation.—Touch’d with thee, Eugenius draws my
+curtain when I languish—hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather
+for the disorder of his nerves.  Thou giv’st a portion of it sometimes to
+the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains;—he finds the
+lacerated lamb of another’s flock.—This moment I behold him leaning with
+his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon
+it!—Oh! had I come one moment sooner! it bleeds to death!—his gentle
+heart bleeds with it.—
+
+Peace to thee, generous swain!—I see thou walkest off with anguish,—but
+thy joys shall balance it;—for, happy is thy cottage,—and happy is the
+sharer of it,—and happy are the lambs which sport about you!
+
+
+
+
+THE SUPPER.
+
+
+A SHOE coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the
+beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
+twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five
+or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point of
+having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion
+had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no
+great use without them, I submitted to go on.
+
+He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece of
+road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore
+foot.  I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a house
+about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I
+prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.  The look of the house,
+and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the
+disaster.—It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres
+of vineyard, about as much corn;—and close to the house, on one side, was
+a _potagerie_ of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make
+plenty in a French peasant’s house;—and, on the other side, was a little
+wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it.  It was about eight in the
+evening when I got to the house—so I left the postilion to manage his
+point as he could;—and, for mine, I walked directly into the house.
+
+The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five or
+six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy
+out of them.
+
+They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten
+loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end of
+it promised joy through the stages of the repast:—’twas a feast of love.
+
+The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would
+have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I enter’d
+the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family; and to invest
+myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the
+old man’s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon;
+and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest
+welcome, but of a welcome mix’d with thanks that I had not seem’d to
+doubt it.
+
+Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel
+so sweet,—and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their
+flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this
+hour?
+
+If the supper was to my taste,—the grace which followed it was much more
+so.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE.
+
+
+WHEN supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the
+haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment the
+signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back
+apartment to tie up their hair,—and the young men to the door to wash
+their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was
+ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin.—The old man and
+his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa
+of turf by the door.
+
+The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the
+_vielle_,—and at the age he was then of, touch’d it well enough for the
+purpose.  His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,—then
+intermitted,—and join’d her old man again, as their children and
+grand-children danced before them.
+
+It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in
+the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could
+distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause
+or the effect of simple jollity.  In a word, I thought I beheld
+_Religion_ mixing in the dance:—but, as I had never seen her so engaged,
+I should have look’d upon it now as one of the illusions of an
+imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as
+soon as the dance ended, said, that this was their constant way; and that
+all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call
+out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful
+and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
+illiterate peasant could pay,—
+
+Or a learned prelate either, said I.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF DELICACY.
+
+
+WHEN you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to
+Lyons:—adieu, then, to all rapid movements!  ’Tis a journey of caution;
+and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; so I
+contracted with a _voiturin_ to take his time with a couple of mules, and
+convoy me in my own chaise safe to Turin, through Savoy.
+
+Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the treasury
+of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will
+your valleys be invaded by it.—Nature! in the midst of thy disorders,
+thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created: with all thy
+great works about thee, little hast thou left to give, either to the
+scythe or to the sickle;—but to that little thou grantest safety and
+protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter’d.
+
+Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns and
+dangers of your roads,—your rocks,—your precipices;—the difficulties of
+getting up,—the horrors of getting down,—mountains impracticable,—and
+cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and block his
+road up.—The peasants had been all day at work in removing a fragment of
+this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my _voiturin_
+got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage
+could any how be gain’d: there was nothing but to wait with
+patience;—’twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay, and
+that together, the _voiturin_ found himself obliged to put up five miles
+short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by the roadside.
+
+I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber—got a good fire—order’d
+supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a _voiturin_ arrived
+with a lady in it and her servant maid.
+
+As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess,—without much
+nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she usher’d them in, that
+there was nobody in it but an English gentleman;—that there were two good
+beds in it, and a closet within the room which held another.  The accent
+in which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for it;—however,
+she said there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say,
+the gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters.—I left not the
+lady a moment to make a conjecture about it—so instantly made a
+declaration that I would do anything in my power.
+
+As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber, I
+still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do the
+honours of it;—so I desired the lady to sit down,—pressed her into the
+warmest seat,—called for more wood,—desired the hostess to enlarge the
+plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best wine.
+
+The lady had scarce warm’d herself five minutes at the fire, before she
+began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and the oftener
+she cast her eyes that way, the more they return’d perplexd;—I felt for
+her—and for myself: for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case
+itself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the lady
+could be herself.
+
+That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was enough
+simply by itself to have excited all this;—but the position of them, for
+they stood parallel, and so very close to each other as only to allow
+space for a small wicker chair betwixt them, rendered the affair still
+more oppressive to us;—they were fixed up moreover near the fire; and the
+projection of the chimney on one side, and a large beam which cross’d the
+room on the other, formed a kind of recess for them that was no way
+favourable to the nicety of our sensations:—if anything could have added
+to it, it was that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to
+cut us off from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which
+in either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them,
+though a thing not to be wish’d, yet there was nothing in it so terrible
+which the imagination might not have pass’d over without torment.
+
+As for the little room within, it offer’d little or no consolation to us:
+’twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-shutter, and
+with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in it to keep out the
+tempest of the night.  I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the
+lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to this
+alternative—That the lady should sacrifice her health to her feelings,
+and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her
+maid,—or that the girl should take the closet, &c., &c.
+
+The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health in her
+cheeks.  The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and lively a
+French girl as ever moved.—There were difficulties every way,—and the
+obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into the distress,
+great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a
+pebble to what lay in our ways now.—I have only to add, that it did not
+lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we were both too
+delicate to communicate what we felt to each other upon the occasion.
+
+We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it than a
+little inn in Savoy could have furnish’d, our tongues had been tied up,
+till necessity herself had set them at liberty;—but the lady having a few
+bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down her _fille de chambre_ for
+a couple of them; so that by the time supper was over, and we were left
+alone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of mind sufficient to
+talk, at least, without reserve upon our situation.  We turn’d it every
+way, and debated and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course
+of a two hours’ negotiation; at the end of which the articles were
+settled finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a
+treaty of peace,—and I believe with as much religion and good faith on
+both sides as in any treaty which has yet had the honour of being handed
+down to posterity.
+
+They were as follow:—
+
+First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur,—and he thinking
+the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists upon the
+concession on the lady’s side of taking up with it.
+
+Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the curtains of
+that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise too
+scanty to draw close, that the _fille de chambre_ shall fasten up the
+opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such manner as
+shall be deem’d a sufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur.
+
+2dly.  It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall lie the
+whole night through in his _robe de chambre_.
+
+Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a _robe de chambre_; he
+having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk pair of
+breeches.
+
+The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of the
+article,—for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for the _robe de
+chambre_; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that I should lie in
+my black silk breeches all night.
+
+3dly.  It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that after
+Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire extinguished, that
+Monsieur should not speak one single word the whole night.
+
+Granted; provided Monsieur’s saying his prayers might not be deemed an
+infraction of the treaty.
+
+There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the manner in
+which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress and get to
+bed;—there was but one way of doing it, and that I leave to the reader to
+devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is not the most delicate in
+nature, ’tis the fault of his own imagination,—against which this is not
+my first complaint.
+
+Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
+situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not shut my
+eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn’d and turn’d again, till a
+full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience both wearing out,—O,
+my God! said I.
+
+—You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no more
+slept than myself.—I begg’d a thousand pardons—but insisted it was no
+more than an ejaculation.  She maintained ’twas an entire infraction of
+the treaty—I maintain’d it was provided for in the clause of the third
+article.
+
+The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken’d her
+barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear two or
+three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.
+
+Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,—stretching my arm out of bed by
+way of asseveration.—
+
+(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed against the
+remotest idea of decorum for the world);—
+
+But the _fille de chambre_ hearing there were words between us, and
+fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently out of
+her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close to our beds,
+that she had got herself into the narrow passage which separated them,
+and had advanced so far up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress and
+me:—
+
+So that when I stretch’d out my hand I caught hold of the _fille de
+chambre’s_—
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{557}  All the effects of strangers (Swiss and Scotch excepted) dying in
+France, are seized by virtue of this law, though the heir be upon the
+spot—the profit of these contingencies being farmed, there is no redress.
+
+{562}  A chaise, so called, in France, from its holding but one person.
+
+{580}  Vide S—’s Travels: [_i.e._ Dr. Smollett’s “Travels through France
+and Italy.”—ED.]
+
+{588}  Post-horse.
+
+{648}  Nosegay.
+
+{649}  Hackney coach.
+
+{652}  Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne</div>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Laurence Sterne</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: Henry Morley</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 12, 1997 [eBook #804]<br />
+[Most recently updated: October 24, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY ***</div>
+
+<h1><span class="GutSmall">A</span><br />
+SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THROUGH</span><br />
+FRANCE AND ITALY;</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center">BY MR. YORICK.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">[THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE,
+M.A.]</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">[<span class="smcap">First
+published in</span> 1768.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">They</span> order, said I, this matter better in
+France.&mdash;You have been in France? said my gentleman, turning
+quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the
+world.&mdash;Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,
+That one and twenty miles sailing, for &rsquo;tis absolutely no
+further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these
+rights:&mdash;I&rsquo;ll look into them: so, giving up the
+argument,&mdash;I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a
+dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,&mdash;&ldquo;the
+coat I have on,&rdquo; said I, looking at the sleeve, &ldquo;will
+do;&rdquo;&mdash;took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet
+sailing at nine the next morning,&mdash;by three I had got sat
+down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in
+France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole
+world could not have suspended the effects of the <i>droits
+d&rsquo;aubaine</i>; <a name="citation557"></a><a
+href="#footnote557" class="citation">[557]</a>&mdash;my shirts,
+and black pair of silk breeches,&mdash;portmanteau and all, must
+have gone to the King of France;&mdash;even the little picture
+which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I
+would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my
+neck!&mdash;Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary
+passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their
+coast!&mdash;By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much does
+it grieve me, &rsquo;tis the monarch of a people so civilized and
+courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine feelings, that
+I have to reason with!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions.&mdash;</p>
+
+<h2>CALAIS.</h2>
+
+<p>When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of
+France&rsquo;s health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no
+spleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his
+temper,&mdash;I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;No&mdash;said I&mdash;the Bourbon is by no means a
+cruel race: they may be misled, like other people; but there is a
+mildness in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt a
+suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek&mdash;more warm and
+friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a
+bottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could have
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is
+there in this world&rsquo;s goods which should sharpen our
+spirits, and make so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so
+cruelly as we do by the way?</p>
+
+<p>When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather
+is the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse,
+and holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
+sought for an object to share it with.&mdash;In doing this, I
+felt every vessel in my frame dilate,&mdash;the arteries beat all
+cheerily together, and every power which sustained life,
+performed it with so little friction, that &rsquo;twould have
+confounded the most <i>physical précieuse</i> in France;
+with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me a
+machine.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I&rsquo;m confident, said I to myself, I should have overset
+her creed.</p>
+
+<p>The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as
+high as she could go;&mdash;I was at peace with the world before,
+and this finish&rsquo;d the treaty with myself.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Now, was I King of France, cried I&mdash;what a
+moment for an orphan to have begg&rsquo;d his father&rsquo;s
+portmanteau of me!</p>
+
+<h2>THE MONK.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> scarce uttered the words,
+when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the room
+to beg something for his convent. No man cares to have his
+virtues the sport of contingencies&mdash;or one man may be
+generous, as another is puissant;&mdash;<i>sed non quoad
+hanc</i>&mdash;or be it as it may,&mdash;for there is no regular
+reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend
+upon the same causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides
+themselves: &rsquo;twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose
+it was so: I&rsquo;m sure at least for myself, that in many a
+case I should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by the
+world, &ldquo;I had had an affair with the moon, in which there
+was neither sin nor shame,&rdquo; than have it pass altogether as
+my own act and deed, wherein there was so much of both.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But, be this as it may,&mdash;the moment I cast my eyes
+upon him, I was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and,
+accordingly, I put my purse into my pocket&mdash;buttoned
+it&mdash;set myself a little more upon my centre, and advanced up
+gravely to him; there was something, I fear, forbidding in my
+look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think
+there was that in it which deserved better.</p>
+
+<p>The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few
+scattered white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained
+of it, might be about seventy;&mdash;but from his eyes, and that
+sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more temper&rsquo;d
+by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty:&mdash;Truth
+might lie between&mdash;He was certainly sixty-five; and the
+general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something
+seem&rsquo;d to have been planting wrinkles in it before their
+time, agreed to the account.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those heads which Guido has often
+painted,&mdash;mild, pale&mdash;penetrating, free from all
+commonplace ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon
+the earth;&mdash;it look&rsquo;d forwards; but look&rsquo;d as if
+it look&rsquo;d at something beyond this world.&mdash;How one of
+his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a
+monk&rsquo;s shoulders best knows: but it would have suited a
+Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had
+reverenced it.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one
+might put it into the hands of any one to design, for &rsquo;twas
+neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression
+made it so: it was a thin, spare form, something above the common
+size, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the
+figure,&mdash;but it was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now
+stands presented to my imagination, it gained more than it lost
+by it.</p>
+
+<p>When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and
+laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with
+which he journey&rsquo;d being in his right)&mdash;when I had got
+close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of
+the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order;&mdash;and
+did it with so simple a grace,&mdash;and such an air of
+deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and
+figure,&mdash;I was bewitch&rsquo;d not to have been struck with
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give
+him a single sous.</p>
+
+<h2>THE MONK.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>&mdash;&rsquo;<span class="smcap">Tis</span> very true, said
+I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with which he had
+concluded his address;&mdash;&rsquo;tis very true,&mdash;and
+heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the
+world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the
+many <i>great claims</i> which are hourly made upon it.</p>
+
+<p>As I pronounced the words <i>great claims</i>, he gave a
+slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his
+tunic:&mdash;I felt the full force of the appeal&mdash;I
+acknowledge it, said I:&mdash;a coarse habit, and that but once
+in three years with meagre diet,&mdash;are no great matters; and the
+true point of pity is, as they can be earn&rsquo;d in the world
+with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure
+them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame,
+the blind, the aged and the infirm;&mdash;the captive who lies
+down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
+languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the
+<i>order of mercy</i>, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor
+as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully
+should it have been open&rsquo;d to you, for the ransom of the
+unfortunate.&mdash;The monk made me a bow.&mdash;But of all
+others, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely,
+have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon
+our own shore.&mdash;The monk gave a cordial wave with his
+head,&mdash;as much as to say, No doubt there is misery enough in
+every corner of the world, as well as within our
+convent&mdash;But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the
+sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal&mdash;we
+distinguish, my good father! betwixt those who wish only to eat
+the bread of their own labour&mdash;and those who eat the bread
+of other people&rsquo;s, and have no other plan in life, but to
+get through it in sloth and ignorance, <i>for the love of
+God</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment
+pass&rsquo;d across his cheek, but could not tarry&mdash;Nature
+seemed to have done with her resentments in him;&mdash;he showed
+none:&mdash;but letting his staff fall within his arms, he
+pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and
+retired.</p>
+
+<h2>THE MONK.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> heart smote me the moment he
+shut the door&mdash;Psha! said I, with an air of carelessness,
+three several times&mdash;but it would not do: every ungracious
+syllable I had utter&rsquo;d crowded back into my imagination: I
+reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny
+him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the
+disappointed, without the addition of unkind language.&mdash;I
+consider&rsquo;d his gray hairs&mdash;his courteous figure seem&rsquo;d
+to re-enter and gently ask me what injury he had done
+me?&mdash;and why I could use him thus?&mdash;I would have given
+twenty livres for an advocate.&mdash;I have behaved very ill,
+said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my
+travels; and shall learn better manners as I get along.</p>
+
+<h2>THE DESOBLIGEANT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> a man is discontented with
+himself, it has one advantage however, that it puts him into an
+excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now there
+being no travelling through France and Italy without a
+chaise,&mdash;and nature generally prompting us to the thing we
+are fittest for, I walk&rsquo;d out into the coach-yard to buy or
+hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old
+<i>désobligeant</i> <a name="citation562"></a><a
+href="#footnote562" class="citation">[562]</a> in the furthest
+corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly
+got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my
+feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the
+master of the hotel:&mdash;but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
+vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
+opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just
+arrived at the inn,&mdash;I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us,
+and being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and
+ink and wrote the preface to it in the
+<i>désobligeant</i>.</p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> must have been observed by many
+a peripatetic philosopher, That nature has set up by her own
+unquestionable authority certain boundaries and fences to
+circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her purpose
+in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost
+insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his
+sufferings at home. It is there only that she has provided
+him with the most suitable objects to partake of his happiness,
+and bear a part of that burden which in all countries and ages
+has ever been too heavy for one pair of shoulders.
+&rsquo;Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of
+spreading our happiness sometimes beyond <i>her</i> limits, but
+&rsquo;tis so ordered, that, from the want of languages,
+connections, and dependencies, and from the difference in
+education, customs, and habits, we lie under so many impediments
+in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often
+amount to a total impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>It will always follow from hence, that the balance of
+sentimental commerce is always against the expatriated
+adventurer: he must buy what he has little occasion for, at their
+own price;&mdash;his conversation will seldom be taken in
+exchange for theirs without a large discount,&mdash;and this, by
+the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable
+brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no
+great spirit of divination to guess at his party&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the
+see-saw of this <i>désobligeant</i> will but let me get
+on) into the efficient as well as final causes of
+travelling&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Your idle people that leave their native country, and go
+abroad for some reason or reasons which may be derived from one
+of these general causes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Infirmity of body,<br />
+Imbecility of mind, or<br />
+Inevitable necessity.</p>
+
+<p>The first two include all those who travel by land or by
+water, labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen,
+subdivided and combined <i>ad infinitum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs;
+more especially those travellers who set out upon their travels
+with the benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling
+under the direction of governors recommended by the
+magistrate;&mdash;or young gentlemen transported by the cruelty
+of parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction of
+governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would
+not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of
+this nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to
+avoid a confusion of character. And these men I speak of,
+are such as cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers,
+with a view of saving money for various reasons and upon various
+pretences: but as they might also save themselves and others a
+great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their money at
+home,&mdash;and as their reasons for travelling are the least
+complex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish
+these gentlemen by the name of</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Simple Travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the
+following <i>heads</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Idle Travellers,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Inquisitive Travellers,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Lying Travellers,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Proud Travellers,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Vain Travellers,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">Splenetic Travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Then follow:</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">The Travellers of Necessity,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,</p>
+
+<p class="gutindent">The Simple Traveller,</p>
+
+<p>And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller,
+(meaning thereby myself) who have travell&rsquo;d, and of which I
+am now sitting down to give an account,&mdash;as much out of
+<i>Necessity</i>, and the <i>besoin de Voyager</i>, as any one in
+the class.</p>
+
+<p>I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and
+observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of
+my forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch
+entirely to myself;&mdash;but I should break in upon the confines
+of the <i>Vain</i> Traveller, in wishing to draw attention
+towards me, till I have some better grounds for it than the mere
+<i>Novelty of my Vehicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller
+himself, that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able
+to determine his own place and rank in the catalogue;&mdash;it will be
+one step towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but he
+retains some tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed or
+carried out, to the present hour.</p>
+
+<p>The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the
+Cape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of
+drinking the same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced
+upon the French mountains,&mdash;he was too phlegmatic for
+that&mdash;but undoubtedly he expected to drink some sort of
+vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent,&mdash;he
+knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon
+his choice, but that what is generally called <i>choice</i>, was
+to decide his success: however, he hoped for the best; and in
+these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude of his
+head, and the depth of his discretion, <i>Mynheer</i> might
+possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by discovering his
+nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.</p>
+
+<p>Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting
+through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of
+knowledge and improvements.</p>
+
+<p>Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and
+posting for that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real
+improvements is all a lottery;&mdash;and even where the
+adventurer is successful, the acquired stock must be used with
+caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit:&mdash;but, as the
+chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the
+acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man would
+act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented
+without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if
+he lives in a country that has no absolute want of
+either;&mdash;and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many
+a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the
+Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into
+discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they
+might have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of
+light, that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose
+beams are not crossed and interchanged with
+others.&mdash;Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most
+affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof
+those may partake who pay nothing.&mdash;But there is no nation
+under heaven&mdash;and God is my record (before whose tribunal I
+must one day come and give an account of this work)&mdash;that I
+do not speak it vauntingly,&mdash;but there is no nation under
+heaven abounding with more variety of learning,&mdash;where the
+sciences may be more fitly woo&rsquo;d, or more surely won, than
+here,&mdash;where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise
+high,&mdash;where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to
+answer for,&mdash;and, to close all, where there is more wit and
+variety of character to feed the mind with:&mdash;Where then, my
+dear countrymen, are you going?&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>We are only looking at this chaise, said they.&mdash;Your most
+obedient servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my
+hat.&mdash;We were wondering, said one of them, who, I found was
+an <i>Inquisitive Traveller</i>,&mdash;what could occasion its
+motion.&mdash;&rsquo;Twas the agitation, said I, coolly, of
+writing a preface.&mdash;I never heard, said the other, who was a
+<i>Simple Traveller</i>, of a preface wrote in a
+<i>désobligeant</i>.&mdash;It would have been better, said
+I, in a <i>vis-a-vis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>As an Englishman does not travel to see
+Englishmen</i>, I retired to my room.</p>
+
+<h2>CALAIS.</h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">perceived</span> that something
+darken&rsquo;d the passage more than myself, as I stepp&rsquo;d
+along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master
+of the h&ocirc;tel, who had just returned from vespers, and with
+his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to
+put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well
+out of conceit with the <i>désobligeant</i>, and Mons.
+Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suit
+me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belong&rsquo;d to some
+<i>Innocent Traveller</i>, who, on his return home, had left it
+to Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s honour to make the most of. Four
+months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in
+the corner of Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s coach-yard; and having
+sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,
+though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had
+not profited much by its adventures,&mdash;but by none so
+little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of
+Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s coach-yard. Much indeed was not to be
+said for it,&mdash;but something might;&mdash;and when a few
+words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man who
+can be a churl of them.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Now was I the master of this h&ocirc;tel, said I,
+laying the point of my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s
+breast, I would inevitably make a point of getting rid of this
+unfortunate <i>désobligeant</i>;&mdash;it stands swinging
+reproaches at you every time you pass by it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said Mons. Dessein,&mdash;I have no
+interest&mdash;Except the interest, said I, which men of a
+certain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in their own
+sensations,&mdash;I&rsquo;m persuaded, to a man who feels for
+others as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as
+you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits:&mdash;You suffer,
+Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I have always observed, when there is as much <i>sour</i> as
+<i>sweet</i> in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at
+a loss within himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: a
+Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein made me a bow.</p>
+
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est bien vrai</i>, said he.&mdash;But in this case
+I should only exchange one disquietude for another, and with
+loss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you a
+chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got half-way to
+Paris,&mdash;figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in
+giving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying
+at the mercy, as I must do, <i>d&rsquo;un homme
+d&rsquo;esprit</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I
+could not help tasting it,&mdash;and, returning Mons. Dessein his
+bow, without more casuistry we walk&rsquo;d together towards his
+Remise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises.</p>
+
+<h2>IN THE STREET.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> must needs be a hostile kind of
+a world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry post-chaise)
+cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street to
+terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls into
+the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same
+sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park
+corner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor
+swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the
+rotation of all the movements within me, to which the situation
+is incident;&mdash;I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and
+through&mdash;eyed him as he walk&rsquo;d along in
+profile,&mdash;then, <i>en face</i>;&mdash;thought like a
+Jew,&mdash;then a Turk,&mdash;disliked his wig,&mdash;cursed him
+by my gods,&mdash;wished him at the devil.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a
+beggarly account of three or four louis d&rsquo;ors, which is the
+most I can be overreached in?&mdash;Base passion! said I, turning
+myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of
+sentiment,&mdash;base, ungentle passion! thy hand is against
+every man, and every man&rsquo;s hand against thee.&mdash;Heaven
+forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had
+turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference
+with the monk:&mdash;she had followed us
+unperceived.&mdash;Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my
+own;&mdash;she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the
+thumb and two fore-fingers, so accepted it without
+reserve,&mdash;and I led her up to the door of the Remise.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Dessein had <i>diabled</i> the key above fifty times
+before he had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand:
+we were as impatient as himself to have it opened; and so
+attentive to the obstacle that I continued holding her hand
+almost without knowing it: so that Monsieur Dessein left us
+together with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned towards
+the door of the Remise, and said he would be back in five
+minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth
+one of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street:
+in the latter case, &rsquo;tis drawn from the objects and
+occurrences without;&mdash;when your eyes are fixed upon a dead
+blank,&mdash;you draw purely from yourselves. A silence of
+a single moment upon Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s leaving us, had been
+fatal to the situation&mdash;she had infallibly turned
+about;&mdash;so I begun the conversation instantly.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But what were the temptations (as I write not to
+apologize for the weaknesses of my heart in this tour,&mdash;but
+to give an account of them)&mdash;shall be described with the
+same simplicity with which I felt them.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I told the reader that I did
+not care to get out of the <i>désobligeant</i>, because I
+saw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived at the
+inn&mdash;I told him the truth,&mdash;but I did not tell him the
+whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by the
+appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to.
+Suspicion crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had
+passed: something jarred upon it within me,&mdash;I wished him at
+his convent.</p>
+
+<p>When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves
+the judgment a world of pains.&mdash;I was certain she was of a
+better order of beings;&mdash;however, I thought no more of her,
+but went on and wrote my preface.</p>
+
+<p>The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the
+street; a guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand,
+showed, I thought, her good education and her good sense; and as
+I led her on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which
+spread a calmness over all my spirits&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this
+round the world with him!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I had not yet seen her face&mdash;&rsquo;twas not material:
+for the drawing was instantly set about, and long before we had
+got to the door of the Remise, <i>Fancy</i> had finished the
+whole head, and pleased herself as much with its fitting her
+goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber for it;&mdash;but
+thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatest
+us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with so
+many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in
+the shapes of so many angels of light, &rsquo;tis a shame to
+break with thee.</p>
+
+<p>When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
+from across her forehead, and let me see the original:&mdash;it
+was a face of about six-and-twenty,&mdash;of a clear transparent
+brown, simply set off without rouge or powder;&mdash;it was not
+critically handsome, but there was that in it, which, in the
+frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,&mdash;it was
+interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of a widow&rsquo;d
+look, and in that state of its declension, which had passed the
+two first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to
+reconcile itself to its loss;&mdash;but a thousand other
+distresses might have traced the same lines; I wish&rsquo;d to
+know what they had been&mdash;and was ready to inquire, (had the
+same <i>bon ton</i> of conversation permitted, as in the days of
+Esdras)&mdash;&ldquo;<i>What aileth thee</i>? <i>and why art thou
+disquieted</i>? <i>and why is thy understanding
+troubled</i>?&rdquo;&mdash;In a word, I felt benevolence for her;
+and resolv&rsquo;d some way or other to throw in my mite of
+courtesy,&mdash;if not of service.</p>
+
+<p>Such were my temptations;&mdash;and in this disposition to
+give way to them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in
+mine, and with our faces both turned closer to the door of the
+Remise than what was absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> certainly, fair lady, said I,
+raising her hand up little lightly as I began, must be one of
+Fortune&rsquo;s whimsical doings; to take two utter strangers by
+their hands,&mdash;of different sexes, and perhaps from different
+corners of the globe, and in one moment place them together in
+such a cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have
+achieved for them, had she projected it for a month.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur,
+she has embarrassed you by the adventure&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so
+ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you
+thank Fortune, continued she&mdash;you had reason&mdash;the heart
+knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher
+would have sent notice of it to the brain to reverse the
+judgment?</p>
+
+<p>In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
+a sufficient commentary upon the text.</p>
+
+<p>It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the
+weakness of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which
+worthier occasions could not have inflicted.&mdash;I was
+mortified with the loss of her hand, and the manner in which I
+had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound: I never
+felt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably in my
+life.</p>
+
+<p>The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these
+discomfitures. In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon
+the cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some way
+or other, God knows how, I regained my situation.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;She had nothing to add.</p>
+
+<p>I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the
+lady, thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I
+had been mistaken in her character; but upon turning her face
+towards me, the spirit which had animated the reply was
+fled,&mdash;the muscles relaxed, and I beheld the same
+unprotected look of distress which first won me to her
+interest:&mdash;melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey of
+sorrow,&mdash;I pitied her from my soul; and though it may seem
+ridiculous enough to a torpid heart,&mdash;I could have taken her
+into my arms, and cherished her, though it was in the open
+street, without blushing.</p>
+
+<p>The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing
+across hers, told her what was passing within me: she looked
+down&mdash;a silence of some moments followed.</p>
+
+<p>I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts
+towards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation
+I felt in the palm of my own,&mdash;not as if she was going to
+withdraw hers&mdash;but as if she thought about it;&mdash;and I
+had infallibly lost it a second time, had not instinct more than
+reason directed me to the last resource in these
+dangers,&mdash;to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was
+every moment going to release it, of myself; so she let it
+continue, till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key; and in the
+mean time I set myself to consider how I should undo the ill
+impressions which the poor monk&rsquo;s story, in case he had
+told it her, must have planted in her breast against me.</p>
+
+<h2>THE SNUFF BOX.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> good old monk was within six
+paces of us, as the idea of him crossed my mind; and was
+advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if uncertain
+whether he should break in upon us or no.&mdash;He stopp&rsquo;d,
+however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness:
+and having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to
+me.&mdash;You shall taste mine&mdash;said I, pulling out my box
+(which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his
+hand.&mdash;&rsquo;Tis most excellent, said the monk. Then
+do me the favour, I replied, to accept of the box and all, and
+when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the
+peace offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not from
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>The poor monk blush&rsquo;d as red as scarlet. <i>Mon
+Dieu</i>! said he, pressing his hands together&mdash;you never
+used me unkindly.&mdash;I should think, said the lady, he is not
+likely. I blush&rsquo;d in my turn; but from what
+movements, I leave to the few who feel, to analyze.&mdash;Excuse
+me, Madame, replied I,&mdash;I treated him most unkindly; and
+from no provocations.&mdash;&rsquo;Tis impossible, said the
+lady.&mdash;My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration
+which seem&rsquo;d not to belong to him&mdash;the fault was in
+me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.&mdash;The lady opposed
+it, and I joined with her in maintaining it was impossible, that
+a spirit so regulated as his, could give offence to any.</p>
+
+<p>I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and
+pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it.&mdash;We
+remained silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which
+takes place, when, in such a circle, you look for ten minutes in
+one another&rsquo;s faces without saying a word. Whilst
+this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his
+tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness
+by the friction&mdash;he made me a low bow, and said, &rsquo;twas
+too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of our
+tempers which had involved us in this contest&mdash;but be it as
+it would,&mdash;he begg&rsquo;d we might exchange boxes.&mdash;In saying
+this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from
+me in the other, and having kissed it,&mdash;with a stream of
+good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom,&mdash;and took
+his leave.</p>
+
+<p>I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my
+religion, to help my mind on to something better: in truth, I
+seldom go abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I
+called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my
+own, in the justlings of the world: they had found full
+employment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about the
+forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services ill
+requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in
+the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex
+together, and took sanctuary not so much in his convent as in
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in
+my last return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father
+Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and was
+buried, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, in a
+little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off: I had a
+strong desire to see where they had laid him,&mdash;when, upon
+pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and
+plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no
+business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon
+my affections, that I burst into a flood of tears:&mdash;but I am
+as weak as a woman; and I beg the world not to smile, but to pity
+me.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> never quitted the
+lady&rsquo;s hand all this time, and had held it so long, that it
+would have been indecent to have let it go, without first
+pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had suffered
+a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.</p>
+
+<p>Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard,
+happening at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our
+communications, naturally took it into their heads that we must
+be <i>man and wife</i> at least; so, stopping as soon as they
+came up to the door of the Remise, the one of them who was the
+Inquisitive Traveller, ask&rsquo;d us, if we set out for Paris
+the next morning?&mdash;I could only answer for myself, I said;
+and the lady added, she was for Amiens.&mdash;We dined there
+yesterday, said the Simple Traveller.&mdash;You go directly
+through the town, added the other, in your road to Paris. I
+was going to return a thousand thanks for the intelligence,
+<i>that Amiens was in the road to Paris</i>, but, upon pulling
+out my poor monk&rsquo;s little horn box to take a pinch of
+snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage
+to Dover.&mdash;They left us alone.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I
+were to beg of this distressed lady to accept of half of my
+chaise?&mdash;and what mighty mischief could ensue?</p>
+
+<p>Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the
+alarm, as I stated the proposition.&mdash;It will oblige you to
+have a third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livres
+out of your pocket;&mdash;You know not what she is, said
+Caution;&mdash;or what scrapes the affair may draw you into,
+whisper&rsquo;d Cowardice.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, &rsquo;twill be said
+you went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais
+for that purpose;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your
+face in the world;&mdash;or rise, quoth Meanness, in the
+church;&mdash;or be any thing in it, said Pride, but a lousy
+prebendary.</p>
+
+<p>But &rsquo;tis a civil thing, said I;&mdash;and as I generally
+act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these
+cabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass
+the heart with adamant&mdash;I turned instantly about to the
+lady.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was
+pleading, and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by
+the time I had made the determination; so I set off after her
+with a long stride, to make her the proposal, with the best
+address I was master of: but observing she walk&rsquo;d with her cheek half resting upon the palm
+of her hand,&mdash;with the slow short-measur&rsquo;d step of
+thoughtfulness,&mdash;and with her eyes, as she went step by
+step, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same
+cause herself.&mdash;God help her! said I, she has some
+mother-in-law, or tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to
+consult upon the occasion, as well as myself: so not caring to
+interrupt the process, and deeming it more gallant to take her at
+discretion than by surprise, I faced about and took a short turn
+or two before the door of the Remise, whilst she walk&rsquo;d
+musing on one side.</p>
+
+<h2>IN THE STREET.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Having</span>, on the first sight of the
+lady, settled the affair in my fancy &ldquo;that she was of the
+better order of beings;&rdquo;&mdash;and then laid it down as a
+second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she was a widow,
+and wore a character of distress,&mdash;I went no further; I got
+ground enough for the situation which pleased me;&mdash;and had
+she remained close beside my elbow till midnight, I should have
+held true to my system, and considered her only under that
+general idea.</p>
+
+<p>She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something
+within me called out for a more particular enquiry;&mdash;it
+brought on the idea of a further separation:&mdash;I might
+possibly never see her more:&mdash;The heart is for saving what
+it can; and I wanted the traces through which my wishes might
+find their way to her, in case I should never rejoin her myself;
+in a word, I wished to know her name,&mdash;her
+family&rsquo;s&mdash;her condition; and as I knew the place to
+which she was going, I wanted to know from whence she came: but
+there was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred little
+delicacies stood in the way. I form&rsquo;d a score
+different plans.&mdash;There was no such thing as a man&rsquo;s
+asking her directly;&mdash;the thing was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>A little French <i>débonnaire</i> captain, who came
+dancing down the street, showed me it was the easiest thing in
+the world: for, popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returning
+back to the door of the Remise, he introduced himself to my
+acquaintance, and before he had well got announced, begg&rsquo;d
+I would do him the honour to present him to the lady.&mdash;I had
+not been presented myself;&mdash;so turning about to her, he did
+it just as well, by asking her if she had come from Paris?
+No: she was going that route, she said.&mdash;<i>Vous
+n&rsquo;&ecirc;tes pas de Londres</i>?&mdash;She was not, she
+replied.&mdash;Then Madame must have come through
+Flanders.&mdash;<i>Apparemment vous &ecirc;tes Flammande</i>?
+said the French captain.&mdash;The lady answered, she
+was.&mdash;<i>Peut &ecirc;tre de Lisle</i>? added he.&mdash;She
+said, she was not of Lisle.&mdash;Nor Arras?&mdash;nor
+Cambray?&mdash;nor Ghent?&mdash;nor Brussels?&mdash;She answered,
+she was of Brussels.</p>
+
+<p>He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it
+last war;&mdash;that it was finely situated, <i>pour
+cela</i>,&mdash;and full of noblesse when the Imperialists were
+driven out by the French (the lady made a slight
+courtesy)&mdash;so giving her an account of the affair, and of
+the share he had had in it,&mdash;he begg&rsquo;d the honour to
+know her name,&mdash;so made his bow.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Et Madame a son Mari</i>?&mdash;said he, looking
+back when he had made two steps,&mdash;and, without staying for
+an answer&mdash;danced down the street.</p>
+
+<p>Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I
+could not have done as much.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up
+with the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into
+his magazine of chaises.</p>
+
+<p>The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein
+open&rsquo;d the door of the Remise, was another old
+tatter&rsquo;d <i>désobligeant</i>; and notwithstanding it
+was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in
+the coach-yard but an hour before,&mdash;the very sight of it
+stirr&rsquo;d up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I
+thought &rsquo;twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea
+could first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more
+charity for the man who could think of using it.</p>
+
+<p>I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so
+Mons. Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood
+abreast, telling us, as he recommended them, that they had been
+purchased by my lord A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had gone
+no further than Paris, so were in all respects as good as
+new.&mdash;They were too good;&mdash;so I pass&rsquo;d on to a
+third, which stood behind, and forthwith begun to chaffer for the
+price.&mdash;But &rsquo;twill scarce hold two, said I, opening
+the door and getting in.&mdash;Have the goodness, Madame, said
+Mons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in.&mdash;The lady
+hesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter that
+moment beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door of
+the chaise upon us, and left us.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap"><i>C&rsquo;est</i></span><i> bien
+comique</i>, &rsquo;tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from
+the reflection that this was the second time we had been left
+together by a parcel of nonsensical
+contingencies,&mdash;<i>c&rsquo;est bien comique</i>, said
+she.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the
+comic use which the gallantry of a Frenchman would put it
+to,&mdash;to make love the first moment, and an offer of his
+person the second.</p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis their <i>fort</i>, replied the lady.</p>
+
+<p>It is supposed so at least;&mdash;and how it has come to pass,
+continued I, I know not; but they have certainly got the credit
+of understanding more of love, and making it better than any
+other nation upon earth; but, for my own part, I think them
+arrant bunglers, and in truth the worst set of marksmen that ever
+tried Cupid&rsquo;s patience.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;To think of making love by <i>sentiments</i>!</p>
+
+<p>I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out
+of remnants:&mdash;and to do it&mdash;pop&mdash;at first sight,
+by declaration&mdash;is submitting the offer, and themselves with
+it, to be sifted with all their <i>pours</i> and <i>contres</i>,
+by an unheated mind.</p>
+
+<p>The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.</p>
+
+<p>Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon
+hers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>That grave people hate love for the name&rsquo;s
+sake;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>That selfish people hate it for their own;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Hypocrites for heaven&rsquo;s;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse
+frightened than hurt by the very <i>report</i>,&mdash;what a want
+of knowledge in this branch of commerce a man betrays, whoever
+lets the word come out of his lips, till an hour or two, at
+least, after the time that his silence upon it becomes
+tormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, not so
+pointed as to alarm,&mdash;nor so vague as to be
+misunderstood&mdash;with now and then a look of kindness, and
+little or nothing said upon it,&mdash;leaves nature for your
+mistress, and she fashions it to her mind.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have
+been making love to me all this while.</p>
+
+<h2>THE REMISE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Monsieur Dessein</span> came back to let
+us out of the chaise, and acquaint the lady, the count de
+L&mdash;, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel.
+Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that I
+rejoiced in my heart at the event&mdash;and could not help
+telling her so;&mdash;for it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said
+I, that I was going to make to you&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she,
+laying her hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me.&mdash;A
+man my good Sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to a
+woman, but she has a presentiment of it some moments
+before.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate
+preservation.&mdash;But I think, said she, looking in my face, I
+had no evil to apprehend,&mdash;and, to deal frankly with you,
+had determined to accept it.&mdash;If I had&mdash;(she stopped a
+moment)&mdash;I believe your good will would have drawn a story from
+me, which would have made pity the only dangerous thing in the
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and
+with a look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the
+chaise,&mdash;and bid adieu.</p>
+
+<h2>IN THE STREET.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">CALAIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">never</span> finished a twelve guinea
+bargain so expeditiously in my life: my time seemed heavy, upon
+the loss of the lady, and knowing every moment of it would be as
+two, till I put myself into motion,&mdash;I ordered post horses
+directly, and walked towards the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and
+recollecting that I had been little more than a single hour in
+Calais,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within
+this little span of life by him who interests his heart in every
+thing, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are
+perpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way,
+misses nothing he can <i>fairly</i> lay his hands on!</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;If this won&rsquo;t turn out something,&mdash;another
+will;&mdash;no matter,&mdash;&rsquo;tis an assay upon human
+nature&mdash;I get my labour for my pains,&mdash;&rsquo;tis
+enough;&mdash;the pleasure of the experiment has kept my senses
+and the best part of my blood awake, and laid the gross to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry,
+&rsquo;Tis all barren;&mdash;and so it is: and so is all the
+world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. I
+declare, said I, clapping my hands cheerily together, that were I
+in a desert, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my
+affections:&mdash;if I could not do better, I would fasten them
+upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to
+connect myself to;&mdash;I would court their shade, and greet
+them kindly for their protection.&mdash;I would cut my name upon
+them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the
+desert: if their leaves wither&rsquo;d, I would teach myself
+to mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to
+Paris,&mdash;from Paris to Rome,&mdash;and so on;&mdash;but he
+set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he
+pass&rsquo;d by was discoloured or distorted.&mdash;He wrote an
+account of them, but &rsquo;twas nothing but the account of his
+miserable feelings.</p>
+
+<p>I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the
+Pantheon:&mdash;he was just coming out of it.&mdash;&rsquo;<i>Tis
+nothing but a huge cockpit</i>, <a name="citation580"></a><a
+href="#footnote580" class="citation">[580]</a> said he:&mdash;I
+wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied
+I;&mdash;for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had
+fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common
+strumpet, without the least provocation in nature.</p>
+
+<p>I popp&rsquo;d upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return
+home; and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell,
+&ldquo;wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field,
+and of the cannibals that each other eat: the
+Anthropophagi:&rdquo;&mdash;he had been flayed alive, and
+bedevil&rsquo;d, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at every
+stage he had come at.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the
+world. You had better tell it, said I, to your
+physician.</p>
+
+<p>Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going
+on from Rome to Naples,&mdash;from Naples to Venice,&mdash;from
+Venice to Vienna,&mdash;to Dresden, to Berlin, without one
+generous connection or pleasurable anecdote to tell of; but he
+had travell&rsquo;d straight on, looking neither to his right
+hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce him out of his
+road.</p>
+
+<p>Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself,
+were it possible to get there with such tempers, would want
+objects to give it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon
+the wings of Love to hail their arrival.&mdash;Nothing would the
+souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems of
+joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh congratulations of their
+common felicity.&mdash;I heartily pity them; they have brought up
+no faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion in heaven
+to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so far
+from being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus
+would do penance there to all eternity!</p>
+
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> once lost my portmanteau from
+behind my chaise, and twice got out in the rain, and one of the
+times up to the knees in dirt, to help the postilion to tie it
+on, without being able to find out what was wanting.&mdash;Nor
+was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord&rsquo;s asking
+me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that that
+was the very thing.</p>
+
+<p>A servant! That I do most sadly, quoth I.&mdash;Because,
+Monsieur, said the landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who
+would be very proud of the honour to serve an
+Englishman.&mdash;But why an English one, more than any
+other?&mdash;They are so generous, said the
+landlord.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll be shot if this is not a livre out of
+my pocket, quoth I to myself, this very night.&mdash;But they
+have wherewithal to be so, Monsieur, added he.&mdash;Set down one
+livre more for that, quoth I.&mdash;It was but last night, said
+the landlord, <i>qu&rsquo;un milord Anglois présentoit un
+écu à la fille de chambre</i>.&mdash;<i>Tant pis
+pour Mademoiselle Janatone</i>, said I.</p>
+
+<p>Now Janatone, being the landlord&rsquo;s daughter, and the
+landlord supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to
+inform me, I should not have said <i>tant pis</i>&mdash;but,
+<i>tant mieux</i>. <i>Tant mieux</i>, <i>toujours</i>,
+<i>Monsieur</i>, said he, when there is any thing to be
+got&mdash;<i>tant pis</i>, when there is nothing. It comes
+to the same thing, said I. <i>Pardonnez-moi</i>, said the
+landlord.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all,
+that <i>tant pis</i> and <i>tant mieux</i>, being two of the
+great hinges in French conversation, a stranger would do well to
+set himself right in the use of them, before he gets to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>A prompt French marquis at our ambassador&rsquo;s table
+demanded of Mr. H&mdash;, if he was H&mdash; the poet? No,
+said Mr. H&mdash;, mildly.&mdash;<i>Tant pis</i>, replied the
+marquis.</p>
+
+<p>It is H&mdash; the historian, said another,&mdash;<i>Tant mieux</i>,
+said the marquis. And Mr. H&mdash;, who is a man of an
+excellent heart, return&rsquo;d thanks for both.</p>
+
+<p>When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called
+in La Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spoke
+of,&mdash;saying only first, That as for his talents he would
+presume to say nothing,&mdash;Monsieur was the best judge what
+would suit him; but for the fidelity of La Fleur he would stand
+responsible in all he was worth.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord deliver&rsquo;d this in a manner which instantly
+set my mind to the business I was upon;&mdash;and La Fleur, who
+stood waiting without, in that breathless expectation which every
+son of nature of us have felt in our turns, came in.</p>
+
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">am</span> apt to be taken with all kinds
+of people at first sight; but never more so than when a poor
+devil comes to offer his service to so poor a devil as myself;
+and as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment to draw
+back something on that very account,&mdash;and this more or less,
+according to the mood I am in, and the case;&mdash;and I may add,
+the gender too, of the person I am to govern.</p>
+
+<p>When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could
+make for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow
+determined the matter at once in his favour; so I hired him
+first,&mdash;and then began to enquire what he could do: But I
+shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want
+them,&mdash;besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.</p>
+
+<p>Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a
+drum, and play a march or two upon the fife. I was
+determined to make his talents do; and can&rsquo;t say my
+weakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom as in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most
+Frenchmen do, with <i>serving</i> for a few years; at the end of
+which, having satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, That
+the honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as
+it open&rsquo;d no further track of glory to him,&mdash;he retired
+<i>à ses terres</i>, and lived <i>comme il plaisoit à Dieu</i>;&mdash;that is to
+say, upon nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to
+attend you in this tour of yours through France and
+Italy!&mdash;Psha! said I, and do not one half of our gentry go
+with a humdrum <i>compagnon du voyage</i> the same round, and
+have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? When
+man can extricate himself with an <i>équivoque</i> in such
+an unequal match,&mdash;he is not ill off.&mdash;But you can do
+something else, La Fleur? said I.&mdash;<i>O qu&rsquo;oui</i>! he
+could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the
+fiddle.&mdash;Bravo! said Wisdom.&mdash;Why, I play a bass
+myself, said I;&mdash;we shall do very well. You can shave,
+and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?&mdash;He had all the
+dispositions in the world.&mdash;It is enough for heaven! said I,
+interrupting him,&mdash;and ought to be enough for me.&mdash;So,
+supper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one side
+of my chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in his
+countenance as ever Nature painted in one, on the other,&mdash;I
+was satisfied to my heart&rsquo;s content with my empire; and if
+monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied
+as I was.</p>
+
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> La Fleur went the whole tour of
+France and Italy with me, and will be often upon the stage, I
+must interest the reader a little further in his behalf, by
+saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses
+which generally do determine me, than in regard to this
+fellow;&mdash;he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as
+ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and,
+notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and
+spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves,
+happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourly
+recompensed by the festivity of his temper;&mdash;it supplied all
+defects:&mdash;I had a constant resource in his looks in all
+difficulties and distresses of my own&mdash;I was going to have
+added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of every
+thing; for, whether &rsquo;twas hunger or thirst, or cold or
+nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur
+met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his
+physiognomy to point them out by,&mdash;he was eternally the
+same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now
+and then puts it into my head I am,&mdash;it always mortifies the
+pride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the
+complexional philosophy of this poor fellow, for shaming me into
+one of a better kind. With all this, La Fleur had a small
+cast of the coxcomb,&mdash;but he seemed at first sight to be
+more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before I had been
+three days in Paris with him,&mdash;he seemed to be no coxcomb at
+all.</p>
+
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning, La Fleur entering
+upon his employment, I delivered to him the key of my
+portmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen shirts and silk
+pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the
+chaise,&mdash;get the horses put to,&mdash;and desire the
+landlord to come in with his bill.</p>
+
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est un garcon de bonne fortune</i>, said the
+landlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who
+had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their
+leave of him, as the postilion was leading out the horses.
+La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again, and thrice
+he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them all
+pardons from Rome.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all
+the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the
+want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the
+world, continued he, &ldquo;he is always in love.&rdquo;&mdash;I
+am heartily glad of it, said I,&mdash;&rsquo;twill save me the
+trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head.
+In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur&rsquo;s eloge
+as my own, having been in love with one princess or another
+almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being
+firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in
+some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this
+interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up,&mdash;I
+can scarce find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I
+always get out of it as fast as I can&mdash;and the moment I am
+rekindled, I am all generosity and good-will again; and would do
+anything in the world, either for or with any one, if they will
+but satisfy me there is no sin in it.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But in saying this,&mdash;sure I am commanding the
+passion,&mdash;not myself.</p>
+
+<h2>A FRAGMENT.</h2>
+
+<p>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The</span> town of Abdera,
+notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all the powers of
+irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most
+profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons,
+conspiracies, and assassinations,&mdash;libels, pasquinades, and
+tumults, there was no going there by day&mdash;&rsquo;twas worse
+by night.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the
+Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole
+orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which
+delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations
+than the tender strokes of nature which the poet had wrought up
+in that pathetic speech of Perseus, <i>O Cupid</i>, <i>prince of
+gods and men</i>! &amp;c. Every man almost spoke pure
+iambics the next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his
+pathetic address,&mdash;&ldquo;<i>O Cupid! prince of gods and
+men</i>!&rdquo;&mdash;in every street of Abdera, in every house,
+&ldquo;O Cupid! Cupid!&rdquo;&mdash;in every mouth, like
+the natural notes of some sweet melody which drop from it,
+whether it will or no,&mdash;nothing but &ldquo;Cupid! Cupid!
+prince of gods and men!&rdquo;&mdash;The fire caught&mdash;and
+the whole city, like the heart of one man, open&rsquo;d itself to
+Love.</p>
+
+<p>No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,&mdash;not
+a single armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of
+death;&mdash;Friendship and Virtue met together, and kiss&rsquo;d
+each other in the street; the golden age returned, and hung over
+the town of Abdera&mdash;every Abderite took his eaten pipe, and
+every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat her
+down and listened to the song.</p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God
+whose empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the
+depths of the sea, to have done this.</p>
+
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> all is ready, and every
+article is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are a
+little sour&rsquo;d by the adventure, there is always a matter to
+compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and
+that is with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround
+you. Let no man say, &ldquo;Let them go to the
+devil!&rdquo;&mdash;&rsquo;tis a cruel journey to send a few
+miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I
+always think it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I
+would counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need
+not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving
+them;&mdash;They will be registered elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for
+few, that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the
+first public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>A well-a-way! said I,&mdash;I have but eight sous in the
+world, showing them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and
+eight poor women for &rsquo;em.</p>
+
+<p>A poor tatter&rsquo;d soul, without a shirt on, instantly
+withdrew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and
+making a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the whole
+<i>parterre</i> cried out, <i>Place aux dames</i>, with one
+voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference
+for the sex with half the effect.</p>
+
+<p>Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that
+beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other
+countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous,
+merely for his <i>politesse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me
+in the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had
+once been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and
+generously offer&rsquo;d a pinch on both sides of him: it was a
+gift of consequence, and modestly declined.&mdash;The poor little
+fellow pressed it upon them with a nod of
+welcomeness.&mdash;<i>Prenez en&mdash;prenez</i>, said he,
+looking another way; so they each took a pinch.&mdash;Pity thy
+box should ever want one! said I to myself; so I put a couple of
+sous into it&mdash;taking a small pinch out of his box, to
+enhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of the
+second obligation more than of the first,&mdash;&rsquo;twas doing
+him an honour,&mdash;the other was only doing him a
+charity;&mdash;and he made me a bow down to the ground for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had
+been campaigned and worn out to death in the
+service&mdash;here&rsquo;s a couple of sous for
+thee.&mdash;<i>Vive le Roi</i>! said the old soldier.</p>
+
+<p>I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, <i>pour
+l&rsquo;amour de Dieu</i>, which was the footing on which it was
+begg&rsquo;d.&mdash;The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it
+could not be well upon any other motive.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mon cher et très-charitable
+Monsieur</i>.&mdash;There&rsquo;s no opposing this, said I.</p>
+
+<p><i>Milord Anglois</i>&mdash;the very sound was worth the
+money;&mdash;so I gave <i>my last sous for it</i>. But in
+the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a <i>pauvre
+honteux</i>, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I
+believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask&rsquo;d one
+for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle,
+and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better
+days.&mdash;Good God! said I&mdash;and I have not one single sous
+left to give him.&mdash;But you have a thousand! cried all the
+powers of nature, stirring within me;&mdash;so I gave
+him&mdash;no matter what&mdash;I am ashamed to say <i>how
+much</i> now,&mdash;and was ashamed to think how little, then:
+so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as
+these two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre
+or two what was the precise sum.</p>
+
+<p>I could afford nothing for the rest, but <i>Dieu vous
+bénisse</i>!</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore</i>, said
+the old soldier, the dwarf, &amp;c. The <i>pauvre
+honteux</i> could say nothing;&mdash;he pull&rsquo;d out a little
+handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away&mdash;and I
+thought he thanked me more than them all.</p>
+
+<h2>THE BIDET.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Having</span> settled all these little
+matters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I got
+into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large
+jack-boot on the far side of a little <i>bidet</i>, <a
+name="citation588"></a><a href="#footnote588"
+class="citation">[588]</a> and another on this (for I count
+nothing of his legs)&mdash;he canter&rsquo;d away before me as
+happy and as perpendicular as a prince.&mdash;But what is
+happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life!
+A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La
+Fleur&rsquo;s career;&mdash;his bidet would not pass by
+it,&mdash;a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow
+was kick&rsquo;d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither
+more nor less upon it, than <i>Diable</i>! So presently got
+up, and came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating him
+up to it as he would have beat his drum.</p>
+
+<p>The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then
+back again,&mdash;then this way, then that way, and in short,
+every way but by the dead ass:&mdash;La Fleur insisted upon the
+thing&mdash;and the bidet threw him.</p>
+
+<p>What&rsquo;s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of
+thine? Monsieur, said he, <i>c&rsquo;est un cheval le plus
+opiniâtre du monde</i>.&mdash;Nay, if he is a conceited
+beast, he must go his own way, replied I. So La Fleur got
+off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at
+my word, and away he scampered back to
+Montreuil.&mdash;<i>Peste</i>! said La Fleur.</p>
+
+<p>It is not <i>mal-à-propos</i> to take notice here, that
+though La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of
+exclamation in this encounter,&mdash;namely, <i>Diable</i>! and
+<i>Peste</i>! that there are, nevertheless, three in the French
+language: like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one or
+the other of which serves for every unexpected throw of the dice
+in life.</p>
+
+<p><i>Le Diable</i>! which is the first, and positive degree, is
+generally used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small
+things only fall out contrary to your expectations; such
+as&mdash;the throwing once doublets&mdash;La Fleur&rsquo;s being
+kick&rsquo;d off his horse, and so forth.&mdash;Cuckoldom, for
+the same reason, is always&mdash;<i>Le Diable</i>!</p>
+
+<p>But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as
+in that of the bidet&rsquo;s running away after, and leaving La
+Fleur aground in jack-boots,&mdash;&rsquo;tis the second
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis then <i>Peste</i>!</p>
+
+<p>And for the third&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow
+feeling, when I reflect what miseries must have been their lot,
+and how bitterly so refined a people must have smarted, to have
+forced them upon the use of it.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in
+distress!&mdash;what ever is my <i>cast</i>, grant me but decent
+words to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved
+to take every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed
+the bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight,&mdash;and
+then, you may imagine, if you please, with what word he closed
+the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots,
+there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind
+the chaise, or into it.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the
+post-house at Nampont.</p>
+
+<h2>NAMPONT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE DEAD ASS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>&mdash;<span class="smcap">And</span> this, said he, putting
+the remains of a crust into his wallet&mdash;and this should have
+been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared
+it with me.&mdash;I thought, by the accent, it had been an
+apostrophe to his child; but &rsquo;twas to his ass, and to the
+very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La
+Fleur&rsquo;s misadventure. The man seemed to lament it
+much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho&rsquo;s
+lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with
+the ass&rsquo;s pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took
+up from time to time,&mdash;then laid them
+down,&mdash;look&rsquo;d at them, and shook his head. He
+then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to
+eat it; held it some time in his hand,&mdash;then laid it upon
+the bit of his ass&rsquo;s bridle,&mdash;looked wistfully at the
+little arrangement he had made&mdash;and then gave a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La
+Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as
+I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over
+their heads.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been
+from the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his
+return home, when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous
+to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so
+far a journey from his own home.</p>
+
+<p>It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons,
+the finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of
+the eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill
+of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all;
+and made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, he
+would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp&rsquo;d
+to pay Nature her tribute,&mdash;and wept bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had
+set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a
+patient partner of his journey;&mdash;that it had eaten the same
+bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with
+concern.&mdash;La Fleur offered him money.&mdash;The mourner said
+he did not want it;&mdash;it was not the value of the
+ass&mdash;but the loss of him.&mdash;The ass, he said, he was
+assured, loved him;&mdash;and upon this told them a long story of
+a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains,
+which had separated them from each other three days; during which
+time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and
+that they had scarce either eaten or drank till they met.</p>
+
+<p>Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss
+of thy poor beast; I&rsquo;m sure thou hast been a merciful
+master to him.&mdash;Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when he
+was alive;&mdash;but now that he is dead, I think
+otherwise.&mdash;I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions
+together have been too much for him,&mdash;they have shortened
+the poor creature&rsquo;s days, and I fear I have them to answer
+for.&mdash;Shame on the world! said I to myself.&mdash;Did we but
+love each other as this poor soul loved his
+ass&mdash;&rsquo;twould be something.&mdash;</p>
+
+<h2>NAMPONT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE POSTILION.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> concern which the poor
+fellow&rsquo;s story threw me into required some attention; the
+postilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon the
+<i>pavé</i> in a full gallop.</p>
+
+<p>The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could
+not have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for
+grave and quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion
+of the postilion had he but stolen off with me in something like
+a pensive pace.&mdash;On the contrary, as the mourner finished
+his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to each of his
+beasts, and set off clattering like a thousand devils.</p>
+
+<p>I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven&rsquo;s sake to
+go slower:&mdash;and the louder I called, the more unmercifully
+he galloped.&mdash;The deuce take him and his galloping
+too&mdash;said I,&mdash;he&rsquo;ll go on tearing my nerves to
+pieces till he has worked me into a foolish passion, and then
+he&rsquo;ll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.</p>
+
+<p>The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he
+had got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from
+Nampont,&mdash;he had put me out of temper with him,&mdash;and
+then with myself, for being so.</p>
+
+<p>My case then required a different treatment; and a good
+rattling gallop would have been of real service to me.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Then, prithee, get on&mdash;get on, my good lad, said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>The postilion pointed to the hill.&mdash;I then tried to
+return back to the story of the poor German and his ass&mdash;but
+I had broke the clue,&mdash;and could no more get into it again,
+than the postilion could into a trot.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The deuce go, said I, with it all! Here am I
+sitting as candidly disposed to make the best of the worst, as
+ever wight was, and all runs counter.</p>
+
+<p>There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature
+holds out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell
+asleep; and the first word which roused me was <i>Amiens</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,&mdash;this is the
+very town where my poor lady is to come.</p>
+
+<h2>AMIENS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> words were scarce out of my
+mouth when the Count de L&mdash;&rsquo;s post-chaise, with his
+sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me a
+bow of recognition,&mdash;and of that particular kind of it,
+which told me she had not yet done with me. She was as good
+as her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her
+brother&rsquo;s servant came into the room with a billet, in
+which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a
+letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R&mdash; the
+first morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There was only
+added, she was sorry, but from what <i>penchant</i> she had not
+considered, that she had been prevented telling me her
+story,&mdash;that she still owed it to me; and if my route should
+ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name
+of Madame de L&mdash;,&mdash;that Madame de L&mdash; would be
+glad to discharge her obligation.</p>
+
+<p>Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at
+Brussels;&mdash;&rsquo;tis only returning from Italy through
+Germany to Holland, by the route of Flanders,
+home;&mdash;&rsquo;twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but,
+were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my
+journey, in sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale
+of misery told to me by such a sufferer? To see her weep!
+and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of her tears, what an
+exquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping them away from
+off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I&rsquo;m
+sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole
+night beside her?</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly
+reproached my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate
+of expressions.</p>
+
+<p>It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular
+blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in
+love with some one; and my last flame happening to be blown out
+by a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I had
+lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three
+months before,&mdash;swearing, as I did it, that it should last
+me through the whole journey.&mdash;Why should I dissemble the
+matter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;&mdash;she had
+a right to my whole heart:&mdash;to divide my affections was to
+lessen them;&mdash;to expose them was to risk them: where there
+is risk there may be loss:&mdash;and what wilt thou have, Yorick,
+to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence&mdash;so
+good, so gentle, and unreproaching!</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting
+myself.&mdash;But my imagination went on,&mdash;I recalled her
+looks at that crisis of our separation, when neither of us had
+power to say adieu! I look&rsquo;d at the picture she had
+tied in a black riband about my neck,&mdash;and blush&rsquo;d as
+I look&rsquo;d at it.&mdash;I would have given the world to have
+kiss&rsquo;d it,&mdash;but was ashamed.&mdash;And shall this
+tender flower, said I, pressing it between my hands,&mdash;shall
+it be smitten to its very root,&mdash;and smitten, Yorick! by
+thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?</p>
+
+<p>Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the
+ground,&mdash;be thou my witness&mdash;and every pure spirit
+which tastes it, be my witness also, That I would not travel to
+Brussels, unless Eliza went along with me, did the road lead me
+towards heaven!</p>
+
+<p>In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the
+understanding, will always say too much.</p>
+
+<h2>THE LETTER.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AMIENS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fortune</span> had not smiled upon La
+Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his feats of
+chivalry,&mdash;and not one thing had offered to signalise his
+zeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it,
+which was almost four-and-twenty hours. The poor soul
+burn&rsquo;d with impatience; and the Count de L&mdash;&rsquo;s
+servant coming with the letter, being the first practicable
+occasion which offer&rsquo;d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and,
+in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back
+parlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the
+best wine in Picardy; and the Count de L&mdash;&rsquo;s servant,
+in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with La Fleur,
+had taken him back with him to the Count&rsquo;s hotel. La
+Fleur&rsquo;s <i>prevenancy</i> (for there was a passport in his
+very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with
+him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of
+prudery in showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had
+pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with the
+first note, set the <i>fille de chambre</i>, the <i>ma&icirc;tre
+d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>, the cook, the scullion, and all the
+house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I
+suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de L&mdash;, in passing from her brother&rsquo;s
+apartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung
+up her <i>fille de chambre</i> to ask about it; and, hearing it
+was the English gentleman&rsquo;s servant, who had set the whole
+house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.</p>
+
+<p>As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had
+loaded himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to
+Madame de L&mdash;, on the part of his master,&mdash;added a long
+apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de L&mdash;&rsquo;s
+health,&mdash;told her, that Monsieur his master was <i>au
+désespoire</i> for her re-establishment from the fatigues
+of her journey,&mdash;and, to close all, that Monsieur had
+received the letter which Madame had done him the honour&mdash;And
+he has done me the honour, said Madame de L&mdash;, interrupting
+La Fleur, to send a billet in return.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de L&mdash; had said this with such a tone of reliance
+upon the fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her
+expectations;&mdash;he trembled for my honour,&mdash;and possibly
+might not altogether be unconcerned for his own, as a man capable
+of being attached to a master who could be wanting <i>en
+égards vis à vis d&rsquo;une femme</i>! so that
+when Madame de L&mdash; asked La Fleur if he had brought a
+letter,&mdash;<i>O qu&rsquo;oui</i>, said La Fleur: so laying
+down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his
+right side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the
+letter with his right;&mdash;then
+contrariwise.&mdash;<i>Diable</i>! then sought every
+pocket&mdash;pocket by pocket, round, not forgetting his
+fob:&mdash;<i>Peste</i>!&mdash;then La Fleur emptied them upon
+the floor,&mdash;pulled out a dirty cravat,&mdash;a
+handkerchief,&mdash;a comb,&mdash;a whip lash,&mdash;a
+nightcap,&mdash;then gave a peep into his hat,&mdash;<i>Quelle
+étourderie</i>! He had left the letter upon the
+table in the auberge;&mdash;he would run for it, and be back with
+it in three minutes.</p>
+
+<p>I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me
+an account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it
+was: and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (<i>par
+hazard</i>) to answer Madame&rsquo;s letter, the arrangement gave
+him an opportunity to recover the <i>faux pas</i>;&mdash;and if
+not, that things were only as they were.</p>
+
+<p>Now I was not altogether sure of my <i>étiquette</i>,
+whether I ought to have wrote or no;&mdash;but if I had,&mdash;a
+devil himself could not have been angry: &rsquo;twas but the
+officious zeal of a well meaning creature for my honour; and,
+however he might have mistook the road,&mdash;or embarrassed me
+in so doing,&mdash;his heart was in no fault,&mdash;I was under
+no necessity to write;&mdash;and, what weighed more than
+all,&mdash;he did not look as if he had done amiss.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&rsquo;Tis all very well, La Fleur, said
+I.&mdash;&rsquo;Twas sufficient. La Fleur flew out of the
+room like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, in
+his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me,
+with such a delight in his countenance, that I could not help
+taking up the pen.</p>
+
+<p>
+I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made
+half a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>In short, I was in no mood to write.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur stepp&rsquo;d out and brought a little water in a
+glass to dilute my ink,&mdash;then fetch&rsquo;d sand and
+seal-wax.&mdash;It was all one; I wrote, and blotted, and tore
+off, and burnt, and wrote again.&mdash;<i>Le diable
+l&rsquo;emporte</i>! said I, half to myself,&mdash;I cannot write
+this self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I
+said it.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the
+most respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand
+apologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a
+letter in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a
+corporal&rsquo;s wife, which he durst say would suit the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his
+humour.&mdash;Then prithee, said I, let me see it.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book
+cramm&rsquo;d full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad
+condition, and laying it upon the table, and then untying the
+string which held them all together, run them over, one by one,
+till he came to the letter in question,&mdash;<i>La voila</i>!
+said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, he laid it
+open before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I
+read it.</p>
+
+<h2>THE LETTER.</h2>
+
+<p>Madame,</p>
+
+<p>Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plus
+vive, et réduit en m&ecirc;me temps au désespoir
+par ce retour imprév&ugrave; du Caporal qui rend notre
+entrev&ucirc;e de ce soir la chose du monde la plus
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à
+vous.</p>
+
+<p>L&rsquo;amour n&rsquo;est <i>rien</i> sans sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Et le sentiment est encore <i>moins</i> sans amour.</p>
+
+<p>On dit qu&rsquo;on ne doit jamais se
+désesperér.</p>
+
+<p>On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi:
+alors ce cera mon tour.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>Chacun à son tour</i>.</p>
+
+<p>En attendant&mdash;Vive l&rsquo;amour! et vive la
+bagatelle!</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right">Je suis, Madame,<br />
+Avec tous les sentimens les plus<br />
+respectueux et les plus tendres,<br />
+tout à vous,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Jaques Roque</span>.</p>
+
+<p>It was but changing the Corporal into the Count,&mdash;and
+saying nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday,&mdash;and the
+letter was neither right nor wrong:&mdash;so, to gratify the poor
+fellow, who stood trembling for my honour, his own, and the
+honour of his letter,&mdash;I took the cream gently off it, and
+whipping it up in my own way, I seal&rsquo;d it up and sent him
+with it to Madame de L&mdash;;&mdash;and the next morning we
+pursued our journey to Paris.</p>
+
+<h2>PARIS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> a man can contest the point by
+dint of equipage, and carry all on floundering before him with
+half a dozen of lackies and a couple of cooks&mdash;&rsquo;tis
+very well in such a place as Paris,&mdash;he may drive in at
+which end of a street he will.</p>
+
+<p>A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry
+does not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and
+signalize himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into
+it;&mdash;I say <i>up into it</i>&mdash;for there is no
+descending perpendicular amongst &rsquo;em with a &ldquo;<i>Me
+voici</i>! <i>mes enfans</i>&rdquo;&mdash;here I
+am&mdash;whatever many may think.</p>
+
+<p>I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and
+alone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so
+flattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to
+the window in my dusty black coat, and looking through the glass
+saw all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring
+of pleasure.&mdash;The old with broken lances, and in helmets
+which had lost their vizards;&mdash;the young in armour bright
+which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the
+east,&mdash;all,&mdash;all, tilting at it like fascinated knights
+in tournaments of yore for fame and love.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? On the very
+first onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an
+atom;&mdash;seek,&mdash;seek some winding alley, with a
+tourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled or
+flambeau shot its rays;&mdash;there thou mayest solace thy soul
+in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber&rsquo;s
+wife, and get into such coteries!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter
+which I had to present to Madame de R&mdash;.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+wait upon this lady, the very first thing I do. So I called
+La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly,&mdash;and come back and
+brush my coat.</p>
+
+<h2>THE WIG.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the barber came, he absolutely
+refused to have any thing to do with my wig: &rsquo;twas either
+above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to take one ready
+made of his own recommendation.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won&rsquo;t
+stand.&mdash;You may emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and
+it will stand.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought
+I.&mdash;The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker&rsquo;s
+ideas could have gone no further than to have &ldquo;dipped it
+into a pail of water.&rdquo;&mdash;What difference! &rsquo;tis
+like Time to Eternity!</p>
+
+<p>I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny
+ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the
+great works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it,
+I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at
+least. All that can be said against the French sublime, in
+this instance of it, is this:&mdash;That the grandeur is
+<i>more</i> in the <i>word</i>, and <i>less</i> in the
+<i>thing</i>. No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast
+ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should
+run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the
+experiment;&mdash;the Parisian barber meant nothing.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly,
+but a sorry figure in speech;&mdash;but, &rsquo;twill be
+said,&mdash;it has one advantage&mdash;&rsquo;tis in the next
+room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, without
+more ado, in a single moment.</p>
+
+<p>In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the
+matter, <i>The French expression professes more than it
+performs</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of
+national characters more in these nonsensical
+<i>minuti&aelig;</i> than in the most important matters of state;
+where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, that
+I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>I was so long in getting from under my barber&rsquo;s hands,
+that it was too late to think of going with my letter to Madame
+R&mdash; that night: but when a man is once dressed at all points
+for going out, his reflections turn to little account; so taking
+down the name of the H&ocirc;tel de Modene, where I lodged, I
+walked forth without any determination where to go;&mdash;I shall
+consider of that, said I, as I walk along.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PULSE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hail</span>, ye small sweet courtesies of
+life, for smooth do ye make the road of it! like grace and
+beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight:
+&rsquo;tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me
+which way I must turn to go to the Opéra
+Comique?&mdash;Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying aside
+her work.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I
+came along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by
+such an interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had
+walked in.</p>
+
+<p>She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair,
+on the far side of the shop, facing the door.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Très volontiers</i>, most willingly, said she,
+laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up from
+the low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement,
+and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis
+d&rsquo;ors with her, I should have said&mdash;&ldquo;This woman
+is grateful.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door
+of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to
+take,&mdash;you must turn first to your left hand,&mdash;<i>mais
+prenez garde</i>&mdash;there are two turns; and be so good as to
+take the second&mdash;then go down a little way and you&rsquo;ll
+see a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself the
+trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to
+the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross&mdash;and there
+any one will do himself the pleasure to show you.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the
+same goodnatur&rsquo;d patience the third time as the
+first;&mdash;and if <i>tones and manners</i> have a meaning,
+which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them
+out,&mdash;she seemed really interested that I should not lose
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>I will not suppose it was the woman&rsquo;s beauty,
+notwithstanding she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever
+saw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy;
+only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her,
+that I looked very full in her eyes,&mdash;and that I repeated my
+thanks as often as she had done her instructions.</p>
+
+<p>I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had
+forgot every tittle of what she had said;&mdash;so looking back,
+and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to
+look whether I went right or not,&mdash;I returned back to ask
+her, whether the first turn was to my right or left,&mdash;for
+that I had absolutely forgot.&mdash;Is it possible! said she,
+half laughing. &rsquo;Tis very possible, replied I, when a
+man is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.</p>
+
+<p>As this was the real truth&mdash;she took it, as every woman
+takes a matter of right, with a slight curtsey.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Attendez</i>! said she, laying her hand upon my arm
+to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get
+ready a parcel of gloves. I am just going to send him, said
+she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the
+complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he
+shall attend you to the place.&mdash;So I walk&rsquo;d in with
+her to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my
+hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat
+down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down
+beside her.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a
+moment.&mdash;And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would
+I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies.
+Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of
+them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added
+I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which
+descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must
+have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.&mdash;Feel
+it, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I
+took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two
+forefingers of my other to the artery.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed
+by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my
+lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one,
+with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical
+ebb or flow of her fever.&mdash;How wouldst thou have
+laugh&rsquo;d and moralized upon my new profession!&mdash;and
+thou shouldst have laugh&rsquo;d and moralized on.&mdash;Trust
+me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, &ldquo;There are worse
+occupations in this world <i>than feeling a woman&rsquo;s
+pulse</i>.&rdquo;&mdash;But a grisette&rsquo;s! thou wouldst have
+said,&mdash;and in an open shop! Yorick&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;So much the better: for when my views are direct,
+Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.</p>
+
+<h2>THE HUSBAND.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> counted twenty pulsations,
+and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband,
+coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a
+little out of my reckoning.&mdash;&rsquo;Twas nobody but her
+husband, she said;&mdash;so I began a fresh score.&mdash;Monsieur
+is so good, quoth she, as he pass&rsquo;d by us, as to give
+himself the trouble of feeling my pulse.&mdash;The husband took
+off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too much
+honour&mdash;and having said that, he put on his hat
+and walk&rsquo;d out.</p>
+
+<p>Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,&mdash;and can this
+man be the husband of this woman!</p>
+
+<p>Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the
+grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do
+not.</p>
+
+<p>In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper&rsquo;s wife seem to
+be one bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and
+body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in
+general, to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly
+as man and wife need to do.</p>
+
+<p>In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more
+different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop
+not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:&mdash;in some
+dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum
+nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.</p>
+
+<p>The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is
+<i>salique</i>, having ceded this department, with sundry others,
+totally to the women,&mdash;by a continual higgling with
+customers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so
+many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable
+collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles,
+and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of
+them, a polish like a brilliant:&mdash;Monsieur <i>le Mari</i> is
+little better than the stone under your foot.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Surely,&mdash;surely, man! it is not good for thee to
+sit alone:&mdash;thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle
+greetings; and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal
+to as my evidence.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.&mdash;With
+all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I
+expected.&mdash;She was going to say something civil in
+return&mdash;but the lad came into the shop with the
+gloves.&mdash;<i>Apropos</i>, said I, I want a couple of
+pairs myself.</p>
+
+<h2>THE GLOVES.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> beautiful grisette rose up when
+I said this, and going behind the counter, reach&rsquo;d down a
+parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her:
+they were all too large. The beautiful grisette measured
+them one by one across my hand.&mdash;It would not alter their
+dimensions.&mdash;She begg&rsquo;d I would try a single pair,
+which seemed to be the least.&mdash;She held it open;&mdash;my
+hand slipped into it at once.&mdash;It will not do, said I,
+shaking my head a little.&mdash;No, said she, doing the same
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain combined looks of simple
+subtlety,&mdash;where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and
+nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set
+loose together, could not express them;&mdash;they are
+communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce
+say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men of
+words to swell pages about it&mdash;it is enough in the present
+to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands
+within our arms, we both lolled upon the counter&mdash;it was
+narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between
+us.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then
+sideways to the window, then at the gloves,&mdash;and then at
+me. I was not disposed to break silence:&mdash;I followed
+her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then
+at the gloves, and then at her,&mdash;and so on alternately.</p>
+
+<p>I found I lost considerably in every attack:&mdash;she had a
+quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken
+eyelashes with such penetration, that she look&rsquo;d into my
+very heart and reins.&mdash;It may seem strange, but I could
+actually feel she did.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next
+me, and putting them into my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a
+single livre above the price.&mdash;I wish&rsquo;d she had asked
+a livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the
+matter about.&mdash;Do you think, my dear Sir, said she,
+mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a
+stranger&mdash;and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his
+want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my
+mercy?&mdash;<i>M&rsquo;en croyez capable</i>?&mdash;Faith! not
+I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome. So counting
+the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally
+makes to a shopkeeper&rsquo;s wife, I went out, and her lad with
+his parcel followed me.</p>
+
+<h2>THE TRANSLATION.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was nobody in the box I was
+let into but a kindly old French officer. I love the
+character, not only because I honour the man whose manners are
+softened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that I
+once knew one,&mdash;for he is no more,&mdash;and why should I
+not rescue one page from violation by writing his name in it, and
+telling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my
+flock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at this
+long distance from his death&mdash;but my eyes gush out with
+tears. For his sake I have a predilection for the whole
+corps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of
+benches and placed myself beside him.</p>
+
+<p>The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it
+might be the book of the opera, with a large pair of
+spectacles. As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles
+off, and putting them into a shagreen case, return&rsquo;d them
+and the book into his pocket together. I half rose up, and
+made him a bow.</p>
+
+<p>Translate this into any civilized language in the
+world&mdash;the sense is this:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a poor stranger come into the box&mdash;he
+seems as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to be
+seven years in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his
+spectacles upon his nose:&mdash;&rsquo;tis shutting the door of
+conversation absolutely in his face&mdash;and using him worse
+than a German.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he
+had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French
+too, and told him, &ldquo;I was sensible of his attention, and
+return&rsquo;d him a thousand thanks for it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality,
+as to get master of this <i>short hand</i>, and to be quick in
+rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their
+inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own
+part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when I
+walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and
+have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three
+words have been said, and have brought off twenty different
+dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn
+to.</p>
+
+<p>I was going one evening to Martini&rsquo;s concert at Milan,
+and, was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina
+di F&mdash; was coming out in a sort of a hurry:&mdash;she was
+almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave a spring to once side
+to let her pass.&mdash;She had done the same, and on the same
+side too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the
+other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been,
+for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage
+again.&mdash;We both flew together to the other side, and then
+back,&mdash;and so on:&mdash;it was ridiculous: we both
+blush&rsquo;d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should
+have done at first;&mdash;I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina
+had no more difficulty. I had no power to go into the room,
+till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow her
+with my eye to the end of the passage. She look&rsquo;d
+back twice, and walk&rsquo;d along it rather sideways, as if she
+would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass
+her.&mdash;No, said I&mdash;that&rsquo;s a vile translation: the
+Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and
+that opening is left for me to do it in;&mdash;so I ran and
+begg&rsquo;d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying
+it was my intention to have made her way. She answered, she
+was guided by the same intention towards me;&mdash;so we
+reciprocally thank&rsquo;d each other. She was at the top
+of the stairs; and seeing no <i>cicisbeo</i> near her, I
+begg&rsquo;d to hand her to her coach;&mdash;so we went down the
+stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert
+and the adventure.&mdash;Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had
+handed her in, I made six different efforts to let you go
+out.&mdash;And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you
+enter.&mdash;I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said
+I.&mdash;With all my heart, said she, making room.&mdash;Life is
+too short to be long about the forms of it,&mdash;so I instantly
+stepp&rsquo;d in, and she carried me home with her.&mdash;And
+what became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it,
+knows more than I.</p>
+
+<p>I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the
+translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour
+to make in Italy.</p>
+
+<h2>THE DWARF.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> never heard the remark made
+by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was will
+probably come out in this chapter; so that being pretty much
+unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck me
+the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,&mdash;and that was,
+the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of
+dwarfs.&mdash;No doubt she sports at certain times in almost
+every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her
+amusements.&mdash;The goddess seems almost as merry as she is
+wise.</p>
+
+<p>As I carried my idea out of the <i>Opéra Comique</i> with me,
+I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by
+it.&mdash;Melancholy application! especially where the size was
+extremely little,&mdash;the face extremely dark,&mdash;the eyes
+quick,&mdash;the nose long,&mdash;the teeth white,&mdash;the jaw
+prominent,&mdash;to see so many miserables, by force of accidents
+driven out of their own proper class into the very verge of
+another, which it gives me pain to write down:&mdash;every third
+man a pigmy!&mdash;some by rickety heads and hump
+backs;&mdash;others by bandy legs;&mdash;a third set arrested by
+the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their
+growth;&mdash;a fourth, in their perfect and natural state like
+dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their
+existence, never meant to grow higher.</p>
+
+<p>A Medical Traveller might say, &rsquo;tis owing to undue
+bandages;&mdash;a Splenetic one, to want of air;&mdash;and an
+Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the
+height of their houses,&mdash;the narrowness of their streets,
+and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such
+numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I remember
+Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any body
+else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred that
+children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any
+size, provided they came right into the world; but the misery
+was, the citizens of were Paris so coop&rsquo;d up, that they had
+not actually room enough to get them.&mdash;I do not call it
+getting anything, said he;&mdash;&rsquo;tis getting
+nothing.&mdash;Nay, continued he, rising in his argument,
+&rsquo;tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got
+after twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and
+most nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as
+high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy being very short, there
+could be nothing more said of it.</p>
+
+<p>As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I
+found it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark,
+which is verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I was
+walking down that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais
+Royal, and observing a little boy in some distress at the side of
+the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his
+hand and help&rsquo;d him over. Upon turning up his face to
+look at him after, I perceived he was about forty.&mdash;Never
+mind, said I, some good body will do as much for me when I am
+ninety.</p>
+
+<p>I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be
+merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have
+neither size nor strength to get on in the world.&mdash;I cannot
+bear to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated
+beside my old French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by
+seeing the very thing happen under the box we sat in.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first
+side box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house
+is full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you
+stand, as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in the
+orchestra. A poor defenceless being of this order had got
+thrust somehow or other into this luckless place;&mdash;the night
+was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half
+higher than himself. The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on
+all sides; but the thing which incommoded him most, was a tall
+corpulent German, near seven feet high, who stood directly
+betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either the stage or
+the actors. The poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep
+at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening
+betwixt the German&rsquo;s arm and his body, trying first on one
+side, then the other; but the German stood square in the most
+unaccommodating posture that can be imagined:&mdash;the dwarf
+might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest
+draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the
+German&rsquo;s sleeve, and told him his distress.&mdash;The
+German turn&rsquo;d his head back, looked down upon him as Goliah
+did upon David,&mdash;and unfeelingly resumed his posture.</p>
+
+<p>I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk&rsquo;s
+little horn box.&mdash;And how would thy meek and courteous
+spirit, my dear monk! so temper&rsquo;d to <i>bear and
+forbear</i>!&mdash;how sweetly would it have lent an ear to this
+poor soul&rsquo;s complaint!</p>
+
+<p>The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an
+emotion, as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me
+what was the matter?&mdash;I told him the story in three words;
+and added, how inhuman it was.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his
+first transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the
+German he would cut off his long queue with his knife.&mdash;The
+German look&rsquo;d back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if
+he could reach it.</p>
+
+<p>An injury sharpen&rsquo;d by an insult, be it to whom it will,
+makes every man of sentiment a party: I could have leap&rsquo;d
+out of the box to have redressed it.&mdash;The old French officer
+did it with much less confusion; for leaning a little over, and
+nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his
+finger at the distress,&mdash;the sentinel made his
+way to it.&mdash;There was no occasion to tell the
+grievance,&mdash;the thing told himself; so thrusting back the
+German instantly with his musket,&mdash;he took the poor dwarf by
+the hand, and placed him before him.&mdash;This is noble! said I,
+clapping my hands together.&mdash;And yet you would not permit
+this, said the old officer, in England.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;In England, dear Sir, said I, <i>we sit all at our
+ease</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself,
+in case I had been at variance,&mdash;by saying it was a <i>bon
+mot</i>;&mdash;and, as a <i>bon mot</i> is always worth something
+at Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff.</p>
+
+<h2>THE ROSE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was now my turn to ask the old
+French officer &ldquo;What was the matter?&rdquo; for a cry of
+&ldquo;<i>Haussez les mains</i>, <i>Monsieur
+l&rsquo;Abbé</i>!&rdquo; re-echoed from a dozen different
+parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my
+apostrophe to the monk had been to him.</p>
+
+<p>He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper
+loges, who, he supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of
+grisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterre
+espying him, were insisting upon his holding up both his hands
+during the representation.&mdash;And can it be supposed, said I,
+that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes&rsquo;
+pockets? The old French officer smiled, and whispering in
+my ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.</p>
+
+<p>Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment&mdash;is it
+possible, that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same
+time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves,&mdash;<i>Quelle
+grossièrté</i>! added I.</p>
+
+<p>The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the
+church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the
+Tartuffe was given in it by Molière: but like other
+remains of Gothic manners, was declining.&mdash;Every nation,
+continued he, have their refinements and <i>grossièrtés</i>, in which they take
+the lead, and lose it of one another by turns:&mdash;that he had
+been in most countries, but never in one where he found not some
+delicacies, which others seemed to want. <i>Le</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">POUR</span> <i>et le</i> <span
+class="GutSmall">CONTRE</span> <i>se trouvent en chaque
+nation</i>; there is a balance, said he, of good and bad
+everywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate
+one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds
+against the other:&mdash;that the advantage of travel, as it
+regarded the <i>sçavoir vivre</i>, was by seeing a great
+deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and
+mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us
+mutual love.</p>
+
+<p>The old French officer delivered this with an air of such
+candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable
+impressions of his character:&mdash;I thought I loved the man;
+but I fear I mistook the object;&mdash;&rsquo;twas my own way of
+thinking&mdash;the difference was, I could not have expressed it
+half so well.</p>
+
+<p>It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his
+beast,&mdash;if the latter goes pricking up his ears, and
+starting all the way at every object which he never saw
+before.&mdash;I have as little torment of this kind as any
+creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a thing
+gave me pain, and that I blush&rsquo;d at many a word the first
+month,&mdash;which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent
+the second.</p>
+
+<p>Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks
+with her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about
+two leagues out of town.&mdash;Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet
+is the most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues
+and purity of heart.&mdash;In our return back, Madame de
+Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord.&mdash;I asked her if she
+wanted anything&mdash;<i>Rien que pour pisser</i>, said Madame de
+Rambouliet.</p>
+
+<p>Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet
+p&mdash;ss on.&mdash;And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one
+<i>pluck your rose</i>, and scatter them in your path,&mdash;for
+Madame de Rambouliet did no more.&mdash;I handed Madame de
+Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest of the
+chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with a
+more respectful decorum.</p>
+
+<h2>THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What</span> the old French officer had
+delivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius&rsquo;s advice to
+his son upon the same subject into my head,&mdash;and that
+bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+works, I stopp&rsquo;d at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to
+purchase the whole set.</p>
+
+<p>The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.
+<i>Comment</i>! said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon
+the counter betwixt us.&mdash;He said they were sent him only to
+be got bound, and were to be sent back to Versailles in the
+morning to the Count de B&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And does the Count de B&mdash;, said I, read
+Shakespeare? <i>C&rsquo;est un esprit fort</i>, replied the
+bookseller.&mdash;He loves English books! and what is more to his
+honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too. You speak this
+so civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an Englishman to
+lay out a louis d&rsquo;or or two at your shop.&mdash;The
+bookseller made a bow, and was going to say something, when a
+young decent girl about twenty, who by her air and dress seemed
+to be <i>fille de chambre</i> to some devout woman of fashion,
+come into the shop and asked for <i>Les Égarements du Cœur
+et de l&rsquo;Esprit</i>: the bookseller gave her the book
+directly; she pulled out a little green satin purse run round
+with a riband of the same colour, and putting her finger and
+thumb into it, she took out the money and paid for it. As I
+had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both walk&rsquo;d out
+at the door together.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with <i>The
+Wanderings of the Heart</i>, who scarce know yet you have one?
+nor, till love has first told you it, or some faithless shepherd
+has made it ache, canst thou ever be sure it is so.&mdash;<i>Le
+Dieu m&rsquo;en garde</i>! said the girl.&mdash;With reason, said
+I, for if it is a good one, &rsquo;tis pity it should be stolen;
+&rsquo;tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a better air to
+your face, than if it was dress&rsquo;d out with pearls.</p>
+
+<p>
+The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her
+satin purse by its riband in her hand all the
+time.&mdash;&rsquo;Tis a very small one, said I, taking hold of
+the bottom of it&mdash;she held it towards me&mdash;and there is
+very little in it, my dear, said I; but be but as good as thou
+art handsome, and heaven will fill it. I had a parcel of
+crowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let go
+the purse entirely, I put a single one in; and, tying up the
+riband in a bow-knot, returned it to her.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low
+one:&mdash;&rsquo;twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings,
+where the spirit bows itself down,&mdash;the body does no more
+than tell it. I never gave a girl a crown in my life which
+gave me half the pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you,
+said I, if I had not given this along with it: but now, when you
+see the crown, you&rsquo;ll remember it;&mdash;so don&rsquo;t, my
+dear, lay it out in ribands.</p>
+
+<p>Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am
+incapable;&mdash;in saying which, as is usual in little bargains
+of honour, she gave me her hand:&mdash;<i>En
+vérité</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>, <i>je mettrai cet
+argent àpart</i>, said she.</p>
+
+<p>When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it
+sanctifies their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was
+dusky, yet as both our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple
+of walking along the Quai de Conti together.</p>
+
+<p>She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we
+got twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done enough
+before, she made a sort of a little stop to tell me
+again&mdash;she thank&rsquo;d me.</p>
+
+<p>It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid
+paying to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had
+been rendering it to for the world;&mdash;but I see innocence, my
+dear, in your face,&mdash;and foul befall the man who ever lays a
+snare in its way!</p>
+
+<p>The girl seem&rsquo;d affected some way or other with what I
+said;&mdash;she gave a low sigh:&mdash;I found I was not
+empowered to enquire at all after it,&mdash;so said nothing more
+till I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, where, we were to
+part.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the
+Hotel de Modene? She told me it was;&mdash;or that I might
+go by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was the next turn.&mdash;Then
+I&rsquo;ll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gueneguault, said I, for
+two reasons; first, I shall please myself, and next, I shall give
+you the protection of my company as far on your way as I
+can. The girl was sensible I was civil&mdash;and said, she
+wished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St.
+Pierre.&mdash;You live there? said I.&mdash;She told me she was
+<i>fille de chambre</i> to Madame R&mdash;.&mdash;Good God! said
+I, &rsquo;tis the very lady for whom I have brought a letter from
+Amiens.&mdash;The girl told me that Madame R&mdash;, she
+believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to
+see him:&mdash;so I desired the girl to present my compliments to
+Madame R&mdash;, and say, I would certainly wait upon her in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this
+pass&rsquo;d.&mdash;We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed
+of her <i>Égarements du Cœur</i>, &amp;c. more commodiously
+than carrying them in her hand&mdash;they were two volumes: so I
+held the second for her whilst she put the first into her pocket;
+and then she held her pocket, and I put in the other after
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our
+affections are drawn together.</p>
+
+<p>We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl
+put her hand within my arm.&mdash;I was just bidding
+her,&mdash;but she did it of herself, with that undeliberating
+simplicity, which show&rsquo;d it was out of her head that she
+had never seen me before. For my own part, I felt the
+conviction of consanguinity so strongly, that I could not help
+turning half round to look in her face, and see if I could trace
+out any thing in it of a family likeness.&mdash;Tut! said I, are
+we not all relations?</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I
+stopp&rsquo;d to bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would
+thank me again for my company and kindness.&mdash;She bid me
+adieu twice.&mdash;I repeated it as often; and so cordial was the
+parting between us, that had it happened any where else,
+I&rsquo;m not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of
+charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.</p>
+
+<p>
+But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,&mdash;I did, what
+amounted to the same thing&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I bid God bless her.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I got home to my hotel, La
+Fleur told me I had been enquired after by the Lieutenant de
+Police.&mdash;The deuce take it! said I,&mdash;I know the
+reason. It is time the reader should know it, for in the
+order of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it
+was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have
+been forgotten now;&mdash;and now is the time I want it.</p>
+
+<p>I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never
+enter&rsquo;d my mind that we were at war with France; and had
+reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyond
+Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its
+train, that there was no getting there without a passport.
+Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion for
+returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one of
+the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less
+bear the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de &mdash;&mdash; had hired
+the packet, I begg&rsquo;d he would take me in his suite.
+The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no
+difficulty,&mdash;only said, his inclination to serve me could
+reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way of
+Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass&rsquo;d there, I
+might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must
+make friends and shift for myself.&mdash;Let me get to Paris,
+Monsieur le Count, said I,&mdash;and I shall do very well.
+So I embark&rsquo;d, and never thought more of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been
+enquiring after me,&mdash;the thing instantly recurred;&mdash;and
+by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel
+came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition
+to it, that my passport had been particularly asked
+after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I
+had one.&mdash;Not I, faith! said I.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from
+an infected person, as I declared this;&mdash;and poor La Fleur
+advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement
+which a good soul makes to succour a distress&rsquo;d
+one:&mdash;the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single
+trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it
+as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven
+years.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mon seigneur</i>! cried the master of the hotel; but
+recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly
+changed the tone of it.&mdash;If Monsieur, said he, has not a
+passport (<i>apparemment</i>) in all likelihood he has friends in
+Paris who can procure him one.&mdash;Not that I know of, quoth I,
+with an air of indifference.&mdash;Then <i>certes</i>, replied
+he, you&rsquo;ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet <i>au
+moins</i>.&mdash;Poo! said I, the King of France is a good
+natur&rsquo;d soul:&mdash;he&rsquo;ll hurt nobody.&mdash;<i>Cela
+n&rsquo;emp&ecirc;che pas</i>, said he&mdash;you will certainly
+be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning.&mdash;But I&rsquo;ve
+taken your lodgings for a month, answer&rsquo;d I, and I&rsquo;ll
+not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France
+in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody
+could oppose the king of France.</p>
+
+<p><i>Pardi</i>! said my host, <i>ces Messieurs Anglois sont des
+gens très extraordinaires</i>;&mdash;and, having both said
+and sworn it,&mdash;he went out.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">THE HOTEL AT PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">could</span> not find in my heart to
+torture La Fleur&rsquo;s with a serious look upon the subject of
+my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so
+cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I
+dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at
+supper, talk&rsquo;d to him with more than usual gaiety about
+Paris, and of the Opéra Comique.&mdash;La Fleur had been
+there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as
+the bookseller&rsquo;s shop; but seeing me come out with
+the young <i>fille de chambre</i>, and that we walk&rsquo;d down
+the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem&rsquo;d it unnecessary
+to follow me a step further;&mdash;so making his own reflections
+upon it, he took a shorter cut,&mdash;and got to the hotel in
+time to be inform&rsquo;d of the affair of the police against my
+arrival.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down
+to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my
+situation.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the
+remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the
+moment I was going to set out:&mdash;I must tell it here.</p>
+
+<p>Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be
+overburden&rsquo;d with money as thought, had drawn me aside to
+interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling
+him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not
+do; so pull&rsquo;d out his purse in order to empty it into
+mine.&mdash;I&rsquo;ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, said
+I.&mdash;Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I know
+France and Italy better than you.&mdash;But you don&rsquo;t
+consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I
+have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do
+something or other for which I shall get clapp&rsquo;d up into
+the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months
+entirely at the king of France&rsquo;s expense.&mdash;I beg
+pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot that
+resource.</p>
+
+<p>Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.</p>
+
+<p>Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or
+pertinacity&mdash;or what is it in me, that, after all, when La
+Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not
+bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then
+spoken of it to Eugenius?</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the
+word.&mdash;Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the
+Bastile is but another word for a tower;&mdash;and a tower is but
+another word for a house you can&rsquo;t get out of.&mdash;Mercy
+on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.&mdash;But with
+nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience,
+albeit a man can&rsquo;t get out, he may do very well
+within,&mdash;at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of
+which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he
+comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.</p>
+
+<p>I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the
+court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I
+walk&rsquo;d down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of
+my reasoning.&mdash;Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I,
+vauntingly&mdash;for I envy not its powers, which paints the
+evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind
+sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and
+blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she
+overlooks them.&mdash;&rsquo;Tis true, said I, correcting the
+proposition,&mdash;the Bastile is not an evil to be
+despised;&mdash;but strip it of its towers&mdash;fill up the
+fosse,&mdash;unbarricade the doors&mdash;call it simply a
+confinement, and suppose &rsquo;tis some tyrant of a
+distemper&mdash;and not of a man, which holds you in
+it,&mdash;the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without
+complaint.</p>
+
+<p>I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a
+voice which I took to be of a child, which complained &ldquo;it
+could not get out.&rdquo;&mdash;I look&rsquo;d up and down the
+passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out
+without farther attention.</p>
+
+<p>In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words
+repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling
+hung in a little cage.&mdash;&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get
+out,&mdash;I can&rsquo;t get out,&rdquo; said the starling.</p>
+
+<p>I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came
+through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which
+they approach&rsquo;d it, with the same lamentation of its
+captivity. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get out,&rdquo; said the
+starling.&mdash;God help thee! said I, but I&rsquo;ll let thee
+out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to the
+door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there
+was no getting it open without pulling the cage to
+pieces.&mdash;I took both hands to it.</p>
+
+<p>The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his
+deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed
+his breast against it as if impatient.&mdash;I fear, poor
+creature! said I, I cannot set thee at
+liberty.&mdash;&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the starling,&mdash;
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get out&mdash;I can&rsquo;t get out,&rdquo;
+said the starling.</p>
+
+<p>
+I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I
+remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to
+which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call&rsquo;d
+home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to
+nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all
+my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked
+upstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.</p>
+
+<p>Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said
+I,&mdash;still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in
+all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter
+on that account.&mdash;&rsquo;Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious
+goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or in
+private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so,
+till Nature herself shall change.&mdash;No <i>tint</i> of words
+can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into
+iron:&mdash;with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the
+swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art
+exiled!&mdash;Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the
+last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great
+Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my
+companion,&mdash;and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good
+unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for
+them!</p>
+
+<h2>THE CAPTIVE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> bird in his cage pursued me
+into my room; I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head
+upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of
+confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave
+full scope to my imagination.</p>
+
+<p>I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures
+born to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however
+affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and
+that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract
+me.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+&mdash;I took a single captive, and having first shut
+him up in his dungeon, I then look&rsquo;d through the twilight
+of his grated door to take his picture.</p>
+
+<p>I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and
+confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was
+which arises from hope deferr&rsquo;d. Upon looking nearer
+I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze
+had not once fann&rsquo;d his blood;&mdash;he had seen no sun, no
+moon, in all that time&mdash;nor had the voice of friend or
+kinsman breathed through his lattice.&mdash;His
+children&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But here my heart began to bleed&mdash;and I was forced to go
+on with another part of the portrait.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the
+furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair
+and bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head,
+notch&rsquo;d all over with the dismal days and nights he had
+passed there;&mdash;he had one of these little sticks in his
+hand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery
+to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had,
+he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it
+down,&mdash;shook his head, and went on with his work of
+affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned
+his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle.&mdash;He gave a
+deep sigh.&mdash;I saw the iron enter into his soul!&mdash;I
+burst into tears.&mdash;I could not sustain the picture of
+confinement which my fancy had drawn.&mdash;I started up from my
+chair, and calling La Fleur: I bid him bespeak me a remise, and
+have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>I&rsquo;ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de
+Choiseul.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur would have put me to bed; but&mdash;not willing he
+should see anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest
+fellow a heart-ache,&mdash;I told him I would go to bed by
+myself,&mdash;and bid him go do the same.</p>
+
+<h2>THE STARLING.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">ROAD TO VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">got</span> into my remise the hour I
+proposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman make the
+best of his way to Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I
+look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than
+with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the
+subject of the last chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the Honourable Mr. &mdash; was waiting for a wind at
+Dover, it had been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well
+fly, by an English lad who was his groom; who, not caring to
+destroy it, had taken it in his breast into the
+packet;&mdash;and, by course of feeding it, and taking it once
+under his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got it
+safe along with him to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the
+starling, and as he had little to do better the five months his
+master staid there, he taught it, in his mother&rsquo;s tongue,
+the four simple words&mdash;(and no more)&mdash;to which I
+own&rsquo;d myself so much its debtor.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his master&rsquo;s going on for Italy, the lad had given
+it to the master of the hotel. But his little song for
+liberty being in an <i>unknown</i> language at Paris, the bird
+had little or no store set by him: so La Fleur bought both him
+and his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy.</p>
+
+<p>In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country
+in whose language he had learned his notes; and telling the story
+of him to Lord A&mdash;, Lord A&mdash; begg&rsquo;d the bird of
+me;&mdash;in a week Lord A&mdash; gave him to Lord B&mdash;; Lord
+B&mdash; made a present of him to Lord C&mdash;; and Lord
+C&mdash;&rsquo;s gentleman sold him to Lord D&mdash;&rsquo;s for
+a shilling; Lord D&mdash; gave him to Lord E&mdash;; and so
+on&mdash;half round the alphabet. From that rank he
+pass&rsquo;d into the lower house, and pass&rsquo;d the hands of
+as many commoners. But as all these wanted to <i>get
+in</i>, and my bird wanted to <i>get out</i>, he had almost as
+little store set by him in London as in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>
+It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and if
+any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform
+them, that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to
+represent him.</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="images/p621b.jpg">
+<img class='floatright' alt=
+"The starling as the crest of arms"
+title=
+"The starling as the crest of arms"
+ src="images/p621s.jpg" />
+</a>I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that
+time to this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my
+arms.&mdash;Thus:</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And let the herald&rsquo;s officers twist his neck
+about if they dare.</p>
+
+<h2>THE ADDRESS.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">should</span> not like to have my enemy
+take a view of my mind when I am going to ask protection of any
+man; for which reason I generally endeavour to protect myself;
+but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C&mdash; was an act of
+compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have done it,
+I suppose, like other people.</p>
+
+<p>How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my
+servile heart form! I deserved the Bastile for every one of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of
+Versailles, but putting words and sentences together, and
+conceiving attitudes and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le
+Duc de C&mdash;&rsquo;s good graces.&mdash;This will do, said
+I.&mdash;Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat carried up to
+him by an adventurous tailor, without taking his measure.
+Fool! continued I,&mdash;see Monsieur le Duc&rsquo;s face
+first;&mdash;observe what character is written in it;&mdash;take
+notice in what posture he stands to hear you;&mdash;mark the
+turns and expressions of his body and limbs;&mdash;and for the
+tone,&mdash;the first sound which comes from his lips will give
+it you; and from all these together you&rsquo;ll compound an
+address at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust the
+Duke;&mdash;the ingredients are his own, and most likely to go
+down.</p>
+
+<p>
+Well! said I, I wish it well over.&mdash;Coward again! as if man to man
+was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if
+in the field&mdash;why not face to face in the cabinet too?
+And trust me, Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to
+himself and betrays his own succours ten times where nature does
+it once. Go to the Duc de C&mdash; with the Bastile in thy
+looks;&mdash;my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to Paris in
+half an hour with an escort.</p>
+
+<p>I believe so, said I.&mdash;Then I&rsquo;ll go to the Duke, by
+heaven! with all the gaiety and debonairness in the
+world.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And there you are wrong again, replied I.&mdash;A heart
+at ease, Yorick, flies into no extremes&mdash;&rsquo;tis ever on
+its centre.&mdash;Well! well! cried I, as the coachman
+turn&rsquo;d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well: and by
+the time he had wheel&rsquo;d round the court, and brought me up
+to the door, I found myself so much the better for my own
+lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim to
+justice, who was to part with life upon the top most,&mdash;nor
+did I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do
+when I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who
+possibly might be the <i>ma&icirc;tre d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>,
+but had more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told me
+the Duc de C&mdash; was busy.&mdash;I am utterly ignorant, said
+I, of the forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolute
+stranger, and what is worse in the present conjuncture of
+affairs, being an Englishman too.&mdash;He replied, that did not
+increase the difficulty.&mdash;I made him a slight bow, and told
+him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le
+Duc. The secretary look&rsquo;d towards the stairs, as if
+he was about to leave me to carry up this account to some
+one.&mdash;But I must not mislead you, said I,&mdash;for what I
+have to say is of no manner of importance to Monsieur le Duc de
+C&mdash; &mdash;but of great importance to
+myself.&mdash;<i>C&rsquo;est une autre affaire</i>, replied
+he.&mdash;Not at all, said I, to a man of gallantry.&mdash;But
+pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger hope to have
+access?&mdash;In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his
+watch. The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to
+justify the calculation, that I could have no nearer a
+prospect;&mdash;and as walking backwards and forwards in the
+saloon, without a soul to commune with, was for the time as bad
+as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back to my
+remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the <i>Cordon Bleu</i>,
+which was the nearest hotel.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is a fatality in it;&mdash;I seldom go to the
+place I set out for.</p>
+
+<h2>LE PATISSIER.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> I had got half way down the
+street I changed my mind: as I am at Versailles, thought I, I
+might as well take a view of the town; so I pull&rsquo;d the
+cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of the
+principal streets.&mdash;I suppose the town is not very large,
+said I.&mdash;The coachman begg&rsquo;d pardon for setting me
+right, and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the
+first dukes and marquises and counts had hotels.&mdash;The Count
+de B&mdash;, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had
+spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my
+mind.&mdash;And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de
+B&mdash;, who has so high an idea of English books and English
+men&mdash;and tell him my story? so I changed my mind a second
+time.&mdash;In truth it was the third; for I had intended that
+day for Madame de R&mdash;, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had
+devoutly sent her word by her <i>fille de chambre</i> that I
+would assuredly wait upon her;&mdash;but I am governed by
+circumstances;&mdash;I cannot govern them: so seeing a man
+standing with a basket on the other side of the street, as if he
+had something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him, and enquire
+for the Count&rsquo;s hotel.</p>
+
+<p>La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a
+Chevalier de St. Louis selling pâtés.&mdash;It is
+impossible, La Fleur, said I.&mdash;La Fleur could no more
+account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his
+story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he
+said, tied to his buttonhole&mdash;and had looked into the basket
+and seen the pâtés which the Chevalier was selling; so could
+not be mistaken in that.</p>
+
+<p>Such a reverse in man&rsquo;s life awakens a better principle
+than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as
+I sat in the remise:&mdash;the more I look&rsquo;d at him, his
+croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my
+brain.&mdash;I got out of the remise, and went towards him.</p>
+
+<p>He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his
+knees, and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast;
+upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his
+croix. His basket of little pâtés was covered
+over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was
+spread at the bottom; and there was a look of
+<i>propreté</i> and neatness throughout, that one might
+have bought his pâtés of him, as much from appetite
+as sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them
+at the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without
+solicitation.</p>
+
+<p>He was about forty-eight;&mdash;of a sedate look, something
+approaching to gravity. I did not wonder.&mdash;I went up
+rather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin,
+and taking one of his pâtés into my hand,&mdash;I
+begg&rsquo;d he would explain the appearance which affected
+me.</p>
+
+<p>He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had
+passed in the service, in which, after spending a small
+patrimony, he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but
+that, at the conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being
+reformed, and the whole corps, with those of some other
+regiments, left without any provision, he found himself in a wide
+world without friends, without a livre,&mdash;and indeed, said
+he, without anything but this,&mdash;(pointing, as he said it, to
+his croix).&mdash;The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished
+the scene with winning my esteem too.</p>
+
+<p>The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his
+generosity could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was
+only his misfortune to be amongst the number. He had a
+little wife, he said, whom he loved, who did the <i>pâtisserie</i>; and added, he felt no
+dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this
+way&mdash;unless Providence had offer&rsquo;d him a better.</p>
+
+<p>It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in
+passing over what happen&rsquo;d to this poor Chevalier of St.
+Louis about nine months after.</p>
+
+<p>It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which
+lead up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of
+numbers, numbers had made the same enquiry which I had
+done.&mdash;He had told them the same story, and always with so
+much modesty and good sense, that it had reach&rsquo;d at last
+the king&rsquo;s ears;&mdash;who, hearing the Chevalier had been
+a gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man
+of honour and integrity,&mdash;he broke up his little trade by a
+pension of fifteen hundred livres a year.</p>
+
+<p>As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow
+me to relate another, out of its order, to please
+myself:&mdash;the two stories reflect light upon each
+other,&mdash;and &rsquo;tis a pity they should be parted.</p>
+
+<h2>THE SWORD.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">RENNES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> states and empires have their
+periods of declension, and feel in their turns what distress and
+poverty is,&mdash;I stop not to tell the causes which gradually
+brought the house d&rsquo;E&mdash;, in Brittany, into
+decay. The Marquis d&rsquo;E&mdash; had fought up against
+his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still
+show to the world, some little fragments of what his ancestors
+had been;&mdash;their indiscretions had put it out of his
+power. There was enough left for the little exigencies of
+<i>obscurity</i>.&mdash;But he had two boys who looked up to him
+for <i>light</i>;&mdash;he thought they deserved it. He had
+tried his sword&mdash;it could not open the way,&mdash;the
+<i>mounting</i> was too expensive,&mdash;and simple economy was
+not a match for it:&mdash;there was no resource but commerce.</p>
+
+<p>
+In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting the
+root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection
+wish&rsquo;d to see re-blossom.&mdash;But in Brittany, there
+being a provision for this, he avail&rsquo;d himself of it; and,
+taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the
+Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; and
+having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which,
+though seldom claim&rsquo;d, he said, was no less in force, he
+took his sword from his side:&mdash;Here, said he, take it; and
+be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in condition
+to reclaim it.</p>
+
+<p>The president accepted the Marquis&rsquo;s sword: he staid a
+few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his
+house&mdash;and departed.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for
+Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful
+application to business, with some unlook&rsquo;d for bequests
+from distant branches of his house, return home to reclaim his
+nobility, and to support it.</p>
+
+<p>It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to
+any traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes
+at the very time of this solemn requisition: I call it
+solemn;&mdash;it was so to me.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he
+supported his lady,&mdash;his eldest son supported his sister,
+and his youngest was at the other extreme of the line next his
+mother;&mdash;he put his handkerchief to his face
+twice.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;There was a dead silence. When the Marquis had
+approached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the
+Marchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before
+his family,&mdash;he reclaim&rsquo;d his sword. His sword
+was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it
+almost out of the scabbard:&mdash;&rsquo;twas the shining face of
+a friend he had once given up&mdash;he look&rsquo;d attentively
+along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the
+same,&mdash;when, observing a little rust which it had contracted
+near the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his head
+down over it,&mdash;I think&mdash;I saw a tear fall upon the
+place. I could not be deceived by what followed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall find,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;some <i>other
+way</i> to get it off.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its
+scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it,&mdash;and, with his
+wife and daughter, and his two sons following him, walk&rsquo;d
+out.</p>
+
+<p>O, how I envied him his feelings!</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">found</span> no difficulty in getting
+admittance to Monsieur le Count de B&mdash;. The set of
+Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them
+over. I walk&rsquo;d up close to the table, and giving
+first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew
+what they were,&mdash;I told him I had come without any one to
+present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment,
+who, I trusted, would do it for me:&mdash;it is my countryman,
+the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works&mdash;<i>et
+ayez la bonté</i>, <i>mon cher ami</i>, apostrophizing his
+spirit, added I, <i>de me faire cet
+honneur-là</i>.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and
+seeing I look&rsquo;d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my
+taking an arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures
+upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the
+incident in the bookseller&rsquo;s shop, and how that had
+impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little
+embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in
+France.&mdash;And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it,
+said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have told
+it the reader.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it,
+will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to
+the Bastile;&mdash;but I have no apprehensions, continued
+I;&mdash;for, in falling into the hands of the most
+polish&rsquo;d people in the world, and being conscious I was a
+true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce
+thought I lay at their mercy.&mdash;It does not suit the
+gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it
+against invalids.</p>
+
+<p>
+An animated blush came into the Count de B&mdash;&rsquo;s cheeks as
+I spoke this.&mdash;<i>Ne craignez rien</i>&mdash;Don&rsquo;t
+fear, said he.&mdash;Indeed, I don&rsquo;t, replied I
+again.&mdash;Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have
+come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not
+think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to
+send me back crying for my pains.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B&mdash;
+(making him a low bow), is to desire he will not.</p>
+
+<p>The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said
+half as much,&mdash;and once or twice said,&mdash;<i>C&rsquo;est
+bien dit</i>. So I rested my cause there&mdash;and
+determined to say no more about it.</p>
+
+<p>The Count led the discourse: we talk&rsquo;d of indifferent
+things,&mdash;of books, and politics, and men;&mdash;and then of
+women.&mdash;God bless them all! said I, after much discourse
+about them&mdash;there is not a man upon earth who loves them so
+much as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all the
+satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly
+persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for the
+whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he
+ought.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eh bien</i>! <i>Monsieur l&rsquo;Anglois</i>, said
+the Count, gaily;&mdash;you are not come to spy the nakedness of
+the land;&mdash;I believe you;&mdash;<i>ni encore</i>, I dare
+say, <i>that</i> of our women!&mdash;But permit me to
+conjecture,&mdash;if, <i>par hazard</i>, they fell into your way,
+that the prospect would not affect you.</p>
+
+<p>I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the
+least indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I
+have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have
+hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex
+together,&mdash;the least of which I could not venture to a
+single one to gain heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I;&mdash;as for the
+nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over
+it with tears in them;&mdash;and for that of your women (blushing
+at the idea he had excited in me) I am so evangelical in this,
+and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak about them,
+that I would cover it with a garment if I knew how to throw it
+on:&mdash;But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of
+their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs,
+climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion
+my own by:&mdash;and therefore am I come.</p>
+
+<p>It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I
+have not seen the Palais Royal,&mdash;nor the
+Luxembourg,&mdash;nor the Façade of the Louvre,&mdash;nor
+have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures,
+statues, and churches.&mdash;I conceive every fair being as a
+temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings
+and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of
+Raphael itself.</p>
+
+<p>The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which
+inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own
+home into France,&mdash;and from France will lead me through
+Italy;&mdash;&rsquo;tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit
+of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which
+make us love each other,&mdash;and the world, better than we
+do.</p>
+
+<p>The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the
+occasion; and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to
+Shakespeare for making me known to him.&mdash;But <i>à
+propos</i>, said he;&mdash;Shakespeare is full of great
+things;&mdash;he forgot a small punctilio of announcing your
+name:&mdash;it puts you under a necessity of doing it
+yourself.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is not a more perplexing
+affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I
+am,&mdash;for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better
+account of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it in
+a single word,&mdash;and have an end of it. It was the only
+time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to any
+purpose;&mdash;for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
+recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
+immediately to the grave-diggers&rsquo; scene in the fifth act, I
+laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
+finger all the way over the name,&mdash;<i>Me voici</i>! said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick&rsquo;s skull was put out
+of the Count&rsquo;s mind by the reality of my own, or by what
+magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years,
+makes nothing in this account;&mdash;&rsquo;tis certain the
+French conceive better than they combine;&mdash;I wonder at
+nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of
+the first of our own Church, for whose candour and paternal
+sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same
+mistake in the very same case:&mdash;&ldquo;He could not
+bear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to look into the sermons wrote by
+the King of Denmark&rsquo;s jester.&rdquo; Good, my Lord
+said I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your Lordship
+thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago; he
+flourished in Horwendillus&rsquo;s court;&mdash;the other Yorick
+is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.&mdash;He
+shook his head. Good God! said I, you might as well
+confound Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my
+lord!&mdash;&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas all one,&rdquo; he
+replied.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated
+your Lordship, said I, I&rsquo;m sure your Lordship would not
+have said so.</p>
+
+<p>The poor Count de B&mdash; fell but into the same
+<i>error</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Et</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>, <i>est-il Yorick</i>? cried
+the Count.&mdash;<i>Je le suis</i>, said
+I.&mdash;<i>Vous</i>?&mdash;<i>Moi</i>,&mdash;<i>moi qui ai
+l&rsquo;honneur de vous parler</i>, <i>Monsieur le
+Comte</i>.&mdash;<i>Mon Dieu</i>! said he, embracing
+me,&mdash;<i>Vous &ecirc;tes Yorick</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and
+left me alone in his room.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">could</span> not conceive why the Count
+de B&mdash; had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than I
+could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into his
+pocket.&mdash;<i>Mysteries which must explain themselves are not
+worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes
+up</i>: &rsquo;twas better to read Shakespeare; so taking up
+&ldquo;<i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>,&rdquo; I transported myself
+instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got
+so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I
+thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet pliability of man&rsquo;s spirit, that can at once
+surrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow
+of their weary moments!&mdash;Long,&mdash;long since had ye
+number&rsquo;d out my days, had I not trod so great a part of
+them upon this enchanted ground. When my way is too rough
+for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some
+smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebuds
+of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back
+strengthened and refresh&rsquo;d.&mdash;When evils press sore
+upon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I
+take a new course;&mdash;I leave it,&mdash;and as I have a
+clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force
+myself, like &AElig;neas, into them.&mdash;I see him meet the
+pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to recognise
+it;&mdash;I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off
+silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;&mdash;I
+lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections
+which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at
+school.</p>
+
+<p><i>Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow&mdash;nor does
+man disquiet himself</i> in vain <i>by it</i>:&mdash;he oftener
+does so in trusting the issue of his commotions to reason
+only.&mdash;I can safely say for myself, I was never able to
+conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively,
+as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle
+sensation to fight it upon its own ground.</p>
+
+<p>When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de
+B&mdash; entered, with my passport in his hand. Monsieur le
+Duc de C&mdash;, said the Count, is as good a prophet, I dare
+say, as he is a statesman. <i>Un homme qui rit</i>, said
+the Duke, <i>ne sera jamais dangereux</i>.&mdash;Had it been for
+any one but the king&rsquo;s jester, added the Count, I could not
+have got it these two hours.&mdash;<i>Pardonnez moi</i>, Monsieur
+le Count, said I&mdash;I am not the king&rsquo;s
+jester.&mdash;But you are Yorick?&mdash;Yes.&mdash;<i>Et
+vous plaisantez</i>?&mdash;I answered, Indeed I did
+jest,&mdash;but was not paid for it;&mdash;&rsquo;twas entirely
+at my own expense.</p>
+
+<p>We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the
+last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles
+II.;&mdash;since which time our manners have been so gradually
+refining, that our court at present is so full of patriots, who
+wish for <i>nothing</i> but the honours and wealth of their
+country;&mdash;and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so
+good, so devout,&mdash;there is nothing for a jester to make a
+jest of.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Voilà un persiflage</i>! cried the Count.</p>
+
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> the passport was directed to all
+lieutenant-governors, governors, and commandants of cities,
+generals of armies, justiciaries, and all officers of justice, to
+let Mr. Yorick the king&rsquo;s jester, and his baggage, travel
+quietly along, I own the triumph of obtaining the passport was
+not a little tarnish&rsquo;d by the figure I cut in it.&mdash;But
+there is nothing unmix&rsquo;d in this world; and some of the
+gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that
+enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh,&mdash;and that
+the greatest <i>they knew of</i> terminated, <i>in a general
+way</i>, in little better than a convulsion.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his
+Commentary upon the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks
+off in the middle of a note to give an account to the world of a
+couple of sparrows upon the out-edge of his window, which had
+incommoded him all the time he wrote, and at last had entirely
+taken him off from his genealogy.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&rsquo;Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts
+are certain, for I have had the curiosity to mark them down one
+by one with my pen;&mdash;but the cock sparrow, during the little
+time that I could have finished the other half of this note,
+has actually interrupted me with the reiteration of his caresses
+three-and-twenty times and a half.</p>
+
+<p>How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his
+creatures!</p>
+
+<p>Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be
+able to write that to the world, which stains thy face with
+crimson to copy, even in thy study.</p>
+
+<p>But this is nothing to my travels.&mdash;So I
+twice,&mdash;twice beg pardon for it.</p>
+
+<h2>CHARACTER.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">VERSAILLES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> how do you find the French?
+said the Count de B&mdash;, after he had given me the
+passport.</p>
+
+<p>The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of
+courtesy, I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to
+the enquiry.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>Mais passe</i>, <i>pour cela</i>.&mdash;Speak
+frankly, said he: do you find all the urbanity in the French
+which the world give us the honour of?&mdash;I had found every
+thing, I said, which confirmed it.&mdash;<i>Vraiment</i>, said
+the Count, <i>les François sont polis</i>.&mdash;To an
+excess, replied I.</p>
+
+<p>The Count took notice of the word <i>excès</i>; and
+would have it I meant more than I said. I defended myself a
+long time as well as I could against it.&mdash;He insisted I had
+a reserve, and that I would speak my opinion frankly.</p>
+
+<p>I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain
+compass, as well as an instrument; and that the social and other
+calls have occasion by turns for every key in him; so that if you
+begin a note too high or too low, there must be a want either in
+the upper or under part, to fill up the system of
+harmony.&mdash;The Count de B&mdash; did not understand music, so
+desired me to explain it some other way. A polish&rsquo;d
+nation, my dear Count, said I, makes every one its debtor: and
+besides, Urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many charms,
+it goes against the heart to say it can do ill; and yet, I
+believe, there is but a certain line of perfection, that man,
+take him altogether, is empower&rsquo;d to arrive at:&mdash;if
+he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets
+them. I must not presume to say how far this has affected
+the French in the subject we are speaking of;&mdash;but, should
+it ever be the case of the English, in the progress of their
+refinements, to arrive at the same polish which distinguishes the
+French, if we did not lose the <i>politesse du cœur</i>,
+which inclines men more to humane actions than courteous
+ones,&mdash;we should at least lose that distinct variety and
+originality of character, which distinguishes them, not only from
+each other, but from all the world besides.</p>
+
+<p>I had a few of King William&rsquo;s shillings, as smooth as
+glass, in my pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the
+illustration of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I
+had proceeded so far:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them
+before him upon the table,&mdash;by jingling and rubbing one
+against another for seventy years together in one body&rsquo;s
+pocket or another&rsquo;s, they are become so much alike, you can
+scarce distinguish one shilling from another.</p>
+
+<p>The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing
+but few people&rsquo;s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses
+which the fine hand of Nature has given them;&mdash;they are not
+so pleasant to feel,&mdash;but in return the legend is so
+visible, that at the first look you see whose image and
+superscription they bear.&mdash;But the French, Monsieur le
+Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said), have so many
+excellences, they can the better spare this;&mdash;they are a
+loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good
+temper&rsquo;d people as is under heaven;&mdash;if they have a
+fault&mdash;they are too <i>serious</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mais vous plaisantez</i>, said he, correcting his
+exclamation.&mdash;I laid my hand upon my breast, and with
+earnest gravity assured him it was my most settled opinion.</p>
+
+<p>The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my
+reasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de
+C&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your
+soup with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the
+pleasure of knowing you retract your opinion,&mdash;or, in what manner
+you support it.&mdash;But, if you do support it, Monsieur
+Anglois, said he, you must do it with all your powers, because
+you have the whole world against you.&mdash;I promised the Count
+I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set out
+for Italy;&mdash;so took my leave.</p>
+
+<h2>THE TEMPTATION.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I alighted at the hotel, the
+porter told me a young woman with a bandbox had been that moment
+enquiring for me.&mdash;I do not know, said the porter, whether
+she is gone away or not. I took the key of my chamber of
+him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten steps of
+the top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easily
+down.</p>
+
+<p>It was the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> I had walked along the
+Quai de Conti with; Madame de R&mdash; had sent her upon some
+commission to a <i>marchande des modes</i> within a step or two
+of the H&ocirc;tel de Modene; and as I had fail&rsquo;d in
+waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris; and if
+so, whether I had not left a letter addressed to her.</p>
+
+<p>As the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> was so near my door, she
+returned back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two
+whilst I wrote a card.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of
+May,&mdash;the crimson window curtains (which were of the same
+colour as those of the bed) were drawn close:&mdash;the sun was
+setting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair
+<i>fille de chambre&rsquo;s</i> face,&mdash;I thought she
+blush&rsquo;d;&mdash;the idea of it made me blush
+myself:&mdash;we were quite alone; and that superinduced a second
+blush before the first could get off.</p>
+
+<p>There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the
+blood is more in fault than the man:&mdash;&rsquo;tis sent
+impetuous from the heart, and virtue flies after it,&mdash;not to
+call it back, but to make the sensation of it more delicious to
+the nerves:&mdash;&rsquo;tis associated.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+But I&rsquo;ll not describe it;&mdash;I felt something at first
+within me which was not in strict unison with the lesson of
+virtue I had given her the night before.&mdash;I sought five
+minutes for a card;&mdash;I knew I had not one.&mdash;I took up a
+pen.&mdash;I laid it down again;&mdash;my hand
+trembled:&mdash;the devil was in me.</p>
+
+<p>I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we
+resist, he will fly from us;&mdash;but I seldom resist him at
+all; from a terror, though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt
+in the combat;&mdash;so I give up the triumph for security; and,
+instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.</p>
+
+<p>The fair <i>fille de chambre</i> came close up to the bureau
+where I was looking for a card&mdash;took up first the pen I cast
+down, then offer&rsquo;d to hold me the ink; she offer&rsquo;d it
+so sweetly, I was going to accept it;&mdash;but I durst
+not;&mdash;I have nothing, my dear, said I, to write
+upon.&mdash;Write it, said she, simply, upon anything.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl!
+upon thy lips.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>If I do, said I, I shall perish;&mdash;so I took her by the
+hand, and led her to the door, and begg&rsquo;d she would not
+forget the lesson I had given her.&mdash;She said, indeed she
+would not;&mdash;and, as she uttered it with some earnestness,
+she turn&rsquo;d about, and gave me both her hands, closed
+together, into mine;&mdash;it was impossible not to compress them
+in that situation;&mdash;I wish&rsquo;d to let them go; and all
+the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against
+it,&mdash;and still I held them on.&mdash;In two minutes I found
+I had all the battle to fight over again;&mdash;and I felt my
+legs and every limb about me tremble at the idea.</p>
+
+<p>The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place
+where we were standing.&mdash;I had still hold of her
+hands&mdash;and how it happened I can give no account; but I
+neither ask&rsquo;d her&mdash;nor drew her&mdash;nor did I think
+of the bed;&mdash;but so it did happen, we both sat down.</p>
+
+<p>I&rsquo;ll just show you, said the fair <i>fille de
+chambre</i>, the little purse I have been making to-day to hold
+your crown. So she put her hand into her right pocket,
+which was next me, and felt for it some time&mdash;then into the
+left.&mdash;&ldquo;She had lost it.&rdquo;&mdash;I
+never bore expectation more quietly;&mdash;it was in her right
+pocket at last;&mdash;she pull&rsquo;d it out; it was of green
+taffeta, lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and just
+big enough to hold the crown: she put it into my hand;&mdash;it
+was pretty; and I held it ten minutes with the back of my hand
+resting upon her lap&mdash;looking sometimes at the purse,
+sometimes on one side of it.</p>
+
+<p>A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the
+fair <i>fille de chambre</i>, without saying a word, took out her
+little housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew&rsquo;d it
+up.&mdash;I foresaw it would hazard the glory of the day; and, as
+she pass&rsquo;d her hand in silence across and across my neck in
+the manœuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy had
+wreath&rsquo;d about my head.</p>
+
+<p>A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe
+was just falling off.&mdash;See, said the <i>fille de
+chambre</i>, holding up her foot.&mdash;I could not, for my soul
+but fasten the buckle in return, and putting in the
+strap,&mdash;and lifting up the other foot with it, when I had
+done, to see both were right,&mdash;in doing it too suddenly, it
+unavoidably threw the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> off her
+centre,&mdash;and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<h2>THE CONQUEST.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Yes</span>,&mdash;and then&mdash;.
+Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or
+mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should
+have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father of
+spirits but for his conduct under them?</p>
+
+<p>If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads
+of love and desire are entangled with the piece,&mdash;must the
+whole web be rent in drawing them out?&mdash;Whip me such stoics,
+great Governor of Nature! said I to myself:&mdash;wherever thy
+providence shall place me for the trials of my
+virtue;&mdash;whatever is my danger,&mdash;whatever is my
+situation,&mdash;let me feel the movements which rise out of it,
+and which belong to me as a man,&mdash;and, if I govern them
+as a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou
+hast made us, and not we ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>As I finished my address, I raised the fair <i>fille de
+chambre</i> up by the hand, and led her out of the
+room:&mdash;she stood by me till I locked the door and put the
+key in my pocket,&mdash;and then,&mdash;the victory being quite
+decisive&mdash;and not till then, I press&rsquo;d my lips to her
+cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate
+of the hotel.</p>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTERY.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go
+back instantly to my chamber;&mdash;it was touching a cold key
+with a flat third to it upon the close of a piece of music, which
+had call&rsquo;d forth my affections:&mdash;therefore, when I let
+go the hand of the <i>fille de chambre</i>, I remained at the
+gate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one who
+pass&rsquo;d by,&mdash;and forming conjectures upon them, till my
+attention got fix&rsquo;d upon a single object which confounded
+all kind of reasoning upon him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look,
+which passed and repass&rsquo;d sedately along the street, making
+a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the
+hotel;&mdash;the man was about fifty-two&mdash;had a small cane
+under his arm&mdash;was dress&rsquo;d in a dark
+drab-colour&rsquo;d coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which
+seem&rsquo;d to have seen some years service:&mdash;they were
+still clean, and there was a little air of frugal
+<i>propreté</i> throughout him. By his pulling off
+his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I
+saw he was asking charity: so I got a sous or two out of my
+pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn.&mdash;He
+pass&rsquo;d by me without asking anything&mdash;and yet did not
+go five steps further before he ask&rsquo;d charity of a little
+woman.&mdash;I was much more likely to have given of the
+two.&mdash;He had scarce done with the woman, when he
+pull&rsquo;d off his hat to another who was coming the same
+way.&mdash;An ancient gentleman came slowly&mdash;and, after
+him, a young smart one.&mdash;He let them both pass, and
+ask&rsquo;d nothing. I stood observing him half an hour, in
+which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and
+found that he invariably pursued the same plan.</p>
+
+<p>There were two things very singular in this, which set my
+brain to work, and to no purpose:&mdash;the first was, why the
+man should <i>only</i> tell his story to the sex;&mdash;and,
+secondly,&mdash;what kind of story it was, and what species of
+eloquence it could be, which soften&rsquo;d the hearts of the
+women, which he knew &rsquo;twas to no purpose to practise upon
+the men.</p>
+
+<p>There were two other circumstances, which entangled this
+mystery;&mdash;the one was, he told every woman what he had to
+say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of a
+secret than a petition;&mdash;the other was, it was always
+successful.&mdash;He never stopp&rsquo;d a woman, but she
+pull&rsquo;d out her purse, and immediately gave him
+something.</p>
+
+<p>I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so
+I walk&rsquo;d upstairs to my chamber.</p>
+
+<h2>THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">was</span> immediately followed up by
+the master of the hotel, who came into my room to tell me I must
+provide lodgings elsewhere.&mdash;How so, friend? said
+I.&mdash;He answered, I had had a young woman lock&rsquo;d up
+with me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and &rsquo;twas
+against the rules of his house.&mdash;Very well, said I,
+we&rsquo;ll all part friends then,&mdash;for the girl is no
+worse,&mdash;and I am no worse,&mdash;and you will be just as I
+found you.&mdash;It was enough, he said, to overthrow the credit
+of his hotel.&mdash;<i>Voyez vous</i>, Monsieur, said he,
+pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon.&mdash;I
+own it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my
+pride not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted
+him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do
+that night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had
+twenty girls&mdash;&rsquo;Tis a score more, replied I,
+interrupting him, than I ever reckon&rsquo;d upon&mdash;Provided,
+added he, it had been but in a morning.&mdash;And does the
+difference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference in
+the sin?&mdash;It made a difference, he said, in the
+scandal.&mdash;I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannot
+say I was intolerably out of temper with the man.&mdash;I own it
+is necessary, resumed the master of the hotel, that a stranger at
+Paris should have the opportunities presented to him of buying
+lace and silk stockings and ruffles, <i>et tout
+cela</i>;&mdash;and &rsquo;tis nothing if a woman comes with a
+band-box.&mdash;O, my conscience! said I, she had one but I never
+look&rsquo;d into it.&mdash;Then Monsieur, said he, has bought
+nothing?&mdash;Not one earthly thing, replied I.&mdash;Because,
+said he, I could recommend one to you who would use you <i>en
+conscience</i>.&mdash;But I must see her this night, said
+I.&mdash;He made me a low bow, and walk&rsquo;d down.</p>
+
+<p>Now shall I triumph over this <i>ma&icirc;tre
+d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>, cried I,&mdash;and what then? Then
+I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.&mdash;And what
+then? What then?&mdash;I was too near myself to say it was
+for the sake of others.&mdash;I had no good answer
+left;&mdash;there was more of spleen than principle in my
+project, and I was sick of it before the execution.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of
+lace.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll buy nothing, however, said I, within
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The grisette would show me everything.&mdash;I was hard to
+please: she would not seem to see it; she opened her little
+magazine, and laid all her laces one after another before
+me;&mdash;unfolded and folded them up again one by one with the
+most patient sweetness.&mdash;I might buy,&mdash;or
+not;&mdash;she would let me have everything at my own
+price:&mdash;the poor creature seem&rsquo;d anxious to get a
+penny; and laid herself out to win me, and not so much in a
+manner which seem&rsquo;d artful, as in one I felt simple and
+caressing.</p>
+
+<p>If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much
+the worse;&mdash;my heart relented, and I gave up my second
+resolution as quietly as the first.&mdash;Why should I chastise
+one for the trespass of another? If thou art tributary to
+this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking up in her face, so
+much harder is thy bread.</p>
+
+<p>If I had not had more than four louis d&rsquo;ors in my purse,
+there was no such thing as rising up and showing her the door,
+till I had first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The master of the hotel will share the profit with
+her;&mdash;no matter,&mdash;then I have only paid as many a poor
+soul has <i>paid</i> before me, for an act he <i>could</i> not
+do, or think of.</p>
+
+<h2>THE RIDDLE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> La Fleur came up to wait upon
+me at supper, he told me how sorry the master of the hotel was
+for his affront to me in bidding me change my lodgings.</p>
+
+<p>A man who values a good night&rsquo;s rest will not lie down
+with enmity in his heart, if he can help it.&mdash;So I bid La
+Fleur tell the master of the hotel, that I was sorry on my side
+for the occasion I had given him;&mdash;and you may tell him, if
+you will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should call
+again, I shall not see her.</p>
+
+<p>This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved,
+after so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave
+Paris, if it was possible, with all the virtue I enter&rsquo;d
+it.</p>
+
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est déroger à noblesse</i>,
+<i>Monsieur</i>, said La Fleur, making me a bow down to the
+ground as he said it.&mdash;<i>Et encore</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>,
+said he, may change his sentiments;&mdash;and if (<i>par
+hazard</i>) he should like to amuse himself,&mdash;I find no
+amusement in it, said I, interrupting him.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said La Fleur,&mdash;and took away.</p>
+
+<p>In an hour&rsquo;s time he came to put me to bed, and was more
+than commonly officious:&mdash;something hung upon his lips to
+say to me, or ask me, which he could not get off: I could not
+conceive what it was, and indeed gave myself little trouble to
+find it out, as I had another riddle so much more interesting upon my
+mind, which was that of the man&rsquo;s asking charity before the
+door of the hotel.&mdash;I would have given anything to have got
+to the bottom of it; and that, not out of
+curiosity,&mdash;&rsquo;tis so low a principle of enquiry, in
+general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with a
+two-sous piece;&mdash;but a secret, I thought, which so soon and
+so certainly soften&rsquo;d the heart of every woman you came
+near, was a secret at least equal to the philosopher&rsquo;s
+stone; had I both the Indies, I would have given up one to have
+been master of it.</p>
+
+<p>I toss&rsquo;d and turn&rsquo;d it almost all night long in my
+brains to no manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning,
+I found my spirits as much troubled with my dreams, as ever the
+King of Babylon had been with his; and I will not hesitate to
+affirm, it would have puzzled all the wise men of Paris as much
+as those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.</p>
+
+<h2>LE DIMANCHE.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was Sunday; and when La Fleur
+came in, in the morning, with my coffee and roll and butter, he
+had got himself so gallantly array&rsquo;d, I scarce knew
+him.</p>
+
+<p>I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a
+silver button and loop, and four louis d&rsquo;ors, <i>pour
+s&rsquo;adoniser</i>, when we got to Paris; and the poor fellow,
+to do him justice, had done wonders with it.</p>
+
+<p>He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair
+of breeches of the same.&mdash;They were not a crown worse, he
+said, for the wearing.&mdash;I wish&rsquo;d him hang&rsquo;d for
+telling me.&mdash;They look&rsquo;d so fresh, that though I knew
+the thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon
+my fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, than
+that they had come out of the Rue de Friperie.</p>
+
+<p>This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.</p>
+
+<p>
+He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat,
+fancifully enough embroidered:&mdash;this was indeed something
+the worse for the service it had done, but &rsquo;twas clean
+scour&rsquo;d;&mdash;the gold had been touch&rsquo;d up, and upon
+the whole was rather showy than otherwise;&mdash;and as the blue
+was not violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well:
+he had squeez&rsquo;d out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a
+solitaire; and had insisted with the <i>fripier</i> upon a gold
+pair of garters to his breeches knees.&mdash;He had purchased
+muslin ruffles, <i>bien brodées</i>, with four livres of
+his own money;&mdash;and a pair of white silk stockings for five
+more;&mdash;and to top all, nature had given him a handsome
+figure, without costing him a sous.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the
+first style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.&mdash;In
+a word, there was that look of festivity in everything about him,
+which at once put me in mind it was Sunday;&mdash;and, by
+combining both together, it instantly struck me, that the favour
+he wish&rsquo;d to ask of me the night before, was to spend the
+day as every body in Paris spent it besides. I had scarce
+made the conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but
+with a look of trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg&rsquo;d
+I would grant him the day, <i>pour faire le galant
+vis-à-vis de sa ma&icirc;tresse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself
+vis-à-vis Madame de R&mdash;.&mdash;I had retained the
+remise on purpose for it, and it would not have mortified my
+vanity to have had a servant so well dress&rsquo;d as La Fleur
+was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse spared
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But we must <i>feel</i>, not argue in these
+embarrassments.&mdash;The sons and daughters of Service part with
+liberty, but not with nature, in their contracts; they are flesh
+and blood, and have their little vanities and wishes in the midst
+of the house of bondage, as well as their task-masters;&mdash;no
+doubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,&mdash;and
+their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would often
+disappoint them, but that their condition puts it so much in my
+power to do it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Behold</i>,&mdash;<i>Behold</i>, <i>I am thy
+servant</i>&mdash;disarms me at once of the powers of a
+master.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have
+picked up in so little a time at Paris? La Fleur laid his
+hand upon his breast, and said &rsquo;twas a <i>petite
+demoiselle</i>, at Monsieur le Count de
+B&mdash;&rsquo;s.&mdash;La Fleur had a heart made for society;
+and, to speak the truth of him, let as few occasions slip him as
+his master;&mdash;so that somehow or other,&mdash;but
+how,&mdash;heaven knows,&mdash;he had connected himself with the
+demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during the time I
+was taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough for
+me to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived to
+make it do to win the maid to his. The family, it seems,
+was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a party with her,
+and two or three more of the Count&rsquo;s household, upon the
+boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down
+all your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the
+weights of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations
+to the earth.</p>
+
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">La Fleur</span> had left me something to
+amuse myself with for the day more than I had bargain&rsquo;d
+for, or could have enter&rsquo;d either into his head or
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf:
+and as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it,
+he had begg&rsquo;d a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the
+currant leaf and his hand.&mdash;As that was plate sufficient, I
+bade him lay it upon the table as it was; and as I resolved to
+stay within all day, I ordered him to call upon the
+<i>tra&icirc;teur</i>, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to
+breakfast by myself.</p>
+
+<p>When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out
+of the window, and was going to do the same by the waste
+paper;&mdash;but stopping to read a line first, and that drawing
+me on to a second and third,&mdash;I thought it better
+worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up to it, I sat
+down to read it.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the old French of Rabelais&rsquo;s time, and for
+aught I know might have been wrote by him:&mdash;it was moreover
+in a Gothic letter, and that so faded and gone off by damps and
+length of time, it cost me infinite trouble to make anything of
+it.&mdash;I threw it down; and then wrote a letter to
+Eugenius;&mdash;then I took it up again, and embroiled my
+patience with it afresh;&mdash;and then to cure that, I wrote a
+letter to Eliza.&mdash;Still it kept hold of me; and the
+difficulty of understanding it increased but the desire.</p>
+
+<p>I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a
+bottle of Burgundy; I at it again,&mdash;and, after two or three
+hours poring upon it, with almost as deep attention as ever
+Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a nonsensical inscription, I
+thought I made sense of it; but to make sure of it, the best way,
+I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how it would
+look then;&mdash;so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,
+sometimes writing a sentence,&mdash;then taking a turn or
+two,&mdash;and then looking how the world went, out of the
+window; so that it was nine o&rsquo;clock at night before I had
+done it.&mdash;I then began and read it as follows.</p>
+
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Now</span>, as the notary&rsquo;s
+wife disputed the point with the notary with too much
+heat,&mdash;I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the
+parchment) that there was another notary here only to set down
+and attest all this.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising
+hastily up.&mdash;The notary&rsquo;s wife was a little fume of a
+woman, and the notary thought it well to avoid a hurricane by a
+mild reply.&mdash;I would go, answered he, to bed.&mdash;You may
+go to the devil, answer&rsquo;d the notary&rsquo;s wife.</p>
+
+<p>Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other
+two rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the
+notary not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but
+that moment sent him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his
+hat and cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and
+walk&rsquo;d out, ill at ease, towards the Pont Neuf.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who
+have pass&rsquo;d over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the
+noblest,&mdash;the finest,&mdash;the grandest,&mdash;the
+lightest,&mdash;the longest,&mdash;the broadest, that ever
+conjoin&rsquo;d land and land together upon the face of the
+terraqueous globe.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">[<i>By this it seems as if the
+author of the fragment had not been a Frenchman</i>.]</p>
+
+<p>The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne
+can allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind
+in or about Paris, &rsquo;tis more blasphemously <i>sacre
+Dieu&rsquo;d</i> there than in any other aperture of the whole
+city,&mdash;and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for it
+comes against you without crying <i>garde d&rsquo;eau</i>, and
+with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with
+their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a
+half, which is its full worth.</p>
+
+<p>The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry,
+instinctively clapp&rsquo;d his cane to the side of it, but in
+raising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of
+the sentinel&rsquo;s hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the
+ballustrade clear into the Seine.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&rsquo;<i>Tis an ill wind</i>, said a boatman, who
+catched it, <i>which blows nobody any good</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his
+whiskers, and levell&rsquo;d his arquebuss.</p>
+
+<p>Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old
+woman&rsquo;s paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to
+be blown out, she had borrow&rsquo;d the sentry&rsquo;s match to
+light it:&mdash;it gave a moment&rsquo;s time for the
+Gascon&rsquo;s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to
+his advantage.&mdash;&rsquo;<i>Tis an ill wind</i>, said he,
+catching off the notary&rsquo;s castor, and legitimating the
+capture with the boatman&rsquo;s adage.</p>
+
+<p>The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de
+Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as
+he walked along in this manner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of
+hurricanes all my days:&mdash;to be born to have the storm of ill
+language levell&rsquo;d against me and my profession wherever I
+go; to be forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a
+tempest of a woman;&mdash;to be driven forth out of my house by
+domestic winds, and despoil&rsquo;d of my castor by pontific
+ones!&mdash;to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the
+mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!&mdash;Where am I to lay
+my head?&mdash;Miserable man! what wind in the two-and-thirty
+points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it does to the
+rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?</p>
+
+<p>As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in
+this sort, a voice call&rsquo;d out to a girl, to bid her run for
+the next notary.&mdash;Now the notary being the next, and
+availing himself of his situation, walk&rsquo;d up the passage to
+the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was
+usher&rsquo;d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but
+a long military pike,&mdash;a breastplate,&mdash;a rusty old
+sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four different
+places against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and
+unless decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a
+gentleman at that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in
+his bed; a little table with a taper burning was set close beside
+it, and close by the table was placed a chair:&mdash;the notary
+sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or
+two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before
+him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over
+the table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman&rsquo;s
+last will and testament.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman,
+raising himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which
+will pay the expense of bequeathing, except the history of
+myself, which I could not die in peace, unless I left it as a
+legacy to the world: the profits arising out of it I bequeath to
+you for the pains of taking it from me.&mdash;It is a story so
+uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;&mdash;it will make the
+fortunes of your house.&mdash;The notary dipp&rsquo;d his pen
+into his inkhorn.&mdash;Almighty Director of every event in my
+life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising
+his hands towards heaven,&mdash;Thou, whose hand has led me on
+through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene
+of desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and
+broken-hearted man;&mdash;direct my tongue by the spirit of thy
+eternal truth, that this stranger may set down nought but what is
+written in that <span class="smcap">Book</span>, from whose
+records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be
+condemn&rsquo;d or acquitted!&mdash;the notary held up the point
+of his pen betwixt the taper and his eye.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It is a story, <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman,
+which will rouse up every affection in nature;&mdash;it will kill
+the humane, and touch the heart of Cruelty herself with
+pity.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put
+his pen a third time into his ink-horn&mdash;and the old
+gentleman, turning a little more towards the notary, began to
+dictate his story in these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he
+just then enter&rsquo;d the room.</p>
+
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. <a name="citation648"></a><a
+href="#footnote648" class="citation">[648]</a><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> La Fleur came up close to the
+table, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me there
+were only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the
+stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had presented
+to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.&mdash;Then prithee, La
+Fleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B&mdash;&rsquo;s
+hotel, and see if thou canst get it.&mdash;There is no doubt of
+it, said La Fleur;&mdash;and away he flew.</p>
+
+<p>In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
+breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks
+than could arise from the simple irreparability of the
+fragment. <i>Juste Ciel</i>! in less than two minutes that
+the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of
+her&mdash;his faithless mistress had given his <i>gage
+d&rsquo;amour</i> to one of the Count&rsquo;s footmen,&mdash;the
+footman to a young sempstress,&mdash;and the sempstress to a
+fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.&mdash;Our misfortunes
+were involved together:&mdash;I gave a sigh,&mdash;and La Fleur
+echoed it back again to my ear.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;How perfidious! cried La Fleur.&mdash;How unlucky! said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La
+Fleur, if she had lost it.&mdash;Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I
+found it.</p>
+
+<p>Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.</p>
+
+<h2>THE ACT OF CHARITY.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> man who either disdains or
+fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent good man, and
+fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a good
+Sentimental Traveller.&mdash;I count little of the many things I
+see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
+streets.&mdash;Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators;
+but in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short
+scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays
+compounded together,&mdash;and yet they are absolutely
+fine;&mdash;and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my
+hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a
+hero, I generally make my sermon out of &rsquo;em;&mdash;and for
+the text,&mdash;&ldquo;Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
+Pamphylia,&rdquo;&mdash;is as good as any one in the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera
+Comique into a narrow street; &rsquo;tis trod by a few who humbly
+wait for a <i>fiacre</i>, <a name="citation649"></a><a
+href="#footnote649" class="citation">[649]</a> or wish to get off
+quietly o&rsquo;foot when the opera is done. At the end
+of it, towards the theatre, &rsquo;tis lighted by a small candle,
+the light of which is almost lost before you get half-way down,
+but near the door&mdash;&rsquo;tis more for ornament than use:
+you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it
+burns,&mdash;but does little good to the world, that we know
+of.</p>
+
+<p>In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached
+within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing
+arm-in-arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I
+imagined, for a <i>fiacre</i>;&mdash;as they were next the door,
+I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up within a
+yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.&mdash;I
+was in black, and scarce seen.</p>
+
+<p>The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about
+thirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty:
+there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of
+them;&mdash;they seem&rsquo;d to be two upright vestal sisters,
+unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender
+salutations.&mdash;I could have wish&rsquo;d to have made them
+happy:&mdash;their happiness was destin&rsquo;d that night, to
+come from another quarter.</p>
+
+<p>A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence
+at the end of it, begg&rsquo;d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt
+them, for the love of heaven. I thought it singular that a
+beggar should fix the quota of an alms&mdash;and that the sum
+should be twelve times as much as what is usually given in the
+dark.&mdash;They both seemed astonished at it as much as
+myself.&mdash;Twelve sous! said one.&mdash;A twelve-sous piece!
+said the other,&mdash;and made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of
+their rank; and bow&rsquo;d down his head to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Poo! said they,&mdash;we have no money.</p>
+
+<p>The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and
+renew&rsquo;d his supplication.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good
+ears against me.&mdash;Upon my word, honest man! said the
+younger, we have no change.&mdash;Then God bless you, said the
+poor man, and multiply those joys which you can give to others
+without change!&mdash;I observed the elder sister put her hand
+into her pocket.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll see, said she, if I have a
+sous. A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has
+been bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if
+I had it.</p>
+
+<p>My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the
+elder,&mdash;what is it but your goodness and humanity which
+makes your bright eyes so sweet, that they outshine the morning
+even in this dark passage? and what was it which made the Marquis
+de Santerre and his brother say so much of you both as they just
+passed by?</p>
+
+<p>The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the
+same time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each
+took out a twelve-sous piece.</p>
+
+<p>The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no
+more;&mdash;it was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two
+should give the twelve-sous piece in charity;&mdash;and, to end
+the dispute, they both gave it together, and the man went
+away.</p>
+
+<h2>THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">PARIS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">stepped</span> hastily after him: it was
+the very man whose success in asking charity of the women before
+the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;&mdash;and I found at
+once his secret, or at least the basis of it:&mdash;&rsquo;twas
+flattery.</p>
+
+<p>Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how
+strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side!
+how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the
+most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!</p>
+
+<p>The poor man, as he was not straiten&rsquo;d for time, had
+given it here in a larger dose: &rsquo;tis certain he had a way
+of bringing it into a less form, for the many sudden cases he had
+to do with in the streets: but how he contrived to correct,
+sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,&mdash;I vex not my spirit
+with the enquiry;&mdash;it is enough the beggar gained two
+twelve-sous pieces&mdash;and they can best tell the rest, who
+have gained much greater matters by it.</p>
+
+<h2>PARIS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> get forwards in the world, not
+so much by doing services, as receiving them; you take a
+withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it,
+because you have planted it.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur le Count de B&mdash;, merely because he had done me
+one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me
+another, the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a
+few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so
+on.</p>
+
+<p>I had got master of my <i>secret</i> just in time to turn
+these honours to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly
+the case, I should have dined or supp&rsquo;d a single time or
+two round, and then, by <i>translating</i> French looks and
+attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen, that
+I had hold of the <i>couvert</i> <a name="citation652"></a><a
+href="#footnote652" class="citation">[652]</a> of some more
+entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned all my
+places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could
+not keep them.&mdash;As it was, things did not go much amiss.</p>
+
+<p>I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de
+B&mdash;: in days of yore he had signalized himself by some small
+feats of chivalry in the <i>Cour d&rsquo;Amour</i>, and had
+dress&rsquo;d himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments
+ever since.&mdash;The Marquis de B&mdash; wish&rsquo;d to have it
+thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain.
+&ldquo;He could like to take a trip to England,&rdquo; and asked
+much of the English ladies.&mdash;Stay where you are, I beseech
+you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.&mdash;<i>Les Messieurs
+Anglois</i> can scarce get a kind look from them as it
+is.&mdash;The Marquis invited me to supper.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur P&mdash;, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive
+about our taxes. They were very considerable, he
+heard.&mdash;If we knew but how to collect them, said
+I, making him a low bow.</p>
+
+<p>I could never have been invited to Mons. P&mdash;&rsquo;s
+concerts upon any other terms.</p>
+
+<p>I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q&mdash; as an
+<i>esprit</i>.&mdash;Madame de Q&mdash; was an <i>esprit</i>
+herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear me
+talk. I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not
+care a sous whether I had any wit or no;&mdash;I was let in, to
+be convinced she had. I call heaven to witness I never once
+opened the door of my lips.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de V&mdash; vow&rsquo;d to every creature she
+met&mdash;&ldquo;She had never had a more improving conversation
+with a man in her life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There are three epochas in the empire of a French
+woman.&mdash;She is coquette,&mdash;then deist,&mdash;then
+<i>dévote</i>: the empire during these is never
+lost,&mdash;she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years
+and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she
+re-peoples it with slaves of infidelity,&mdash;and then with the
+slaves of the church.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de V&mdash; was vibrating betwixt the first of those
+epochas: the colour of the rose was fading fast away;&mdash;she
+ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the
+honour to pay my first visit.</p>
+
+<p>She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of
+disputing the point of religion more closely.&mdash;In short
+Madame de V&mdash; told me she believed nothing.&mdash;I told
+Madame de V&mdash; it might be her principle, but I was sure it
+could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I
+could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be
+defended;&mdash;that there was not a more dangerous thing in the
+world than for a beauty to be a deist;&mdash;that it was a debt I
+owed my creed not to conceal it from her;&mdash;that I had not
+been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun
+to form designs;&mdash;and what is it, but the sentiments of
+religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast,
+which could have check&rsquo;d them as they rose up?</p>
+
+<p>We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;&mdash;and
+there is need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals
+in and lays them on us.&mdash;But my dear lady, said I, kissing
+her hand,&mdash;&rsquo;tis too&mdash;too soon.</p>
+
+<p>I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting
+Madame de V&mdash;.&mdash;She affirmed to Monsieur D&mdash; and
+the Abbé M&mdash;, that in one half hour I had said more
+for revealed religion, than all their Encyclop&aelig;dia had said
+against it.&mdash;I was listed directly into Madame de
+V&mdash;&rsquo;s <i>coterie</i>;&mdash;and she put off the epocha
+of deism for two years.</p>
+
+<p>I remember it was in this <i>coterie</i>, in the middle of a
+discourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a <i>first</i>
+cause, when the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to
+the farthest corner of the room, to tell me my <i>solitaire</i>
+was pinn&rsquo;d too straight about my neck.&mdash;It should be
+<i>plus badinant</i>, said the Count, looking down upon his
+own;&mdash;but a word, Monsieur Yorick, <i>to the
+wise</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And <i>from the wise</i>, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making
+him a bow,&mdash;<i>is enough</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I
+was embraced by mortal man.</p>
+
+<p>For three weeks together I was of every man&rsquo;s opinion I
+met.&mdash;<i>Pardi</i>! <i>ce Monsieur Yorick a autant
+d&rsquo;esprit que nous autres</i>.&mdash;<i>Il raisonne
+bien</i>, said another.&mdash;<i>C&rsquo;est un bon enfant</i>,
+said a third.&mdash;And at this price I could have eaten and
+drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but
+&rsquo;twas a dishonest <i>reckoning</i>;&mdash;I grew ashamed of
+it.&mdash;It was the gain of a slave;&mdash;every sentiment of
+honour revolted against it;&mdash;the higher I got, the more was
+I forced upon my <i>beggarly system</i>;&mdash;the better the
+<i>coterie</i>,&mdash;the more children of Art;&mdash;I
+languish&rsquo;d for those of Nature: and one night, after a most
+vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I
+grew sick,&mdash;went to bed;&mdash;order&rsquo;d La Fleur to get
+me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.</p>
+
+<h2>MARIA.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">MOULINES.</span></h2>
+
+<p>I <span class="smcap">never</span> felt what the distress of
+plenty was in any one shape till now,&mdash;to travel it through
+the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France,&mdash;in the heyday
+of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every
+one&rsquo;s lap, and every eye is lifted up,&mdash;a journey,
+through each step of which Music beats time to <i>Labour</i>, and
+all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters:
+to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling
+at every group before me,&mdash;and every one of them was
+pregnant with adventures.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Just heaven!&mdash;it would fill up twenty volumes;&mdash;and
+alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it
+into,&mdash;and half of these must be taken up with the poor
+Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near Moulines.</p>
+
+<p>The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not
+a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood
+where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I
+could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league
+out of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to
+enquire after her.</p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful
+Countenance in quest of melancholy adventures. But I know
+not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the
+existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story
+before she open&rsquo;d her mouth.&mdash;She had lost her
+husband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of
+Maria&rsquo;s senses, about a month before.&mdash;She had feared
+at first, she added, that it would have plunder&rsquo;d her poor
+girl of what little understanding was left;&mdash;but, on the
+contrary, it had brought her more to herself:&mdash;still, she
+could not rest.&mdash;Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was
+wandering somewhere about the road.</p>
+
+<p>Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made
+La Fleur, whose heart seem&rsquo;d only to be tuned to joy, to
+pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman
+stood and told it? I beckoned to the postilion to turn back
+into the road.</p>
+
+<p>When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little
+opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria
+sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in
+her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her
+hand:&mdash;a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.</p>
+
+<p>I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to
+Moulines&mdash;and La Fleur to bespeak my supper;&mdash;and that
+I would walk after him.</p>
+
+<p>She was dress&rsquo;d in white, and much as my friend
+described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was
+twisted within a silk net.&mdash;She had superadded likewise to
+her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder
+to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.&mdash;Her goat
+had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog
+in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her
+girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the
+string.&mdash;&ldquo;Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,&rdquo; said
+she. I look&rsquo;d in Maria&rsquo;s eyes and saw she was
+thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little
+goat; for, as she utter&rsquo;d them, the tears trickled down her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as
+they fell, with my handkerchief.&mdash;I then steep&rsquo;d it in
+my own,&mdash;and then in hers,&mdash;and then in mine,&mdash;and
+then I wip&rsquo;d hers again;&mdash;and as I did it, I felt such
+undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be
+accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.</p>
+
+<p>I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
+materialists have pester&rsquo;d the world ever convince me to
+the contrary.</p>
+
+<h2>MARIA.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Maria had come a little to
+herself, I ask&rsquo;d her if she remembered a pale thin person
+of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two
+years before? She said she was unsettled much at
+that time, but remembered it upon two accounts:&mdash;that ill as
+she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat
+had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the
+theft;&mdash;she had wash&rsquo;d it, she said, in the brook, and
+kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she
+should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised
+her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of
+her pocket to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a
+couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril;&mdash;on
+opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.</p>
+
+<p>She had since that, she told me, stray&rsquo;d as far as Rome,
+and walk&rsquo;d round St. Peter&rsquo;s once,&mdash;and
+return&rsquo;d back;&mdash;that she found her way alone across
+the Apennines;&mdash;had travell&rsquo;d over all Lombardy,
+without money,&mdash;and through the flinty roads of Savoy
+without shoes:&mdash;how she had borne it, and how she had got
+supported, she could not tell;&mdash;but <i>God tempers the
+wind</i>, said Maria, <i>to the shorn lamb</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my
+own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and
+shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my
+own cup;&mdash;I would be kind to thy Sylvio;&mdash;in all thy
+weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee
+back;&mdash;when the sun went down I would say my prayers: and
+when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy
+pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for
+entering heaven along with that of a broken heart!</p>
+
+<p>Nature melted within me, as I utter&rsquo;d this; and Maria
+observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was
+steep&rsquo;d too much already to be of use, would needs go wash
+it in the stream.&mdash;And where will you dry it, Maria? said
+I.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll dry it in my bosom, said
+she:&mdash;&rsquo;twill do me good.</p>
+
+<p>And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.</p>
+
+<p>I touch&rsquo;d upon the string on which hung all her
+sorrows:&mdash;she look&rsquo;d with wistful disorder for some
+time in my face; and then, without saying any thing, took her
+pipe and play&rsquo;d her service to the Virgin.&mdash;The string
+I had touched ceased to vibrate;&mdash;in a moment or two
+Maria returned to herself,&mdash;let her pipe fall,&mdash;and
+rose up.</p>
+
+<p>And where are you going, Maria? said I.&mdash;She said, to
+Moulines.&mdash;Let us go, said I, together.&mdash;Maria put her
+arm within mine, and lengthening the string, to let the dog
+follow,&mdash;in that order we enter&rsquo;d Moulines.</p>
+
+<h2>MARIA.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">MOULINES.</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Though</span> I hate salutations and
+greetings in the market-place, yet, when we got into the middle
+of this, I stopp&rsquo;d to take my last look and last farewell
+of Maria.</p>
+
+<p>Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of
+fine forms:&mdash;affliction had touched her looks with something
+that was scarce earthly;&mdash;still she was feminine;&mdash;and
+so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the
+eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of
+her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should <i>not only
+eat of my bread and drink of my own cup</i>, but Maria should lie
+in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Adieu, poor luckless maiden!&mdash;Imbibe the oil and wine
+which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way,
+now pours into thy wounds;&mdash;the Being, who has twice bruised
+thee, can only bind them up for ever.</p>
+
+<h2>THE BOURBONNNOIS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was nothing from which I had
+painted out for my self so joyous a riot of the affections, as in
+this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but
+pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, my sufferings have
+totally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity, I saw
+Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her
+poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a
+shade across her.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all
+that&rsquo;s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou
+chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw&mdash;and
+&rsquo;tis thou who lift&rsquo;st him up to Heaven!&mdash;Eternal
+Fountain of our feelings!&mdash;&rsquo;tis here I trace
+thee&mdash;and this is thy &ldquo;<i>divinity which stirs within
+me</i>;&rdquo;&mdash;not that, in some sad and sickening moments,
+&ldquo;<i>my soul shrinks back upon herself</i>, <i>and startles
+at destruction</i>;&rdquo;&mdash;mere pomp of words!&mdash;but
+that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond
+myself;&mdash;all comes from thee, great&mdash;great <span
+class="smcap">Sensorium</span> of the world! which vibrates, if a
+hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest
+desert of thy creation.&mdash;Touch&rsquo;d with thee, Eugenius
+draws my curtain when I languish&mdash;hears my tale of symptoms,
+and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou
+giv&rsquo;st a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant
+who traverses the bleakest mountains;&mdash;he finds the
+lacerated lamb of another&rsquo;s flock.&mdash;This moment I
+behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous
+inclination looking down upon it!&mdash;Oh! had I come one moment
+sooner! it bleeds to death!&mdash;his gentle heart bleeds with
+it.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Peace to thee, generous swain!&mdash;I see thou walkest off
+with anguish,&mdash;but thy joys shall balance it;&mdash;for,
+happy is thy cottage,&mdash;and happy is the sharer of
+it,&mdash;and happy are the lambs which sport about you!</p>
+
+<h2>THE SUPPER.</h2>
+
+<p>A <span class="smcap">shoe</span> coming loose from the fore
+foot of the thill-horse, at the beginning of the ascent of mount
+Taurira, the postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put
+it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five or six miles, and
+that horse our main dependence, I made a point of having the shoe
+fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion had
+thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of
+no great use without them, I submitted to go on.</p>
+
+<p>He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty
+piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off
+his other fore foot. I then got out of the chaise in good
+earnest; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left
+hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to
+turn up to it. The look of the house, and of every thing
+about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the
+disaster.&mdash;It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about
+twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn;&mdash;and close to
+the house, on one side, was a <i>potagerie</i> of an acre and a
+half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French
+peasant&rsquo;s house;&mdash;and, on the other side, was a little
+wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about
+eight in the evening when I got to the house&mdash;so I left the
+postilion to manage his point as he could;&mdash;and, for mine, I
+walked directly into the house.</p>
+
+<p>The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife,
+with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives,
+and a joyous genealogy out of them.</p>
+
+<p>They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a
+large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon
+of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the
+repast:&mdash;&rsquo;twas a feast of love.</p>
+
+<p>The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful
+cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set
+down the moment I enter&rsquo;d the room; so I sat down at once
+like a son of the family; and to invest myself in the character
+as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man&rsquo;s
+knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and,
+as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an
+honest welcome, but of a welcome mix&rsquo;d with thanks that I
+had not seem&rsquo;d to doubt it.</p>
+
+<p>Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made
+this morsel so sweet,&mdash;and to what magic I owe it, that the
+draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that
+they remain upon my palate to this hour?</p>
+
+<p>If the supper was to my taste,&mdash;the grace which followed
+it was much more so.</p>
+
+<h2>THE GRACE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> supper was over, the old man
+gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid
+them prepare for the dance: the moment the signal was given, the
+women and girls ran altogether into a back apartment to tie up
+their hair,&mdash;and the young men to the door to wash their
+faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul
+was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to
+begin.&mdash;The old man and his wife came out last, and placing
+me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer
+upon the <i>vielle</i>,&mdash;and at the age he was then of,
+touch&rsquo;d it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung
+now and then a little to the tune,&mdash;then
+intermitted,&mdash;and join&rsquo;d her old man again, as their
+children and grand-children danced before them.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from
+some pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up,
+I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different
+from that which is the cause or the effect of simple
+jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld <i>Religion</i>
+mixing in the dance:&mdash;but, as I had never seen her so
+engaged, I should have look&rsquo;d upon it now as one of the
+illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had
+not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said, that this was
+their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a
+rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and
+rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind
+was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant
+could pay,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Or a learned prelate either, said I.</p>
+
+<h2>THE CASE OF DELICACY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> you have gained the top of
+Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons:&mdash;adieu,
+then, to all rapid movements! &rsquo;Tis a journey of
+caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a
+hurry with them; so I contracted with a <i>voiturin</i> to take his time
+with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to
+Turin, through Savoy.</p>
+
+<p>Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty,
+the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by
+the world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it.&mdash;Nature!
+in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the
+scantiness thou hast created: with all thy great works about
+thee, little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to
+the sickle;&mdash;but to that little thou grantest safety and
+protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so
+shelter&rsquo;d.</p>
+
+<p>Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden
+turns and dangers of your roads,&mdash;your rocks,&mdash;your
+precipices;&mdash;the difficulties of getting up,&mdash;the
+horrors of getting down,&mdash;mountains impracticable,&mdash;and
+cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and
+block his road up.&mdash;The peasants had been all day at work in
+removing a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane;
+and, by the time my <i>voiturin</i> got to the place, it wanted full two
+hours of completing before a passage could any how be
+gain&rsquo;d: there was nothing but to wait with
+patience;&mdash;&rsquo;twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that
+by the delay, and that together, the <i>voiturin</i> found himself
+obliged to put up five miles short of his stage at a little
+decent kind of an inn by the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber&mdash;got a good
+fire&mdash;order&rsquo;d supper; and was thanking heaven it was
+no worse, when a <i>voiturin</i> arrived with a lady in it and her
+servant maid.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the
+hostess,&mdash;without much nicety, led them into mine, telling
+them, as she usher&rsquo;d them in, that there was nobody in it
+but an English gentleman;&mdash;that there were two good beds in it, and
+a closet within the room which held another. The accent in
+which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for
+it;&mdash;however, she said there were three beds and but three
+people, and she durst say, the gentleman would do anything to
+accommodate matters.&mdash;I left not the lady a moment to make a
+conjecture about it&mdash;so instantly made a declaration that I
+would do anything in my power.</p>
+
+<p>As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my
+bed-chamber, I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to
+have a right to do the honours of it;&mdash;so I desired the lady
+to sit down,&mdash;pressed her into the warmest
+seat,&mdash;called for more wood,&mdash;desired the hostess to
+enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very
+best wine.</p>
+
+<p>The lady had scarce warm&rsquo;d herself five minutes at the
+fire, before she began to turn her head back, and give a look at
+the beds; and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more
+they return&rsquo;d perplexd;&mdash;I felt for her&mdash;and for
+myself: for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case
+itself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the
+lady could be herself.</p>
+
+<p>That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room,
+was enough simply by itself to have excited all this;&mdash;but
+the position of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close
+to each other as only to allow space for a small wicker chair
+betwixt them, rendered the affair still more oppressive to
+us;&mdash;they were fixed up moreover near the fire; and the
+projection of the chimney on one side, and a large beam which
+cross&rsquo;d the room on the other, formed a kind of recess for
+them that was no way favourable to the nicety of our
+sensations:&mdash;if anything could have added to it, it was that
+the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us off
+from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which in
+either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside
+them, though a thing not to be wish&rsquo;d, yet there was
+nothing in it so terrible which the imagination might not have
+pass&rsquo;d over without torment.</p>
+
+<p>As for the little room within, it offer&rsquo;d little or no
+consolation to us: &rsquo;twas a damp, cold closet, with a half
+dismantled window-shutter, and with a window which had neither
+glass nor oil paper in it to keep out the tempest of the
+night. I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the lady
+gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to this
+alternative&mdash;That the lady should sacrifice her health to
+her feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandon
+the bed next mine to her maid,&mdash;or that the girl should take
+the closet, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of
+health in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty,
+and as brisk and lively a French girl as ever moved.&mdash;There
+were difficulties every way,&mdash;and the obstacle of the stone
+in the road, which brought us into the distress, great as it
+appeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a pebble
+to what lay in our ways now.&mdash;I have only to add, that it
+did not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we
+were both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each other
+upon the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine
+to it than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish&rsquo;d, our
+tongues had been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at
+liberty;&mdash;but the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in
+her voiture, sent down her <i>fille de chambre</i> for a couple
+of them; so that by the time supper was over, and we were left
+alone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of mind
+sufficient to talk, at least, without reserve upon our
+situation. We turn&rsquo;d it every way, and debated and
+considered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two
+hours&rsquo; negotiation; at the end of which the articles were
+settled finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner
+of a treaty of peace,&mdash;and I believe with as much religion
+and good faith on both sides as in any treaty which has yet had
+the honour of being handed down to posterity.</p>
+
+<p>They were as follow:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in
+Monsieur,&mdash;and he thinking the bed next to the fire to be
+the warmest, he insists upon the concession on the lady&rsquo;s
+side of taking up with it.</p>
+
+<p>Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as
+the curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and
+appear likewise too scanty to draw close, that the <i>fille de
+chambre</i> shall fasten up the opening, either by corking pins,
+or needle and thread, in such manner as shall be deem&rsquo;d a
+sufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur.</p>
+
+<p>2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, that
+Monsieur shall lie the whole night through in his <i>robe de
+chambre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a <i>robe de
+chambre</i>; he having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts
+and a black silk pair of breeches.</p>
+
+<p>The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change
+of the article,&mdash;for the breeches were accepted as an
+equivalent for the <i>robe de chambre</i>; and so it was
+stipulated and agreed upon, that I should lie in my black silk
+breeches all night.</p>
+
+<p>3dly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the
+lady, that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire
+extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word the
+whole night.</p>
+
+<p>Granted; provided Monsieur&rsquo;s saying his prayers might
+not be deemed an infraction of the treaty.</p>
+
+<p>There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was
+the manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to
+undress and get to bed;&mdash;there was but one way of doing it,
+and that I leave to the reader to devise; protesting as I do it,
+that if it is not the most delicate in nature, &rsquo;tis the
+fault of his own imagination,&mdash;against which this is not my
+first complaint.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of
+the situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could
+not shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn&rsquo;d
+and turn&rsquo;d again, till a full hour after midnight; when
+Nature and patience both wearing out,&mdash;O, my God! said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who
+had no more slept than myself.&mdash;I begg&rsquo;d a thousand
+pardons&mdash;but insisted it was no more than an
+ejaculation. She maintained &rsquo;twas an entire
+infraction of the treaty&mdash;I maintain&rsquo;d it was provided
+for in the clause of the third article.</p>
+
+<p>The lady would by no means give up her point, though she
+weaken&rsquo;d her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the
+dispute, I could hear two or three corking pins fall out of the
+curtain to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,&mdash;stretching my
+arm out of bed by way of asseveration.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed
+against the remotest idea of decorum for the world);&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But the <i>fille de chambre</i> hearing there were words
+between us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue in course,
+had crept silently out of her closet, and it being totally dark,
+had stolen so close to our beds, that she had got herself into
+the narrow passage which separated them, and had advanced so far
+up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress and me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>So that when I stretch&rsquo;d out my hand I caught hold of
+the <i>fille de chambre&rsquo;s</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><b>THE END</b></p>
+
+<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2>
+
+<p><a name="footnote557"></a><a href="#citation557"
+class="footnote">[557]</a> All the effects of strangers
+(Swiss and Scotch excepted) dying in France, are seized by virtue
+of this law, though the heir be upon the spot&mdash;the profit of
+these contingencies being farmed, there is no redress.</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote562"></a><a href="#citation562"
+class="footnote">[562]</a> A chaise, so called, in France,
+from its holding but one person.</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote580"></a><a href="#citation580"
+class="footnote">[580]</a> Vide S&mdash;&rsquo;s Travels:
+[<i>i.e.</i> Dr. Smollett&rsquo;s &ldquo;Travels through France
+and Italy.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote588"></a><a href="#citation588"
+class="footnote">[588]</a> Post-horse.</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote648"></a><a href="#citation648"
+class="footnote">[648]</a> Nosegay.</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote649"></a><a href="#citation649"
+class="footnote">[649]</a> Hackney coach.</p>
+
+<p><a name="footnote652"></a><a href="#citation652"
+class="footnote">[652]</a> Plate, napkin, knife, fork and
+spoon.</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY ***</div>
+<div style='text-align:left'>
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Sentimental Journey, by Sterne
+
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+A Sentimental Journey
+
+by Laurence Sterne
+
+February, 1997  [Etext #804]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Sentimental Journey, by Sterne
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+
+A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne
+Scanned and proofed by David Price
+ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+This is version senjr09 because all the italicized words in the
+text are still CAPITALIZED, and we hope to leave only the words
+capitialized that were for EMPHASIS in senjr10. . .Michael Hart
+
+
+
+
+
+A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
+
+
+
+
+THEY order, said I, this matter better in France. - You have been
+in France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most
+civil triumph in the world. - Strange! quoth I, debating the matter
+with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely
+no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: -
+I'll look into them: so, giving up the argument, - I went straight
+to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk
+breeches, - "the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve,
+"will do;" - took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet
+sailing at nine the next morning, - by three I had got sat down to
+my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France,
+that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could
+not have suspended the effects of the DROITS D'AUBAINE; - my
+shirts, and black pair of silk breeches, - portmanteau and all,
+must have gone to the King of France; - even the little picture
+which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I
+would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my
+neck! - Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger,
+whom your subjects had beckoned to their coast! - By heaven!  Sire,
+it is not well done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch
+of a people so civilized and courteous, and so renowned for
+sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with! -
+
+But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health,
+to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary,
+high honour for the humanity of his temper, - I rose up an inch
+taller for the accommodation.
+
+- No - said I - the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may
+be misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their
+blood.  As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind
+upon my cheek - more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy
+(at least of two livres a bottle, which was such as I had been
+drinking) could have produced.
+
+- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
+this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so
+many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
+the way?
+
+When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
+the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and
+holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
+sought for an object to share it with. - In doing this, I felt
+every vessel in my frame dilate, - the arteries beat all cheerily
+together, and every power which sustained life, performed it with
+so little friction, that 'twould have confounded the most PHYSICAL
+PRECIEUSE in France; with all her materialism, she could scarce
+have called me a machine. -
+
+I'm confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her creed.
+
+The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as
+she could go; - I was at peace with the world before, and this
+finish'd the treaty with myself. -
+
+- Now, was I King of France, cried I - what a moment for an orphan
+to have begg'd his father's portmanteau of me!
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of
+St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent.
+No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies - or
+one man may be generous, as another is puissant; - SED NON QUOAD
+HANC - or be it as it may, - for there is no regular reasoning upon
+the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same
+causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves:
+'twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I'm sure
+at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly
+satisfied, to have it said by the world, "I had had an affair with
+the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame," than have it
+pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
+of both.
+
+- But, be this as it may, - the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I
+was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly,
+I put my purse into my pocket - buttoned it - set myself a little
+more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was
+something, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this
+moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which
+deserved better.
+
+The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
+white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might
+be about seventy; - but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which
+was in them, which seemed more temper'd by courtesy than years,
+could be no more than sixty: - Truth might lie between - He was
+certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance,
+notwithstanding something seem'd to have been planting-wrinkles in
+it before their time, agreed to the account.
+
+It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted, - mild,
+pale - penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat
+contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; - it look'd
+forwards; but look'd as if it look'd at something beyond this
+world. - How one of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it
+fall upon a monk's shoulders best knows: but it would have suited a
+Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had
+reverenced it.
+
+The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
+put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither
+elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so:
+it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it
+lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, - but it
+was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my
+imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.
+
+When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and
+laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with
+which he journey'd being in his right) - when I had got close up to
+him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of
+his convent, and the poverty of his order; - and did it with so
+simple a grace, - and such an air of deprecation was there in the
+whole cast of his look and figure, - I was bewitch'd not to have
+been struck with it.
+
+- A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single
+sous.
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+- 'Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes,
+with which he had concluded his address; - 'tis very true, - and
+heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the
+world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the
+many GREAT CLAIMS which are hourly made upon it.
+
+As I pronounced the words GREAT CLAIMS, he gave a slight glance
+with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic: - I felt the
+full force of the appeal - I acknowledge it, said I: - a coarse
+habit, and that but once in three years with meagre diet, - are no
+great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn'd
+in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish
+to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of
+the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm; - the captive who
+lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
+languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the ORDER
+OF MERCY, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am,
+continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it
+have been open'd to you, for the ransom of the unfortunate. - The
+monk made me a bow. - But of all others, resumed I, the unfortunate
+of our own country, surely, have the first rights; and I have left
+thousands in distress upon our own shore. - The monk gave a cordial
+wave with his head, - as much as to say, No doubt there is misery
+enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent
+- But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his
+tunic, in return for his appeal - we distinguish, my good father!
+betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour -
+and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other
+plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, FOR THE
+LOVE OF GOD.
+
+The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass'd
+across his cheek, but could not tarry - Nature seemed to have done
+with her resentments in him; - he showed none: - but letting his
+staff fall within his arms, he pressed both his hands with
+resignation upon his breast, and retired.
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+MY heart smote me the moment he shut the door - Psha! said I, with
+an air of carelessness, three several times - but it would not do:
+every ungracious syllable I had utter'd crowded back into my
+imagination: I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan,
+but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the
+disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. - I
+consider'd his gray hairs - his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter
+and gently ask me what injury he had done me? - and why I could use
+him thus? - I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. - I
+have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just
+set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
+along.
+
+
+THE DESOBLIGEANT.  CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage
+however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for
+making a bargain.  Now there being no travelling through France and
+Italy without a chaise, - and nature generally prompting us to the
+thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy
+or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old DESOBLIGEANT
+in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight,
+so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony
+with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein,
+the master of the hotel: - but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
+vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
+opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
+at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being
+determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote
+the preface to it in the DESOBLIGEANT.
+
+
+PREFACE.  IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+
+
+IT must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
+nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain
+boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she
+has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by
+laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his
+ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home.  It is there only that
+she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of
+his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which in all
+countries and ages has ever been too heavy for one pair of
+shoulders.  'Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of
+spreading our happiness sometimes beyond HER limits, but 'tis so
+ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and
+dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs, and
+habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our
+sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total
+impossibility.
+
+It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
+commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy
+what he has little occasion for, at their own price; - his
+conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a
+large discount, - and this, by the by, eternally driving him into
+the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he
+can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his
+party -
+
+This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw
+of this DESOBLIGEANT will but let me get on) into the efficient as
+well as final causes of travelling -
+
+Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for
+some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these
+general causes:-
+
+
+Infirmity of body,
+Imbecility of mind, or
+Inevitable necessity.
+
+
+The first two include all those who travel by land or by water,
+labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and
+combined AD INFINITUM.
+
+The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
+especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
+benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the
+direction of governors recommended by the magistrate; - or young
+gentlemen transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and
+travelling under the direction of governors recommended by Oxford,
+Aberdeen, and Glasgow.
+
+There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they
+would not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of
+this nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid
+a confusion of character.  And these men I speak of, are such as
+cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of
+saving money for various reasons and upon various pretences: but as
+they might also save themselves and others a great deal of
+unnecessary trouble by saving their money at home, - and as their
+reasons for travelling are the least complex of any other species
+of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by the name of
+
+
+Simple Travellers.
+
+
+Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
+HEADS:-
+
+
+Idle Travellers,
+Inquisitive Travellers,
+Lying Travellers,
+Proud Travellers,
+Vain Travellers,
+Splenetic Travellers.
+
+
+Then follow:
+
+
+The Travellers of Necessity,
+The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,
+The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
+The Simple Traveller,
+
+
+And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
+thereby myself) who have travell'd, and of which I am now sitting
+down to give an account, - as much out of NECESSITY, and the BESOIN
+DE VOYAGER, as any one in the class.
+
+I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and
+observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my
+forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely
+to myself; - but I should break in upon the confines of the VAIN
+Traveller, in wishing to draw attention towards me, till I have
+some better grounds for it than the mere NOVELTY OF MY VEHICLE.
+
+It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself,
+that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine
+his own place and rank in the catalogue; - it will be one step
+towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some
+tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the
+present hour.
+
+The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of
+Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the
+same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French
+mountains, - he was too phlegmatic for that - but undoubtedly he
+expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or
+bad, or indifferent, - he knew enough of this world to know, that
+it did not depend upon his choice, but that what is generally
+called CHOICE, was to decide his success: however, he hoped for the
+best; and in these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the
+fortitude of his head, and the depth of his discretion, MYNHEER
+might possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by discovering
+his nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.
+
+Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting
+through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge
+and improvements.
+
+Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for
+that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is
+all a lottery; - and even where the adventurer is successful, the
+acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to
+any profit: - but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way,
+both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a
+man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live
+contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements,
+especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of
+either; - and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a
+time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the
+Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into
+discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they
+might have seen dry-shod at home.  It is an age so full of light,
+that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are
+not crossed and interchanged with others. - Knowledge in most of
+its branches, and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian
+street, whereof those may partake who pay nothing. - But there is
+no nation under heaven - and God is my record (before whose
+tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this work) -
+that I do not speak it vauntingly, - but there is no nation under
+heaven abounding with more variety of learning, - where the
+sciences may be more fitly woo'd, or more surely won, than here, -
+where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high, - where Nature
+(take her altogether) has so little to answer for, - and, to close
+all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the
+mind with: - Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going? -
+
+We are only looking at this chaise, said they. - Your most obedient
+servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat. - We
+were wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an INQUISITIVE
+TRAVELLER, - what could occasion its motion. - 'Twas the agitation,
+said I, coolly, of writing a preface. - I never heard, said the
+other, who was a SIMPLE TRAVELLER, of a preface wrote in a
+DESOBLIGEANT. - It would have been better, said I, in a VIS-A-VIS.
+
+- AS AN ENGLISHMAN DOES NOT TRAVEL TO SEE ENGLISHMEN, I retired to
+my room.
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I PERCEIVED that something darken'd the passage more than myself,
+as I stepp'd along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein,
+the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and
+with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to
+put me in mind of my wants.  I had wrote myself pretty well out of
+conceit with the DESOBLIGEANT, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it,
+with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck
+my fancy that it belong'd to some INNOCENT TRAVELLER, who, on his
+return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein's honour to make the most
+of.  Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of
+Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein's coach-yard; and having
+sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,
+though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had
+not profited much by its adventures, - but by none so little as the
+standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein's
+coach-yard.  Much indeed was not to be said for it, - but something
+might; - and when a few words will rescue misery out of her
+distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.
+
+- Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of
+my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a
+point of getting rid of this unfortunate DESOBLIGEANT; - it stands
+swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.
+
+MON DIEU! said Mons. Dessein, - I have no interest - Except the
+interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons.
+Dessein, in their own sensations, - I'm persuaded, to a man who
+feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night,
+disguise it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits: - You
+suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine -
+
+I have always observed, when there is as much SOUR as SWEET in a
+compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within
+himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is:
+Mons. Dessein made me a bow.
+
+C'EST BIEN VRAI, said he. - But in this case I should only exchange
+one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my
+dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces
+before you had got half-way to Paris, - figure to yourself how much
+I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of
+honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, D'UN HOMME D'ESPRIT.
+
+The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
+not help tasting it, - and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow,
+without more casuistry we walk'd together towards his Remise, to
+take a view of his magazine of chaises.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+IT must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it
+be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller
+thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them,
+but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his
+conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along
+with him to Hyde-park corner to fight a duel.  For my own part,
+being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur
+Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to
+which the situation is incident; - I looked at Monsieur Dessein
+through and through - eyed him as he walk'd along in profile, -
+then, EN FACE; - thought like a Jew, - then a Turk, - disliked his
+wig, - cursed him by my gods, - wished him at the devil. -
+
+- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly
+account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be
+overreached in? - Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a
+man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment, - base,
+ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man's
+hand against thee. - Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up
+to her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom
+I had seen in conference with the monk: - she had followed us
+unperceived. - Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my own;
+- she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and
+two fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve, - and I led her
+up to the door of the Remise.
+
+Monsieur Dessein had DIABLED the key above fifty times before he
+had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as
+impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the
+obstacle that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing
+it: so that Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in
+mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the Remise, and
+said he would be back in five minutes.
+
+Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one
+of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the
+latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without; -
+when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank, - you draw purely from
+yourselves.  A silence of a single moment upon Mons. Dessein's
+leaving us, had been fatal to the situation - she had infallibly
+turned about; - so I begun the conversation instantly. -
+
+- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for
+the weaknesses of my heart in this tour, - but to give an account
+of them) - shall be described with the same simplicity with which I
+felt them.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
+DESOBLIGEANT, because I saw the monk in close conference with a
+lady just arrived at the inn - I told him the truth, - but I did
+not tell him the whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained
+by the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to.
+Suspicion crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had
+passed: something jarred upon it within me, - I wished him at his
+convent.
+
+When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the
+judgment a world of pains. - I was certain she was of a better
+order of beings; - however, I thought no more of her, but went on
+and wrote my preface.
+
+The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
+guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I
+thought, her good education and her good sense; and as I led her
+on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a
+calmness over all my spirits -
+
+- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
+world with him! -
+
+I had not yet seen her face - 'twas not material: for the drawing
+was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of
+the Remise, FANCY had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
+as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the
+Tiber for it; - but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and
+albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and
+images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest
+out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a
+shame to break with thee.
+
+When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
+from across her forehead, and let me see the original: - it was a
+face of about six-and-twenty, - of a clear transparent brown,
+simply set off without rouge or powder; - it was not critically
+handsome, but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I
+was in, attached me much more to it, - it was interesting: I
+fancied it wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state
+of its declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of
+sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;
+- but a thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines;
+I wish'd to know what they had been - and was ready to inquire,
+(had the same BON TON of conversation permitted, as in the days of
+Esdras) - "WHAT AILELH THEE? AND WHY ART THOU DISQUIETED? AND WHY
+IS THY UNDERSTANDING TROUBLED?" - In a word, I felt benevolence for
+her; and resolv'd some way or other to throw in my mite of
+courtesy, - if not of service.
+
+Such were my temptations; - and in this disposition to give way to
+them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and
+with our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remise than
+what was absolutely necessary.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+THIS certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little
+lightly as I began, must be one of Fortune's whimsical doings; to
+take two utter strangers by their hands, - of different sexes, and
+perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in one moment
+place them together in such a cordial situation as Friendship
+herself could scarce have achieved for them, had she projected it
+for a month.
+
+- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
+embarrassed you by the adventure -
+
+When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed
+as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank
+Fortune, continued she - you had reason - the heart knew it, and
+was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent
+notice of it to the brain to reverse the judgment?
+
+In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
+a sufficient commentary upon the text.
+
+It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness
+of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier
+occasions could not have inflicted. - I was mortified with the loss
+of her hand, and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither
+oil nor wine to the wound: I never felt the pain of a sheepish
+inferiority so miserably in my life.
+
+The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these
+discomfitures.  In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the
+cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some way or
+other, God knows how, I regained my situation.
+
+- She had nothing to add.
+
+I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady,
+thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been
+mistaken in her character; but upon turning her face towards me,
+the spirit which had animated the reply was fled, - the muscles
+relaxed, and I beheld the same unprotected look of distress which
+first won me to her interest: - melancholy! to see such
+sprightliness the prey of sorrow, - I pitied her from my soul; and
+though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid heart, - I could
+have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though it was in
+the open street, without brushing.
+
+The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across
+hers, told her what was passing within me: she looked down - a
+silence of some moments followed.
+
+I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts
+towards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I
+felt in the palm of my own, - not as if she was going to withdraw
+hers - but as if she thought about it; - and I had infallibly lost
+it a second time, had not instinct more than reason directed me to
+the last resource in these dangers, - to hold it loosely, and in a
+manner as if I was every moment going to release it, of myself; so
+she let it continue, till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key;
+and in the mean time I set myself to consider how I should undo the
+ill impressions which the poor monk's story, in case he had told it
+her, must have planted in her breast against me.
+
+
+THE SNUFF BOX.  CALAIS.
+
+
+THE good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him
+crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the
+line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. -
+He stopp'd, however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of
+frankness: and having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it
+open to me. - You shall taste mine - said I, pulling out my box
+(which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his hand. -
+'Tis most excellent, said the monk.  Then do me the favour, I
+replied, to accept of the box and all, and when you take a pinch
+out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace offering of a man
+who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.
+
+The poor monk blush'd as red as scarlet.  MON DIEU! said he,
+pressing his hands together - you never used me unkindly. - I
+should think, said the lady, he is not likely.  I blush'd in my
+turn; but from what movements, I leave to the few who feel, to
+analyze. - Excuse me, Madame, replied I, - I treated him most
+unkindly; and from no provocations. - 'Tis impossible, said the
+lady. - My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which
+seem'd not to belong to him - the fault was in me, and in the
+indiscretion of my zeal. - The lady opposed it, and I joined with
+her in maintaining it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as
+his, could give offence to any.
+
+I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and
+pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. - We remained
+silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which takes
+place, when, in such a circle, you look for ten minutes in one
+another's faces without saying a word.  Whilst this lasted, the
+monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon
+as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction - he
+made me a low bow, and said, 'twas too late to say whether it was
+the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in
+this contest - but be it as it would, - he begg'd we might exchange
+boxes. - In saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as
+he took mine from me in the other, and having kissed it, - with a
+stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom, - and
+took his leave.
+
+I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion,
+to help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go
+abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it
+the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the
+justlings of the world: they had found full employment for his, as
+I learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his
+age, when upon some military services ill requited, and meeting at
+the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest of passions,
+he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and took sanctuary not
+so much in his convent as in himself.
+
+I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my
+last return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I
+heard he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in
+his convent, but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery
+belonging to it, about two leagues off: I had a strong desire to
+see where they had laid him, - when, upon pulling out his little
+horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking up a nettle or two at
+the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all
+struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I burst into a
+flood of tears: - but I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the world
+not to smile, but to pity me.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD never quitted the lady's hand all this time, and had held it
+so long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go,
+without first pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which
+had suffered a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.
+
+Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard,
+happening at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our
+communications, naturally took it into their heads that we must be
+MAN AND WIFE at least; so, stopping as soon as they came up to the
+door of the Remise, the one of them who was the Inquisitive
+Traveller, ask'd us, if we set out for Paris the next morning? - I
+could only answer for myself, I said; and the lady added, she was
+for Amiens. - We dined there yesterday, said the Simple Traveller.
+- You go directly through the town, added the other, in your road
+to Paris.  I was going to return a thousand thanks for the
+intelligence, THAT AMIENS WAS IN THE ROAD TO PARIS, but, upon
+pulling out my poor monk's little horn box to take a pinch of
+snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage to
+Dover. - They left us alone. -
+
+- Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg
+of this distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise? - and what
+mighty mischief could ensue?
+
+Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the
+alarm, as I stated the proposition. - It will oblige you to have a
+third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your
+pocket; - You know not what she is, said Caution; - or what scrapes
+the affair may draw you into, whisper'd Cowardice. -
+
+Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, 'twill be said you went
+off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that
+purpose; -
+
+- You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the
+world; - or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church; - or be any thing
+in it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.
+
+But 'tis a civil thing, said I; - and as I generally act from the
+first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which
+serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with
+adamant - I turned instantly about to the lady. -
+
+- But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading,
+and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I
+had made the determination; so I set off after her with a long
+stride, to make her the proposal, with the best address I was
+master of: but observing she walk'd with her cheek half resting
+upon the palm of her hand, - with the slow short-measur'd step of
+thoughtfulness, - and with her eyes, as she went step by step,
+fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same cause
+herself. - God help her! said I, she has some mother-in-law, or
+tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to consult upon the
+occasion, as well as myself: so not caring to interrupt the
+process, and deeming it more gallant to take her at discretion than
+by surprise, I faced about and took a short turn or two before the
+door of the Remise, whilst she walk'd musing on one side.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+HAVING, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my
+fancy "that she was of the better order of beings;" - and then laid
+it down as a second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she
+was a widow, and wore a character of distress, - I went no further;
+I got ground enough for the situation which pleased me; - and had
+she remained close beside my elbow till midnight, I should have
+held true to my system, and considered her only under that general
+idea.
+
+She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something
+within me called out for a more particular enquiry; - it brought on
+the idea of a further separation: - I might possibly never see her
+more: - The heart is for saving what it can; and I wanted the
+traces through which my wishes might find their way to her, in case
+I should never rejoin her myself; in a word, I wished to know her
+name, - her family's - her condition; and as I knew the place to
+which she was going, I wanted to know from whence she came: but
+there was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred little
+delicacies stood in the way.  I form'd a score different plans. -
+There was no such thing as a man's asking her directly; - the thing
+was impossible.
+
+A little French DEBONNAIRE captain, who came dancing down the
+street, showed me it was the easiest thing in the world: for,
+popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returning back to the
+door of the Remise, he introduced himself to my acquaintance, and
+before he had well got announced, begg'd I would do him the honour
+to present him to the lady. - I had not been presented myself; - so
+turning about to her, he did it just as well, by asking her if she
+had come from Paris?  No: she was going that route, she said. -
+VOUS N'ETES PAS DE LONDRES? - She was not, she replied. - Then
+Madame must have come through Flanders. - APPAREMMENT VOUS ETES
+FLAMMANDE? said the French captain. - The lady answered, she was. -
+PEUT ETRE DE LISLE? added he. - She said, she was not of Lisle. -
+Nor Arras? - nor Cambray? - nor Ghent? - nor Brussels? - She
+answered, she was of Brussels.
+
+He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last
+war; - that it was finely situated, POUR CELA, - and full of
+noblesse when the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the
+lady made a slight courtesy) - so giving her an account of the
+affair, and of the share he had had in it, - he begg'd the honour
+to know her name, - so made his bow.
+
+- ET MADAME A SON MARI? - said he, looking back when he had made
+two steps, - and, without staying for an answer - danced down the
+street.
+
+Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could
+not have done as much.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+AS the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with
+the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his
+magazine of chaises.
+
+The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open'd the
+door of the Remise, was another old tatter'd DESOBLIGEANT; and
+notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my
+fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before, - the very
+sight of it stirr'd up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and
+I thought 'twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could
+first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more
+charity for the man who could think of using it.
+
+I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so Mons.
+Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast,
+telling us, as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by
+my lord A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had gone no further
+than Paris, so were in all respects as good as new. - They were too
+good; - so I pass'd on to a third, which stood behind, and
+forthwith begun to chaffer for the price. - But 'twill scarce hold
+two, said I, opening the door and getting in. - Have the goodness,
+Madame, said Mons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in. - The
+lady hesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter that
+moment beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door of the
+chaise upon us, and left us.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+C'EST BIEN COMIQUE, 'tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from
+the reflection that this was the second time we a had been left
+together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies, - C'EST BIEN
+COMIQUE, said she. -
+
+- There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use
+which the gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to, - to make love
+the first moment, and an offer of his person the second.
+
+'Tis their FORT, replied the lady.
+
+It is supposed so at least; - and how it has come to pass,
+continued I, I know not; but they have certainly got the credit of
+understanding more of love, and making it better than any other
+nation upon earth; but, for my own part, I think them arrant
+bunglers, and in truth the worst set of marksmen that ever tried
+Cupid's patience.
+
+- To think of making love by SENTIMENTS!
+
+I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of
+remnants: - and to do it - pop - at first sight, by declaration -
+is submitting the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with
+all their POURS and CONTRES, by an unheated mind.
+
+The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.
+
+Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:-
+
+That grave people hate love for the name's sake; -
+
+That selfish people hate it for their own; -
+
+Hypocrites for heaven's; -
+
+And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse
+frightened than hurt by the very REPORT, - what a want of knowledge
+in this branch of commence a man betrays, whoever lets the word
+come out of his lips, till an hour or two, at least, after the time
+that his silence upon it becomes tormenting.  A course of small,
+quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, - nor so vague as to
+be misunderstood - with now and then a look of kindness, and little
+or nothing said upon it, - leaves nature for your mistress, and she
+fashions it to her mind. -
+
+Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been
+making love to me all this while.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+MONSIEUR DESSEIN came back to let us out of the chaise, and
+acquaint the lady, the count de L-, her brother, was just arrived
+at the hotel.  Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I
+cannot say that I rejoiced in my heart at the event - and could not
+help telling her so; - for it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said
+I, that I was going to make to you -
+
+- You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her
+hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me. - A man my good Sir,
+has seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a
+presentiment of it some moments before. -
+
+Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation. - But
+I think, said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend,
+-and, to deal frankly with you, had determined to accept it. - If I
+had - (she stopped a moment) - I believe your good will would have
+drawn a story from me, which would have made pity the only
+dangerous thing in the journey.
+
+In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with a
+look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise,
+- and bid adieu.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I NEVER finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my
+life: my time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing
+every moment of it would be as two, till I put myself into motion,
+- I ordered post horses directly, and walked towards the hotel.
+
+Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting
+that I had been little more than a single hour in Calais, -
+
+- What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this
+little span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing,
+and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually
+holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he
+can FAIRLY lay his hands on!
+
+- If this won't turn out something, - another will; - no matter, -
+'tis an assay upon human nature - I get my labour for my pains, -
+'tis enough; - the pleasure of the experiment has kept my senses
+and the best part of my blood awake, and laid the gross to sleep.
+
+I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis
+all barren; - and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will
+not cultivate the fruits it offers.  I declare, said I, clapping my
+hands cheerily together, that were I in a desert, I would find out
+wherewith in it to call forth my affections: - if I could not do
+better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some
+melancholy cypress to connect myself to; - I would court their
+shade, and greet them kindly for their protection. - I would cut my
+name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout
+the desert: if their leaves wither'd, I would teach myself to
+mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them.
+
+The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, - from
+Paris to Rome, - and so on; - but he set out with the spleen and
+jaundice, and every object he pass'd by was discoloured or
+distorted. - He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing but the
+account of his miserable feelings.
+
+I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon: - he was
+just coming out of it. - 'TIS NOTHING BUT A HUGE COCKPIT, said he:
+- I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis,
+replied I; - for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had
+fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common
+strumpet, without the least provocation in nature.
+
+I popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a
+sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, "wherein he spoke
+of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals that
+each other eat: the Anthropophagi:" - he had been flayed alive, and
+bedevil'd, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he
+had come at. -
+
+- I'll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world.  You had better
+tell it, said I, to your physician.
+
+Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on
+from Rome to Naples, - from Naples to Venice, - from Venice to
+Vienna, - to Dresden, to Berlin, without one generous connection or
+pleasurable anecdote to tell of; but he had travell'd straight on,
+looking neither to his right hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity
+should seduce him out of his road.
+
+Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
+possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give
+it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to
+hail their arrival. - Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and
+Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of
+love, and fresh congratulations of their common felicity. - I
+heartily pity them; they have brought up no faculties for this
+work; and, were the happiest mansion in heaven to be allotted to
+Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so far from being happy,
+that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus would do penance there
+to all eternity!
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I HAD once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got
+out in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to
+help the postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out
+what was wanting. - Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the
+landlord's asking me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to
+me, that that was the very thing.
+
+A servant!  That I do most sadly, quoth I. - Because, Monsieur,
+said the landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who would be
+very proud of the honour to serve an Englishman. - But why an
+English one, more than any other? - They are so generous, said the
+landlord. - I'll be shot if this is not a livre out of my pocket,
+quoth I to myself, this very night. - But they have wherewithal to
+be so, Monsieur, added he. - Set down one livre more for that,
+quoth I. - It was but last night, said the landlord, QU'UN MILORD
+ANGLOIS PRESENTOIT UN ECU E LA FILLE DE CHAMBRE. - TANT PIS POUR
+MADEMOISELLE JANATONE, said I.
+
+Now Janatone, being the landlord's daughter, and the landlord
+supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I
+should not have said TANT PIS - but, TANT MIEUX.  TANT MIEUX,
+TOUJOURS, MONSIEUR, said he, when there is any thing to be got -
+TANT PIS, when there is nothing.  It comes to the same thing, said
+I.  PARDONNEZ-MOI, said the landlord.
+
+I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that
+TANT PIS and TANT MIEUX, being two of the great hinges in French
+conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the
+use of them, before he gets to Paris.
+
+A prompt French marquis at our ambassador's table demanded of Mr.
+H-, if he was H- the poet?  No, said Mr. H-, mildly. - TANT PIS,
+replied the marquis.
+
+It is H- the historian, said another, - TANT MIEUX, said the
+marquis.  And Mr. H-, who is a man of an excellent heart, return'd
+thanks for both.
+
+When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La
+Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spoke of, -
+saying only first, That as for his talents he would presume to say
+nothing, - Monsieur was the best judge what would suit him; but for
+the fidelity of La Fleur he would stand responsible in all he was
+worth.
+
+The landlord deliver'd this in a manner which instantly set my mind
+to the business I was upon; - and La Fleur, who stood waiting
+without, in that breathless expectation which every son of nature
+of us have felt in our turns, came in.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but
+never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to
+so poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always
+suffer my judgment to draw back something on that very account, -
+and this more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the case;
+- and I may add, the gender too, of the person I am to govern.
+
+When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make
+for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the
+matter at once in his favour; so I hired him first, - and then
+began to enquire what he could do: But I shall find out his
+talents, quoth I, as I want them, - besides, a Frenchman can do
+every thing.
+
+Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum,
+and play a march or two upon the fife.  I was determined to make
+his talents do; and can't say my weakness was ever so insulted by
+my wisdom as in the attempt.
+
+La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen
+do, with SERVING for a few years; at the end of which, having
+satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of
+beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open'd no
+further track of glory to him, - he retired E SES TERRES, and lived
+COMME IL PLAISOIT E DIEU; - that is to say, upon nothing.
+
+- And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in
+this tour of yours through France and Italy! - Psha! said I, and do
+not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum COMPAGNON DU VOYAGE
+the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay
+besides?  When man can extricate himself with an EQUIVOQUE in such
+an unequal match, - he is not ill off. - But you can do something
+else, La Fleur? said I. - O QU'OUI! he could make spatterdashes,
+and play a little upon the fiddle. - Bravo! said Wisdom. - Why, I
+play a bass myself, said I; - we shall do very well.  You can
+shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur? - He had all the
+dispositions in the world. - It is enough for heaven! said I,
+interrupting him, - and ought to be enough for me. - So, supper
+coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one side of my
+chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in his countenance
+as ever Nature painted in one, on the other, - I was satisfied to
+my heart's content with my empire; and if monarchs knew what they
+would be at, they might be as satisfied as I was.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+AS La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and
+will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little
+further in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to
+repent of the impulses which generally do determine me, than in
+regard to this fellow; - he was a faithful, affectionate, simple
+soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and,
+notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and spatterdash-making,
+which, though very good in themselves, happened to be of no great
+service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity of his
+temper; - it supplied all defects: - I had a constant resource in
+his looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own - I was
+going to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach
+of every thing; for, whether 'twas hunger or thirst, or cold or
+nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur
+met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy
+to point them out by, - he was eternally the same; so that if I am
+a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my
+head I am, - it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by
+reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this
+poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind.  With all
+this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb, - but he seemed at
+first sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before
+I had been three days in Paris with him, - he seemed to be no
+coxcomb at all.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+THE next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I
+delivered to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my
+half a dozen shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten
+all upon the chaise, - get the horses put to, - and desire the
+landlord to come in with his bill.
+
+C'EST UN GARCON DE BONNE FORTUNE, said the landlord, pointing
+through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about
+La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the
+postilion was leading out the horses.  La Fleur kissed all their
+hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and
+thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.
+
+- The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town,
+and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him
+will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued
+he, "he is always in love." - I am heartily glad of it, said I, -
+'twill save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under
+my head.  In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge
+as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost
+all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly
+persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some
+interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum
+lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up, - I can scarce find in
+it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it
+as fast as I can - and the moment I am rekindled, I am all
+generosity and good-will again; and would do anything in the world,
+either for or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no
+sin in it.
+
+- But in saying this, - sure I am commanding the passion, - not
+myself.
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.
+
+
+- THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there,
+trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the
+vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace.  What for poisons,
+conspiracies, and assassinations, - libels, pasquinades, and
+tumults, there was no going there by day - 'twas worse by night.
+
+Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the
+Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole
+orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which
+delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations than
+the tender strokes of nature which the poet had wrought up in that
+pathetic speech of Perseus, O CUPID, PRINCE OF GODS AND MEN! &c.
+Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and talked of
+nothing but Perseus his pathetic address, - "O CUPID! PRINCE OF
+GODS AND MEN!" - in every street of Abdera, in every house, "O
+Cupid!  Cupid!" - in every mouth, like the natural notes of some
+sweet melody which drop from it, whether it will or no, - nothing
+but "Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!" - The fire caught - and
+the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.
+
+No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore, - not a single
+armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death; - Friendship
+and Virtue met together, and kiss'd each other in the street; the
+golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera - every
+Abderite took his eaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her
+purple web, and chastely sat her down and listened to the song.
+
+'Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire
+extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea,
+to have done this.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+WHEN all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in
+the inn, unless you are a little sour'd by the adventure, there is
+always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into
+your chaise; and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty,
+who surround you.  Let no man say, "Let them go to the devil!" -
+'tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have had
+sufferings enow without it: I always think it better to take a few
+sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to
+do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting down his motives
+for giving them; - They will be registered elsewhere.
+
+For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few,
+that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first
+public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
+
+A well-a-way! said I, - I have but eight sous in the world, showing
+them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women
+for 'em.
+
+A poor tatter'd soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his
+claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a
+disqualifying bow on his part.  Had the whole PARTERRE cried out,
+PLACE AUX DAMES, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the
+sentiment of a deference for the sex with half the effect.
+
+Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that
+beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other
+countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?
+
+- I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
+POLITESSE.
+
+A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in
+the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once
+been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously
+offer'd a pinch on both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence,
+and modestly declined.  - The poor little fellow pressed it upon
+them with a nod of welcomeness. - PRENEZ EN -  PRENEZ, said he,
+looking another way; so they each took a pinch. - Pity thy box
+should ever want one! said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous
+into it - taking a small pinch out of his box, to enhance their
+value, as I did it.  He felt the weight of the second obligation
+more than of the first, - 'twas doing him an honour, - the other
+was only doing him a charity; - and he made me a bow down to the
+ground for it.
+
+- Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been
+campaigned and worn out to death in the service - here's a couple
+of sous for thee. - VIVE LE ROI! said the old soldier.
+
+I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, POUR L'AMOUR
+DE DIEU, which was the footing on which it was begg'd. - The poor
+woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other
+motive.
+
+MON CHER ET TRES-CHARITABLE MONSIEUR. - There's no opposing this,
+said I.
+
+MILORD ANGLOIS - the very sound was worth the money; - so I gave MY
+LAST SOUS FOR IT.  But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked
+a PAUVRE HONTEUX, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and
+who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask'd one
+for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle,
+and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days.
+- Good God! said I - and I have not one single sous left to give
+him. - But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature,
+stirring within me; - so I gave him - no matter what - I am ashamed
+to say HOW MUCH now, - and was ashamed to think how little, then:
+so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as
+these two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre
+or two what was the precise sum.
+
+I could afford nothing for the rest, but DIEU VOUS BENISSE!
+
+- ET LE BON DIEU VOUS BENISSE ENCORE, said the old soldier, the
+dwarf, &c.  The PAUVRE HONTEUX could say nothing; - he pull'd out a
+little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away - and I
+thought he thanked me more than them all.
+
+
+THE BIDET.
+
+
+HAVING settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise
+with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and
+La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little
+BIDET, and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs) - he
+canter'd away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.
+- But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of
+life!  A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to
+La Fleur's career; - his bidet would not pass by it, - a contention
+arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd out of his jack-
+boots the very first kick.
+
+La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more
+nor less upon it, than DIABLE!  So presently got up, and came to
+the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he
+would have beat his drum.
+
+The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back
+again, - then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but
+by the dead ass: - La Fleur insisted upon the thing - and the bidet
+threw him.
+
+What's the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine?
+Monsieur, said he, C'EST UN CHEVAL LE PLUS OPINIATRE DU MONDE. -
+Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.
+So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the
+bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to Montreuil.
+- PESTE! said La Fleur.
+
+It is not MAL-E-PROPOS to take notice here, that though La Fleur
+availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this
+encounter, - namely, DIABLE! and PESTE! that there are,
+nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive,
+comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for
+every unexpected throw of the dice in life.
+
+LE DIABLE! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally
+used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only
+fall out contrary to your expectations; such as - the throwing once
+doublets - La Fleur's being kick'd off his horse, and so forth. -
+Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always - LE DIABLE!
+
+But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in
+that of the bidet's running away after, and leaving La Fleur
+aground in jack-boots, - 'tis the second degree.
+
+'Tis then PESTE!
+
+And for the third -
+
+- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I
+reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so
+refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the
+use of it. -
+
+Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in
+distress! - what ever is my CAST, grant me but decent words to
+exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.
+
+- But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take
+every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
+
+La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the
+bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight, - and then, you
+may imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole
+affair.
+
+As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots,
+there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the
+chaise, or into it. -
+
+I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-
+house at Nampont.
+
+
+NAMPONT.  THE DEAD ASS.
+
+
+- AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet
+- and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been
+alive to have shared it with me. - I thought, by the accent, it had
+been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his ass, and to the
+very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La
+Fleur's misadventure.  The man seemed to lament it much; and it
+instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he
+did it with more true touches of nature.
+
+The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the
+ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time
+to time, - then laid them down, - look'd at them, and shook his
+head.  He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as
+if to eat it; held it some time in his hand, - then laid it upon
+the bit of his ass's bridle, - looked wistfully at the little
+arrangement he had made - and then gave a sigh.
+
+The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur
+amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I
+continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over
+their heads.
+
+- He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the
+furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return
+home, when his ass died.  Every one seemed desirous to know what
+business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey
+from his own home.
+
+It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the
+finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the
+eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of
+the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and
+made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, he would go
+in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
+
+When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp'd to pay
+Nature her tribute, - and wept bitterly.
+
+He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set
+out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a
+patient partner of his journey; - that it had eaten the same bread
+with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.
+
+Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern. -
+La Fleur offered him money. - The mourner said he did not want it;
+- it was not the value of the ass - but the loss of him. - The ass,
+he said, he was assured, loved him; - and upon this told them a
+long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean
+mountains, which had separated them from each other three days;
+during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought
+the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank till they
+met.
+
+Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy
+poor beast; I'm sure thou hast been a merciful master to him. -
+Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when he was alive; - but now
+that he is dead, I think otherwise. - I fear the weight of myself
+and my afflictions together have been too much for him, - they have
+shortened the poor creature's days, and I fear I have them to
+answer for. - Shame on the world! said I to myself. - Did we but
+love each other as this poor soul loved his ass - 'twould be
+something. -
+
+
+NAMPONT.  THE POSTILION.
+
+
+THE concern which the poor fellow's story threw me into required
+some attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off
+upon the PAVE in a full gallop.
+
+The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not
+have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave
+and quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the
+postilion had he but stolen off with me in something like a pensive
+pace. - On the contrary, as the mourner finished his lamentation,
+the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to each of his beasts, and set
+off clattering like a thousand devils.
+
+I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven's sake to go slower:
+- and the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped. - The
+deuce take him and his galloping too - said I, - he'll go on
+tearing my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into a foolish
+passion, and then he'll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.
+
+The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had
+got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont,
+- he had put me out of temper with him, - and then with myself, for
+being so.
+
+My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling
+gallop would have been of real service to me. -
+
+- Then, prithee, get on - get on, my good lad, said I.
+
+The postilion pointed to the hill. - I then tried to return back to
+the story of the poor German and his ass - but I had broke the
+clue, - and could no more get into it again, than the postilion
+could into a trot.
+
+- The deuce go, said I, with it all!  Here am I sitting as candidly
+disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all
+runs counter.
+
+There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds
+out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and
+the first word which roused me was AMIENS.
+
+- Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes, - this is the very town where
+my poor lady is to come.
+
+
+AMIENS.
+
+
+THE words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L-'s post-
+chaise, with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time
+to make me a bow of recognition, - and of that particular kind of
+it, which told me she had not yet done with me.  She was as good as
+her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother's
+servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had
+taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to
+present myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do
+at Paris.  There was only added, she was sorry, but from what
+PENCHANT she had not considered, that she had been prevented
+telling me her story, - that she still owed it to me; and if my
+route should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then
+forgot the name of Madame de L-, - that Madame de L- would be glad
+to discharge her obligation.
+
+Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels; - 'tis
+only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route
+of Flanders, home; - 'twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but,
+were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my
+journey, in sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery
+told to me by such a sufferer?  To see her weep! and, though I
+cannot dry up the fountain of her tears, what an exquisite
+sensation is there still left, in wiping them away from off the
+cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I'm sitting with my
+handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside her?
+
+There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly
+reproached my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of
+expressions.
+
+It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular
+blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in
+love with some one; and my last flame happening to be blown out by
+a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted
+it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three months
+before, - swearing, as I did it, that it should last me through the
+whole journey. - Why should I dissemble the matter?  I had sworn to
+her eternal fidelity; - she had a right to my whole heart: - to
+divide my affections was to lessen them; - to expose them was to
+risk them: where there is risk there may be loss: - and what wilt
+thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and
+confidence - so good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
+
+- I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself. - But
+my imagination went on, - I recalled her looks at that crisis of
+our separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu!  I
+look'd at the picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,
+- and blush'd as I look'd at it. - I would have given the world to
+have kiss'd it, - but was ashamed. - And shall this tender flower,
+said I, pressing it between my hands, - shall it be smitten to its
+very root, - and smitten, Yorick! by thee, who hast promised to
+shelter it in thy breast?
+
+Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the
+ground, - be thou my witness - and every pure spirit which tastes
+it, be my witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless
+Eliza went along with me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
+
+In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the
+understanding, will always say too much.
+
+
+THE LETTER.  AMIENS.
+
+
+FORTUNE had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful
+in his feats of chivalry, - and not one thing had offered to
+signalise his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered
+into it, which was almost four-and-twenty hours.  The poor soul
+burn'd with impatience; and the Count de L-'s servant coming with
+the letter, being the first practicable occasion which offer'd, La
+Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in order to do honour to his
+master, had taken him into a back parlour in the auberge, and
+treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in Picardy; and the
+Count de L-'s servant, in return, and not to be behindhand in
+politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to the
+Count's hotel.  La Fleur's PREVENANCY (for there was a passport in
+his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with
+him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of
+prudery in showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had
+pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with the
+first note, set the FILLE DE CHAMBRE, the MAITRE D'HOTEL, the cook,
+the scullion, and all the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old
+monkey, a dancing: I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen
+since the flood.
+
+Madame de L-, in passing from her brother's apartments to her own,
+hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her FILLE DE CHAMBRE
+to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman's
+servant, who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she
+ordered him up.
+
+As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded
+himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de
+L-, on the part of his master, - added a long apocrypha of
+inquiries after Madame de L-'s health, - told her, that Monsieur
+his master was AU DESESPOIRE for her re-establishment from the
+fatigues of her journey, - and, to close all, that Monsieur had
+received the letter which Madame had done him the honour - And he
+has done me the honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur,
+to send a billet in return.
+
+Madame de L- had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the
+fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations; -
+he trembled for my honour, - and possibly might not altogether be
+unconcerned for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a
+master who could be wanting EN EGARDS VIS E VIS D'UNE FEMME! so
+that when Madame de L- asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, -
+O QU'OUI, said La Fleur: so laying down his hat upon the ground,
+and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with his left
+hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; - then
+contrariwise. - DIABLE! then sought every pocket - pocket by
+pocket, round, not forgetting his fob: - PESTE! - then La Fleur
+emptied them upon the floor, - pulled out a dirty cravat, - a
+handkerchief, - a comb, - a whip lash, - a nightcap, - then gave a
+peep into his hat, - QUELLE ETOURDERIE!  He had left the letter
+upon the table in the auberge; - he would run for it, and be back
+with it in three minutes.
+
+I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an
+account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was:
+and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (PAR HAZARD) to answer
+Madame's letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover
+the FAUX PAS; - and if not, that things were only as they were.
+
+Now I was not altogether sure of my ETIQUETTE, whether I ought to
+have wrote or no; - but if I had, - a devil himself could not have
+been angry: 'twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning creature
+for my honour; and, however he might have mistook the road, - or
+embarrassed me in so doing, - his heart was in no fault, - I was
+under no necessity to write; - and, what weighed more than all, -
+he did not look as if he had done amiss.
+
+- 'Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I. - 'Twas sufficient.  La
+Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen,
+ink, and paper, in his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them
+close before me, with such a delight in his countenance, that I
+could not help taking up the pen.
+
+I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made
+half a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.
+
+In short, I was in no mood to write.
+
+La Fleur stepp'd out and brought a little water in a glass to
+dilute my ink, - then fetch'd sand and seal-wax. - It was all one;
+I wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again. -
+LE DIABLE L'EMPORTE! said I, half to myself, - I cannot write this
+self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I said it.
+
+As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
+respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand
+apologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a
+letter in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a
+corporal's wife, which he durst say would suit the occasion.
+
+I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour. - Then
+prithee, said I, let me see it.
+
+La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm'd
+full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and
+laying it upon the table, and then untying the string which held
+them all together, run them over, one by one, till he came to the
+letter in question, - LA VOILA! said he, clapping his hands: so,
+unfolding it first, he laid it open before me, and retired three
+steps from the table whilst I read it.
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+Madame,
+
+JE suis penetre de la douleur la plus vive, et reduit en meme temps
+au desespoir par ce retour imprevu du Caporal qui rend notre
+entrevue de ce soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.
+
+Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser e vous.
+
+L'amour n'est RIEN sans sentiment.
+
+Et le sentiment est encore MOINS sans amour.
+
+On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se desesperer.
+
+On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors
+ce cera mon tour.
+
+CHACUN E SON TOUR.
+
+En attendant - Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle!
+
+Je suis, Madame,
+
+Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux et les plus tendres,
+
+tout e vous,
+
+JAQUES ROQUE.
+
+
+It was but changing the Corporal into the Count, - and saying
+nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday, - and the letter was
+neither right nor wrong: - so, to gratify the poor fellow, who
+stood trembling for my honour, his own, and the honour of his
+letter, - I took the cream gently off it, and whipping it up in my
+own way, I seal'd it up and sent him with it to Madame de L-; - and
+the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris.
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all
+on floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple
+of cooks - 'tis very well in such a place as Paris, - he may drive
+in at which end of a street he will.
+
+A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does
+not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize
+himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it; - I say UP INTO
+IT - for there is no descending perpendicular amongst 'em with a
+"ME VOICI! MES ENFANS" - here I am - whatever many may think.
+
+I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone
+in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering
+as I had prefigured them.  I walked up gravely to the window in my
+dusty black coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world
+in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure. - The
+old with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their
+vizards; - the young in armour bright which shone like gold,
+beplumed with each gay feather of the east, - all, - all, tilting
+at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore for fame and
+love. -
+
+Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here?  On the very
+first onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an
+atom; - seek, - seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the
+end of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays; -
+there thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind
+grisette of a barber's wife, and get into such coteries! -
+
+- May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had
+to present to Madame de R-  - I'll wait upon this lady, the very
+first thing I do.  So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber
+directly, - and come back and brush my coat.
+
+
+THE WIG.  PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do
+with my wig: 'twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to
+do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.
+
+- But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won't stand. - You may
+emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. -
+
+What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I. -
+The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have
+gone no further than to have "dipped it into a pail of water." -
+What difference! 'tis like Time to Eternity!
+
+I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas
+which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great
+works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never
+would make a comparison less than a mountain at least.  All that
+can be said against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is
+this: - That the grandeur is MORE in the WORD, and LESS in the
+THING.  No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but
+Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a
+hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment; - the Parisian
+barber meant nothing. -
+
+The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly,
+but a sorry figure in speech; - but, 'twill be said, - it has one
+advantage - 'tis in the next room, and the truth of the buckle may
+be tried in it, without more ado, in a single moment.
+
+In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, THE
+FRENCH EXPRESSION PROFESSES MORE THAN IT PERFORMS.
+
+I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national
+characters more in these nonsensical MINUTIAE than in the most
+important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and
+stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose
+amongst them.
+
+I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, that it was
+too late to think of going with my letter to Madame R- that night:
+but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his
+reflections turn to little account; so taking down the name of the
+Hotel de Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any
+determination where to go; - I shall consider of that, said I, as I
+walk along.
+
+
+THE PULSE.  PARIS.
+
+
+HAIL, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the
+road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love
+at first sight: 'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.
+
+- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I
+must turn to go to the Opera Comique? - Most willingly, Monsieur,
+said she, laying aside her work. -
+
+I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came
+along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an
+interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked
+in.
+
+She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on
+the far side of the shop, facing the door.
+
+- TRES VOLONTIERS, most willingly, said she, laying her work down
+upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was
+sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look,
+that had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I should
+have said - "This woman is grateful."
+
+You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the
+shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take, - you
+must turn first to your left hand, - MAIS PRENEZ GARDE -there are
+two turns; and be so good as to take the second - then go down a
+little way and you'll see a church: and, when you are past it, give
+yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will
+lead you to the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross - and
+there any one will do himself the pleasure to show you. -
+
+She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
+goodnatur'd patience the third time as the first; - and if TONES
+AND MANNERS have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to
+hearts which shut them out, - she seemed really interested that I
+should not lose myself.
+
+I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she
+was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to
+do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I
+told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in
+her eyes, - and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done
+her instructions.
+
+I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot
+every tittle of what she had said; - so looking back, and seeing
+her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I
+went right or not, - I returned back to ask her, whether the first
+turn was to my right or left, - for that I had absolutely forgot. -
+Is it possible! said she, half laughing.  'Tis very possible,
+replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good
+advice.
+
+As this was the real truth - she took it, as every woman takes a
+matter of right, with a slight curtsey.
+
+- ATTENDEZ! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me,
+whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel
+of gloves.  I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet
+into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step
+in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the
+place. - So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop: and
+taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as
+if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and
+I instantly sat myself down beside her.
+
+- He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment. - And in that
+moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil
+to you for all these courtesies.  Any one may do a casual act of
+good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the
+temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which
+comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her
+wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman
+in the world. - Feel it, said she, holding out her arm.  So laying
+down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied
+the two forefingers of my other to the artery. -
+
+- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and
+beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical
+manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true
+devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her
+fever. - How wouldst thou have laugh'd and moralized upon my new
+profession! - and thou shouldst have laugh'd and moralized on. -
+Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, "There are worse
+occupations in this world THAN FEELING A WOMAN'S PULSE." - But a
+grisette's! thou wouldst have said, - and in an open shop!  Yorick
+-
+
+- So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I
+care not if all the world saw me feel it.
+
+
+THE HUSBAND.  PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the
+fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour
+into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. - 'Twas nobody
+but her husband, she said; - so I began a fresh score. - Monsieur
+is so good, quoth she, as he pass'd by us, as to give himself the
+trouble of feeling my pulse. - The husband took off his hat, and
+making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour - and having said
+that, he put on his hat and walk'd out.
+
+Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, - and can this man be
+the husband of this woman!
+
+Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds
+of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
+
+In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone
+and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body,
+sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general,
+to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and
+wife need to do.
+
+In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for
+the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the
+husband, he seldom comes there: - in some dark and dismal room
+behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same
+rough son of Nature that Nature left him.
+
+The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is SALIQUE,
+having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the
+women, - by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and
+sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long
+together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth,
+but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant: -
+Monsieur LE MARI is little better than the stone under your foot.
+
+- Surely, - surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: -
+thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and
+this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.
+
+- And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she. - With all the
+benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected. -
+She was going to say something civil in return - but the lad came
+into the shop with the gloves. - A PROPOS, said I, I want a couple
+of pairs myself.
+
+
+THE GLOVES.  PARIS.
+
+
+THE beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind
+the counter, reach'd down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the
+side over against her: they were all too large.  The beautiful
+grisette measured them one by one across my hand. - It would not
+alter their dimensions. - She begg'd I would try a single pair,
+which seemed to be the least. - She held it open; - my hand slipped
+into it at once. - It will not do, said I, shaking my head a
+little. - No, said she, doing the same thing.
+
+There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety, - where whim,
+and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all
+the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;
+- they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can
+scarce say which party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of
+words to swell pages about it - it is enough in the present to say
+again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our
+arms, we both lolled upon the counter - it was narrow, and there
+was just room for the parcel to lay between us.
+
+The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then
+sideways to the window, then at the gloves, - and then at me.  I
+was not disposed to break silence: - I followed her example: so, I
+looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and
+then at her, - and so on alternately.
+
+I found I lost considerably in every attack: - she had a quick
+black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with
+such penetration, that she look'd into my very heart and reins. -
+It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did. -
+
+It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me,
+and putting them into my pocket.
+
+I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single
+livre above the price. - I wish'd she had asked a livre more, and
+was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about. - Do you
+think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I
+could ask a sous too much of a stranger - and of a stranger whose
+politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to
+lay himself at my mercy? - M'EN CROYEZ CAPABLE? - Faith! not I,
+said I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So counting the money
+into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a
+shopkeeper's wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed
+me.
+
+
+THE TRANSLATION.  PARIS.
+
+
+THERE was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French
+officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man
+whose manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men
+worse; but that I once knew one, - for he is no more, - and why
+should I not rescue one page from violation by writing his name in
+it, and telling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest
+of my flock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at
+this long distance from his death - but my eyes gush out with
+tears.  For his sake I have a predilection for the whole corps of
+veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of benches and
+placed myself beside him.
+
+The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might
+be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon
+as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a
+shagreen case, return'd them and the book into his pocket together.
+I half rose up, and made him a bow.
+
+Translate this into any civilized language in the world - the sense
+is this:
+
+"Here's a poor stranger come into the box - he seems as if he knew
+nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if
+every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose: - 'tis
+shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face - and
+using him worse than a German."
+
+The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he
+had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French
+too, and told him, "I was sensible of his attention, and return'd
+him a thousand thanks for it."
+
+There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to
+get master of this SHORT HAND, and to be quick in rendering the
+several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and
+delineations, into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude,
+I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I
+go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in
+the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought
+off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly
+wrote down and sworn to.
+
+I was going one evening to Martini's concert at Milan, and, was
+just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F- was
+coming out in a sort of a hurry: - she was almost upon me before I
+saw her; so I gave a spring to once side to let her pass. - She had
+done the same, and on the same side too; so we ran our heads
+together: she instantly got to the other side to get out: I was
+just as unfortunate as she had been, for I had sprung to that side,
+and opposed her passage again. - We both flew together to the other
+side, and then back, - and so on: - it was ridiculous: we both
+blush'd intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should have done
+at first; - I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more
+difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made
+her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the
+end of the passage.  She look'd back twice, and walk'd along it
+rather sideways, as if she would make room for any one coming up
+stairs to pass her. - No, said I - that's a vile translation: the
+Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that
+opening is left for me to do it in; - so I ran and begg'd pardon
+for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention
+to have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by the same
+intention towards me; - so we reciprocally thank'd each other.  She
+was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no CICISBEO near her, I
+begg'd to hand her to her coach; - so we went down the stairs,
+stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the
+adventure. - Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had handed her
+in, I made six different efforts to let you go out. - And I made
+six efforts, replied she, to let you enter. - I wish to heaven you
+would make a seventh, said I. - With all my heart, said she, making
+room. - Life is too short to be long about the forms of it, - so I
+instantly stepp'd in, and she carried me home with her. - And what
+became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows
+more than I.
+
+I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the
+translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to
+make in Italy.
+
+
+THE DWARF.  PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by
+one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so
+that being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds
+for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre, -
+and that was, the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such
+numbers of dwarfs. - No doubt she sports at certain times in almost
+every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her
+amusements. - The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.
+
+As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, I measured
+every body I saw walking in the streets by it. - Melancholy
+application! especially where the size was extremely little, - the
+face extremely dark, - the eyes quick, - the nose long, - the teeth
+white, - the jaw prominent, - to see so many miserables, by force
+of accidents driven out of their own proper class into the very
+verge of another, which it gives me pain to write down: - every
+third man a pigmy! - some by rickety heads and hump backs; - others
+by bandy legs; - a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the
+sixth and seventh years of their growth; - a fourth, in their
+perfect and natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first
+rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow
+higher.
+
+A Medical Traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages; - a
+Splenetic one, to want of air; - and an Inquisitive Traveller, to
+fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, - the
+narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the
+sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and
+sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted
+for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these
+matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be
+increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
+world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop'd up,
+that they had not actually room enough to get them. - I do not call
+it getting anything, said he; - 'tis getting nothing. - Nay,
+continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than
+nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty
+years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed
+upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.  Now, Mr. Shandy
+being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
+
+As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found
+it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is
+verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris.  I was walking down
+that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and
+observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter
+which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and help'd
+him over.  Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I
+perceived he was about forty. - Never mind, said I, some good body
+will do as much for me when I am ninety.
+
+I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be
+merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have
+neither size nor strength to get on in the world. - I cannot bear
+to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my
+old French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the
+very thing happen under the box we sat in.
+
+At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side
+box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is
+full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary.  Though you stand, as in
+the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra.  A poor
+defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other
+into this luckless place; - the night was hot, and he was
+surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than himself.  The
+dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which
+incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet
+high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his
+seeing either the stage or the actors.  The poor dwarf did all he
+could to get a peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some
+little opening betwixt the German's arm and his body, trying first
+on one side, then the other; but the German stood square in the
+most unaccommodating posture that can be imagined: - the dwarf
+might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-
+well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's
+sleeve, and told him his distress. - The German turn'd his head
+back, looked down upon him as Goliah did upon David, - and
+unfeelingly resumed his posture.
+
+I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's little
+horn box. - And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear
+monk! so temper'd to BEAR AND FORBEAR! - how sweetly would it have
+lent an ear to this poor soul's complaint!
+
+The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion,
+as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the
+matter? - I told him the story in three words; and added, how
+inhuman it was.
+
+By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first
+transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German
+he would cut off his long queue with his knife. - The German look'd
+back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.
+
+An injury sharpen'd by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes
+every man of sentiment a party: I could have leap'd out of the box
+to have redressed it. - The old French officer did it with much
+less confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a
+sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger at the
+distress, - the sentinel made his way to it. - There was no
+occasion to tell the grievance, - the thing told himself; so
+thrusting back the German instantly with his musket, - he took the
+poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him. - This is noble!
+said I, clapping my hands together. - And yet you would not permit
+this, said the old officer, in England.
+
+- In England, dear Sir, said I, WE SIT ALL AT OUR EASE.
+
+The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in
+case I had been at variance, - by saying it was a BON MOT; - and,
+as a BON MOT is always worth something at Paris, he offered me a
+pinch of snuff.
+
+
+THE ROSE.  PARIS.
+
+
+IT WAS now my turn to ask the old French officer "What was the
+matter?" for a cry of "HAUSSEZ LES MAINS, MONSIEUR L'ABBE!" re-
+echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as
+unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him.
+
+He told me it was some poor Abbe in one of the upper loges, who, he
+supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in
+order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were
+insisting upon his holding up both his hands during the
+representation. - And can it be supposed, said I, that an
+ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes' pockets?  The old French
+officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of
+knowledge which I had no idea of.
+
+Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment - is it possible,
+that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so
+unclean, and so unlike themselves, - QUELLE GROSSIERTE! added I.
+
+The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the
+church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe
+was given in it by Moliere: but like other remains of Gothic
+manners, was declining. - Every nation, continued he, have their
+refinements and GROSSIERTES, in which they take the lead, and lose
+it of one another by turns: - that he had been in most countries,
+but never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others
+seemed to want.  LE POUR ET LE CONTRE SE TROUVENT EN CHAQUE NATION;
+there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere; and
+nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one half of the
+world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: -
+that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the SCAVOIR VIVRE, was
+by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual
+toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow,
+taught us mutual love.
+
+The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour
+and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions
+of his character: - I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook
+the object; - 'twas my own way of thinking - the difference was, I
+could not have expressed it half so well.
+
+It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, - if the
+latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every
+object which he never saw before. - I have as little torment of
+this kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that
+many a thing gave me pain, and that I blush'd at many a word the
+first month, - which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent
+the second.
+
+Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with
+her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two
+leagues out of town. - Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the
+most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues and
+purity of heart. - In our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired
+me to pull the cord. - I asked her if she wanted anything - RIEN
+QUE POUR PISSER, said Madame de Rambouliet.
+
+Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p-ss on.
+- And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one PLUCK YOUR ROSE, and
+scatter them in your path, - for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.
+- I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been
+the priest of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her
+fountain with a more respectful decorum.
+
+
+THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.  PARIS.
+
+
+WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
+Polonius's advice to his son upon the same subject into my head, -
+and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare's
+works, I stopp'd at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to
+purchase the whole set.
+
+The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.  COMMENT! said
+I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt
+us. - He said they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to
+be sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B-.
+
+- And does the Count de B-, said I, read Shakespeare?  C'EST UN
+ESPRIT FORT, replied the bookseller. - He loves English books! and
+what is more to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too.
+You speak this so civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an
+Englishman to lay out a louis d'or or two at your shop. - The
+bookseller made a bow, and was going to say something, when a young
+decent girl about twenty, who by her air and dress seemed to be
+FILLE DE CHAMBRE to some devout woman of fashion, come into the
+shop and asked for LES EGAREMENTS DU COEUR ET DE L'ESPRIT: the
+bookseller gave her the book directly; she pulled out a little
+green satin purse run round with a riband of the same colour, and
+putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the money and
+paid for it.  As I had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both
+walk'd out at the door together.
+
+- And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with THE WANDERINGS OF
+THE HEART, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has
+first told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache,
+canst thou ever be sure it is so. - LE DIEU M'EN GARDE! said the
+girl. - With reason, said I, for if it is a good one, 'tis pity it
+should be stolen; 'tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a
+better air to your face, than if it was dress'd out with pearls.
+
+The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her
+satin purse by its riband in her hand all the time. - 'Tis a very
+small one, said I, taking hold of the bottom of it - she held it
+towards me - and there is very little in it, my dear, said I; but
+be but as good as thou art handsome, and heaven will fill it.  I
+had a parcel of crowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as
+she had let go the purse entirely, I put a single one in; and,
+tying up the riband in a bow-knot, returned it to her.
+
+The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one: -
+'twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows
+itself down, - the body does no more than tell it.  I never gave a
+girl a crown in my life which gave me half the pleasure.
+
+My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said I,
+if I had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the
+crown, you'll remember it; - so don't, my dear, lay it out in
+ribands.
+
+Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable; - in
+saying which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me
+her hand: - EN VERITE, MONSIEUR, JE METTRAI CET ARGENT EPART, said
+she.
+
+When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it
+sanctifies their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was
+dusky, yet as both our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple
+of walking along the Quai de Conti together.
+
+She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got
+twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before,
+she made a sort of a little stop to tell me again - she thank'd me.
+
+It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying
+to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been
+rendering it to for the world; - but I see innocence, my dear, in
+your face, - and foul befall the man who ever lays a snare in its
+way!
+
+The girl seem'd affected some way or other with what I said; - she
+gave a low sigh: - I found I was not empowered to enquire at all
+after it, - so said nothing more till I got to the corner of the
+Rue de Nevers, where, we were to part.
+
+- But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene?
+She told me it was; - or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault,
+which was the next turn. - Then I'll go, my dear, by the Rue de
+Gueneguault, said I, for two reasons; first, I shall please myself,
+and next, I shall give you the protection of my company as far on
+your way as I can.  The girl was sensible I was civil - and said,
+she wished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St. Pierre. - You
+live there? said I. - She told me she was FILLE DE CHAMBRE to
+Madame R-. - Good God! said I, 'tis the very lady for whom I have
+brought a letter from Amiens. - The girl told me that Madame R-,
+she believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient
+to see him: - so I desired the girl to present my compliments to
+Madame R-, and say, I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.
+
+We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this
+pass'd. - We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her
+EGAREMENTS DU COEUR &c. more commodiously than carrying them in her
+hand - they were two volumes: so I held the second for her whilst
+she put the first into her pocket; and then she held her pocket,
+and I put in the other after it.
+
+'Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are
+drawn together.
+
+We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her
+hand within my arm. - I was just bidding her, - but she did it of
+herself, with that undeliberating simplicity, which show'd it was
+out of her head that she had never seen me before.  For my own
+part, I felt the conviction of consanguinity so strongly, that I
+could not help turning half round to look in her face, and see if I
+could trace out any thing in it of a family likeness. - Tut! said
+I, are we not all relations?
+
+When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I
+stopp'd to bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would thank me
+again for my company and kindness. - She bid me adieu twice. - I
+repeated it as often; and so cordial was the parting between us,
+that had it happened any where else, I'm not sure but I should have
+signed it with a kiss of charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.
+
+But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men, - I did, what
+amounted to the same thing -
+
+- I bid God bless her.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired
+after by the Lieutenant de Police. - The deuce take it! said I, - I
+know the reason.  It is time the reader should know it, for in the
+order of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it
+was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have been
+forgotten now; - and now is the time I want it.
+
+I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter'd
+my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and
+looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the
+idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was
+no getting there without a passport.  Go but to the end of a
+street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I
+set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever
+made for knowledge, I could less bear the thoughts of it: so
+hearing the Count de - had hired the packet, I begg'd he would take
+me in his suite.  The Count had some little knowledge of me, so
+made little or no difficulty, - only said, his inclination to serve
+me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way
+of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass'd there, I
+might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must
+make friends and shift for myself. - Let me get to Paris, Monsieur
+le Count, said I, - and I shall do very well.  So I embark'd, and
+never thought more of the matter.
+
+When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring
+after me, - the thing instantly recurred; - and by the time La
+Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room
+to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my
+passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel
+concluded with saying, He hoped I had one. - Not I, faith! said I.
+
+The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an
+infected person, as I declared this; - and poor La Fleur advanced
+three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good
+soul makes to succour a distress'd one: - the fellow won my heart
+by it; and from that single trait I knew his character as
+perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me
+with fidelity for seven years.
+
+MON SEIGNEUR! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting
+himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone
+of it. - If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (APPAREMMENT) in
+all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one. -
+Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then
+CERTES, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet
+AU MOINS. - Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur'd soul:
+- he'll hurt nobody. - CELA N'EMPECHE PAS, said he - you will
+certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. - But I've
+taken your lodgings for a month, answer'd I, and I'll not quit them
+a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world.  La
+Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of
+France.
+
+PARDI! said my host, CES MESSIEURS ANGLOIS SONT DES GENS TRES
+EXTRAORDINAIRES; - and, having both said and sworn it, - he went
+out.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  THE HOTEL AT PARIS.
+
+
+I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious
+look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I
+had treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon
+my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me
+at supper, talk'd to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris,
+and of the Opera Comique. - La Fleur had been there himself, and
+had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller's
+shop; but seeing me come out with the young FILLE DE CHAMBRE, and
+that we walk'd down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem'd it
+unnecessary to follow me a step further; - so making his own
+reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut, - and got to the hotel
+in time to be inform'd of the affair of the police against my
+arrival.
+
+As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup
+himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my
+situation. -
+
+- And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of
+a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to
+set out: - I must tell it here.
+
+Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden'd
+with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how
+much I had taken care for.  Upon telling him the exact sum,
+Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull'd out
+his purse in order to empty it into mine. - I've enough in
+conscience, Eugenius, said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not,
+replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But
+you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
+before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or
+do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the
+Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at
+the king of France's expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily:
+really I had forgot that resource.
+
+Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
+
+Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or
+what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down
+stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to
+think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
+
+- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the
+most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another
+word for a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you
+can't get out of. - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a
+year. - But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and
+patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within, -
+at least for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a
+harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better
+and wiser man than he went in.
+
+I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as
+I settled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no
+small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. - Beshrew the
+sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly - for I envy not its powers,
+which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring.
+The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself,
+and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she
+overlooks them. - 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition, -
+the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; - but strip it of its
+towers - fill up the fosse, - unbarricade the doors - call it
+simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper -
+and not of a man, which holds you in it, - the evil vanishes, and
+you bear the other half without complaint.
+
+I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice
+which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get
+out." - I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man,
+woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.
+
+In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words
+repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung
+in a little cage. - "I can't get out, - I can't get out," said the
+starling.
+
+I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through
+the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they
+approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity.  "I
+can't get out," said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but
+I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to
+get to the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with
+wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to
+pieces. - I took both hands to it.
+
+The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance,
+and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast
+against it as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I
+cannot set thee at liberty. - "No," said the starling, -  "I can't
+get out - I can't get out," said the starling.
+
+I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I
+remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to
+which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home.
+Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were
+they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic
+reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked upstairs,
+unsaying every word I had said in going down them.
+
+Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I, - still thou
+art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been
+made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. -
+'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to
+Liberty, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is
+grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change. -
+No TINT of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn
+thy sceptre into iron: - with thee to smile upon him as he eats his
+crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou
+art exiled! - Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last
+step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great Bestower
+of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, - and
+shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine
+providence, upon those heads which are aching for them!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE.  PARIS.
+
+
+THE bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to
+my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to
+myself the miseries of confinement.  I was in a right frame for it,
+and so I gave full scope to my imagination.
+
+I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born
+to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the
+picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the
+multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me. -
+
+- I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his
+dungeon, I then look'd through the twilight of his grated door to
+take his picture.
+
+I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and
+confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was
+which arises from hope deferr'd.  Upon looking nearer I saw him
+pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once
+fann'd his blood; - he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time -
+nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his
+lattice. - His children -
+
+But here my heart began to bleed - and I was forced to go on with
+another part of the portrait.
+
+He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
+corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a
+little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch'd all
+over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; - he had
+one of these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he
+was etching another day of misery to add to the heap.  As I
+darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye
+towards the door, then cast it down, - shook his head, and went on
+with his work of affliction.  I heard his chains upon his legs, as
+he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. - He
+gave a deep sigh. - I saw the iron enter into his soul! - I burst
+into tears. - I could not sustain the picture of confinement which
+my fancy had drawn. - I started up from my chair, and calling La
+Fleur: I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door
+of the hotel by nine in the morning.
+
+I'll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.
+
+La Fleur would have put me to bed; but - not willing he should see
+anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-
+ache, - I told him I would go to bed by myself, - and bid him go do
+the same.
+
+
+THE STARLING.  ROAD TO VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I GOT into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind,
+and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.
+
+As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look
+for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a
+short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of
+the last chapter.
+
+Whilst the Honourable Mr. - was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had
+been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an
+English lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had
+taken it in his breast into the packet; - and, by course of feeding
+it, and taking it once under his protection, in a day or two grew
+fond of it, and got it safe along with him to Paris.
+
+At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the
+starling, and as he had little to do better the five months his
+master staid there, he taught it, in his mother's tongue, the four
+simple words - (and no more) - to which I own'd myself so much its
+debtor.
+
+Upon his master's going on for Italy, the lad had given it to the
+master of the hotel.  But his little song for liberty being in an
+UNKNOWN language at Paris, the bird had little or no store set by
+him: so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle
+of Burgundy.
+
+In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in
+whose language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of
+him to Lord A-, Lord A- begg'd the bird of me; - in a week Lord A-
+gave him to Lord B-; Lord B- made a present of him to Lord C-; and
+Lord C-'s gentleman sold him to Lord D-'s for a shilling; Lord D-
+gave him to Lord E-; and so on - half round the alphabet.  From
+that rank he pass'd into the lower house, and pass'd the hands of
+as many commoners.  But as all these wanted to GET IN, and my bird
+wanted to GET OUT, he had almost as little store set by him in
+London as in Paris.
+
+It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and
+if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform
+them, that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to
+represent him.
+
+I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to
+this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. -
+Thus:
+
+[Picture which cannot be reproduced]
+
+- And let the herald's officers twist his neck about if they dare.
+
+
+THE ADDRESS.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I SHOULD not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I am
+going to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally
+endeavour to protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de
+C- was an act of compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should
+have done it, I suppose, like other people.
+
+How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my
+servile heart form!  I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.
+
+Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles,
+but putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes
+and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C-'s good
+graces. - This will do, said I. - Just as well, retorted I again,
+as a coat carried up to him by an adventurous tailor, without
+taking his measure.  Fool! continued I, - see Monsieur le Duc's
+face first; - observe what character is written in it; - take
+notice in what posture he stands to hear you; - mark the turns and
+expressions of his body and limbs; - and for the tone, - the first
+sound which comes from his lips will give it you; and from all
+these together you'll compound an address at once upon the spot,
+which cannot disgust the Duke; - the ingredients are his own, and
+most likely to go down.
+
+Well! said I, I wish it well over. - Coward again! as if man to man
+was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in
+the field - why not face to face in the cabinet too?  And trust me,
+Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to himself and betrays
+his own succours ten times where nature does it once.  Go to the
+Duc de C- with the Bastile in thy looks; - my life for it, thou
+wilt be sent back to Paris in half an hour with an escort.
+
+I believe so, said I. - Then I'll go to the Duke, by heaven! with
+all the gaiety and debonairness in the world. -
+
+- And there you are wrong again, replied I. - A heart at ease,
+Yorick, flies into no extremes - 'tis ever on its centre. - Well!
+well! cried I, as the coachman turn'd in at the gates, I find I
+shall do very well: and by the time he had wheel'd round the court,
+and brought me up to the door, I found myself so much the better
+for my own lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim
+to justice, who was to part with life upon the top most, - nor did
+I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do when I
+fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.
+
+As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who
+possibly might be the MAITRE D'HOTEL, but had more the air of one
+of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de C- was busy. - I
+am utterly ignorant, said I, of the forms of obtaining an audience,
+being an absolute stranger, and what is worse in the present
+conjuncture of affairs, being an Englishman too. - He replied, that
+did not increase the difficulty. - I made him a slight bow, and
+told him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le Duc.
+The secretary look'd towards the stairs, as if he was about to
+leave me to carry up this account to some one. - But I must not
+mislead you, said I, - for what I have to say is of no manner of
+importance to Monsieur le Duc de C- - but of great importance to
+myself. - C'EST UNE AUTRE AFFAIRE, replied he. - Not at all, said
+I, to a man of gallantry. - But pray, good sir, continued I, when
+can a stranger hope to have access? - In not less than two hours,
+said he, looking at his watch.  The number of equipages in the
+court-yard seemed to justify the calculation, that I could have no
+nearer a prospect; - and as walking backwards and forwards in the
+saloon, without a soul to commune with, was for the time as bad as
+being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back to my remise,
+and bid the coachman drive me to the CORDON BLEU, which was the
+nearest hotel.
+
+I think there is a fatality in it; - I seldom go to the place I set
+out for.
+
+
+LE PATISSIER.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+BEFORE I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I
+am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the
+town; so I pull'd the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round
+some of the principal streets. - I suppose the town is not very
+large, said I. - The coachman begg'd pardon for setting me right,
+and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes
+and marquises and counts had hotels. - The Count de B-, of whom the
+bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely the night
+before, came instantly into my mind. - And why should I not go,
+thought I, to the Count de B-, who has so high an idea of English
+books and English men - and tell him my story? so I changed my mind
+a second time. - In truth it was the third; for I had intended that
+day for Madame de R-, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent
+her word by her FILLE DE CHAMBRE that I would assuredly wait upon
+her; - but I am governed by circumstances; - I cannot govern them:
+so seeing a man standing with a basket on the other side of the
+street, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to
+him, and enquire for the Count's hotel.
+
+La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de
+St. Louis selling pates. - It is impossible, La Fleur, said I. - La
+Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but
+persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its
+red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole - and had looked into
+the basket and seen the pates which the Chevalier was selling; so
+could not be mistaken in that.
+
+Such a reverse in man's life awakens a better principle than
+curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat
+in the remise: - the more I look'd at him, his croix, and his
+basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain. - I got
+out of the remise, and went towards him.
+
+He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees,
+and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the
+top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix.  His
+basket of little pates was covered over with a white damask napkin;
+another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a
+look of PROPRETE and neatness throughout, that one might have
+bought his pates of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.
+
+He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at
+the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without
+solicitation.
+
+He was about forty-eight; - of a sedate look, something approaching
+to gravity.  I did not wonder. - I went up rather to the basket
+than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his
+pates into my hand, - I begg'd he would explain the appearance
+which affected me.
+
+He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had
+passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony,
+he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but that, at the
+conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the
+whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any
+provision, he found himself in a wide world without friends,
+without a livre, - and indeed, said he, without anything but this,
+- (pointing, as he said it, to his croix). - The poor Chevalier won
+my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem too.
+
+The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his
+generosity could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was
+only his misfortune to be amongst the number.  He had a little
+wife, he said, whom he loved, who did the PATISSERIE; and added, he
+felt no dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this
+way - unless Providence had offer'd him a better.
+
+It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing
+over what happen'd to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine
+months after.
+
+It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead
+up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers,
+numbers had made the same enquiry which I had done. - He had told
+them the same story, and always with so much modesty and good
+sense, that it had reach'd at last the king's ears; - who, hearing
+the Chevalier had been a gallant officer, and respected by the
+whole regiment as a man of honour and integrity, - he broke up his
+little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred livres a year.
+
+As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to
+relate another, out of its order, to please myself: - the two
+stories reflect light upon each other, - and 'tis a pity they
+should be parted.
+
+
+THE SWORD.  RENNES.
+
+
+WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel
+in their turns what distress and poverty is, - I stop not to tell
+the causes which gradually brought the house d'E-, in Brittany,
+into decay.  The Marquis d'E- had fought up against his condition
+with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still show to the
+world, some little fragments of what his ancestors had been; -
+their indiscretions had put it out of his power.  There was enough
+left for the little exigencies of OBSCURITY. - But he had two boys
+who looked up to him for LIGHT; - he thought they deserved it.  He
+had tried his sword - it could not open the way, - the MOUNTING was
+too expensive, - and simple economy was not a match for it: - there
+was no resource but commerce.
+
+In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting
+the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish'd
+to see re-blossom. - But in Brittany, there being a provision for
+this, he avail'd himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the
+states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two
+boys, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient
+law of the duchy, which, though seldom claim'd, he said, was no
+less in force, he took his sword from his side: - Here, said he,
+take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in
+condition to reclaim it.
+
+The president accepted the Marquis's sword: he staid a few minutes
+to see it deposited in the archives of his house - and departed.
+
+The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for
+Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful
+application to business, with some unlook'd for bequests from
+distant branches of his house, return home to reclaim his nobility,
+and to support it.
+
+It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any
+traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the
+very time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn; - it was so
+to me.
+
+The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he supported
+his lady, - his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest
+was at the other extreme of the line next his mother; - he put his
+handkerchief to his face twice. -
+
+- There was a dead silence.  When the Marquis had approached within
+six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest
+son, and advancing three steps before his family, - he reclaim'd
+his sword.  His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into
+his hand he drew it almost out of the scabbard: - 'twas the shining
+face of a friend he had once given up - he look'd attentively along
+it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same, -
+when, observing a little rust which it had contracted near the
+point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over
+it, - I think - I saw a tear fall upon the place.  I could not be
+deceived by what followed.
+
+"I shall find," said he, "some OTHER WAY to get it off."
+
+When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its
+scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it, - and, with his wife
+and daughter, and his two sons following him, walk'd out.
+
+O, how I envied him his feelings!
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de
+B-.  The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was
+tumbling them over.  I walk'd up close to the table, and giving
+first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what
+they were, - I told him I had come without any one to present me,
+knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I
+trusted, would do it for me: - it is my countryman, the great
+Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works - ET AYEZ LA BOUTE, MON
+CHER AMI, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, DE ME FAIRE CET
+HONNEUR-LE. -
+
+The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing
+I look'd a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-
+chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so
+out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the
+bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him
+with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any
+other man in France. - And what is your embarrassment? let me hear
+it, said the Count.  So I told him the story just as I have told it
+the reader.
+
+- And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs
+have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile; -
+but I have no apprehensions, continued I; - for, in falling into
+the hands of the most polish'd people in the world, and being
+conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of
+the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy. - It does not suit
+the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it
+against invalids.
+
+An animated blush came into the Count de B-'s cheeks as I spoke
+this. - NE CRAIGNEZ RIEN - Don't fear, said he. - Indeed, I don't,
+replied I again. - Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I
+have come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not
+think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to
+send me back crying for my pains.
+
+- My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B- (making him a low
+bow), is to desire he will not.
+
+The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half
+as much, - and once or twice said, - C'EST BIEN DIT.  So I rested
+my cause there - and determined to say no more about it.
+
+The Count led the discourse: we talk'd of indifferent things, - of
+books, and politics, and men; - and then of women. - God bless them
+all! said I, after much discourse about them - there is not a man
+upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I
+have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I
+love them; being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of
+affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single
+one as he ought.
+
+EH BIEN!  MONSIEUR L'ANGLOIS, said the Count, gaily; - you are not
+come to spy the nakedness of the land; - I believe you; - NI
+ENCORE, I dare say, THAT of our women! - But permit me to
+conjecture, - if, PAR HAZARD, they fell into your way, that the
+prospect would not affect you.
+
+I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
+indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often
+endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a
+thousand things to a dozen of the sex together, - the least of
+which I could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.
+
+Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I; - as for the nakedness of
+your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in
+them; - and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had
+excited in me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-
+feeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with
+a garment if I knew how to throw it on: - But I could wish,
+continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the
+different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out
+what is good in them to fashion my own by: - and therefore am I
+come.
+
+It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have
+not seen the Palais Royal, - nor the Luxembourg, - nor the Facade
+of the Louvre, - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have
+of pictures, statues, and churches. - I conceive every fair being
+as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original
+drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration
+of Raphael itself.
+
+The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which
+inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home
+into France, - and from France will lead me through Italy; - 'tis a
+quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those
+affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other, -
+and the world, better than we do.
+
+The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion;
+and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare
+for making me known to him. - But A PROPOS, said he; - Shakespeare
+is full of great things; - he forgot a small punctilio of
+announcing your name: - it puts you under a necessity of doing it
+yourself.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+THERE is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set
+about telling any one who I am, - for there is scarce any body I
+cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often
+wished I could do it in a single word, - and have an end of it.  It
+was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this
+to any purpose; - for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
+recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
+immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my
+finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
+finger all the way over the name, - ME VOICI! said I.
+
+Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
+Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
+drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
+this account; - 'tis certain the French conceive better than they
+combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
+inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
+and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into
+the same mistake in the very same case: - "He could not bear," he
+said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's
+jester."  Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.  The
+Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight
+hundred years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus's court; - the
+other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.
+- He shook his head.  Good God! said I, you might as well confound
+Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord! -
+"'Twas all one," he replied. -
+
+- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your
+Lordship, said I, I'm sure your Lordship would not have said so.
+
+The poor Count de B- fell but into the same ERROR.
+
+- ET, MONSIEUR, EST-IL YORICK? cried the Count. - JE LE SUIS, said
+I. - VOUS? - MOI, - MOI QUI AI L'HONNEUR DE VOUS PARLER, MONSIEUR
+LE COMTE. - MON DIEU! said he, embracing me, - VOUS ETES YORICK!
+
+The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left
+me alone in his room.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I COULD not conceive why the Count de B- had gone so abruptly out
+of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the
+Shakespeare into his pocket. -
+
+MYSTERIES WHICH MUST EXPLAIN THEMSELVES ARE NOT WORTH THE LOSS OF
+TIME WHICH A CONJECTURE ABOUT THEM TAKES UP: 'twas better to read
+Shakespeare; so taking up "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING," I transported
+myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and
+got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I
+thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.
+
+Sweet pliability of man's spirit, that can at once surrender itself
+to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary
+moments! - Long, - long since had ye number'd out my days, had I
+not trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground.  When
+my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I
+get off it, to some smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered
+over with rosebuds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it,
+come back strengthened and refresh'd. - When evils press sore upon
+me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a
+new course; - I leave it, - and as I have a clearer idea of the
+Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like AEneas,
+into them. - I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido,
+and wish to recognise it; - I see the injured spirit wave her head,
+and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;
+- I lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections
+which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school.
+
+SURELY THIS IS NOT WALKING IN A VAIN SHADOW - NOR DOES MAN DISQUIET
+HIMSELF in vain BY IT: -he oftener does so in trusting the issue of
+his commotions to reason only. - I can safely say for myself, I was
+never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so
+decisively, as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and
+gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground
+
+When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B- entered,
+with my passport in his hand.  Monsieur le Duc de C-, said the
+Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman.  UN
+HOMME QUI RIT, said the Duke, NE SERA JAMAIS DANGEREUX. - Had it
+been for any one but the king's jester, added the Count, I could
+not have got it these two hours. - PARDONNEZ MOI, Monsieur le
+Count, said I - I am not the king's jester. - But you are Yorick? -
+Yes. - ET VOUS PLAISANTEZ? - I answered, Indeed I did jest, - but
+was not paid for it; - 'twas entirely at my own expense.
+
+We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we
+had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.; - since which time
+our manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at
+present is so full of patriots, who wish for NOTHING but the
+honours and wealth of their country; - and our ladies are all so
+chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout, - there is nothing for a
+jester to make a jest of. -
+
+VOILA UN PERSIFLAGE! cried the Count.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AS the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors,
+governors, and commandants of cities, generals of armies,
+justiciaries, and all officers of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the
+king's jester, and his baggage, travel quietly along, I own the
+triumph of obtaining the passport was not a little tarnish'd by the
+figure I cut in it. - But there is nothing unmix'd in this world;
+and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to
+affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh, - and
+that the greatest THEY KNEW OF terminated, IN A GENERAL WAY, in
+little better than a convulsion.
+
+I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary
+upon the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the
+middle of a note to give an account to the world of a couple of
+sparrows upon the out-edge of his window, which had incommoded him
+all the time he wrote, and at last had entirely taken him off from
+his genealogy.
+
+- 'Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain, for
+I have had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen;
+- but the cock sparrow, during the little time that I could have
+finished the other half of this note, has actually interrupted me
+with the reiteration of his caresses three-and-twenty times and a
+half.
+
+How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!
+
+Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able
+to write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to
+copy, even in thy study.
+
+But this is nothing to my travels. - So I twice, - twice beg pardon
+for it.
+
+
+CHARACTER.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AND how do you find the French? said the Count de B-, after he had
+given me the passport.
+
+The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy,
+I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.
+
+- MAIS PASSE, POUR CELA. - Speak frankly, said he: do you find all
+the urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour of? -
+I had found every thing, I said, which confirmed it. - VRAIMENT,
+said the Count, LES FRANCOIS SONT POLIS. - To an excess, replied I.
+
+The Count took notice of the word EXCES; and would have it I meant
+more than I said.  I defended myself a long time as well as I could
+against it. - He insisted I had a reserve, and that I would speak
+my opinion frankly.
+
+I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain
+compass, as well as an instrument; and that the social and other
+calls have occasion by turns for every key in him; so that if you
+begin a note too high or too low, there must be a want either in
+the upper or under part, to fill up the system of harmony. - The
+Count de B- did not understand music, so desired me to explain it
+some other way.  A polish'd nation, my dear Count, said I, makes
+every one its debtor: and besides, Urbanity itself, like the fair
+sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say it can do
+ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain line of perfection,
+that man, take him altogether, is empower'd to arrive at: - if he
+gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets them.  I must
+not presume to say how far this has affected the French in the
+subject we are speaking of; - but, should it ever be the case of
+the English, in the progress of their refinements, to arrive at the
+same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the
+POLITESSE DU COEUR, which inclines men more to humane actions than
+courteous ones, - we should at least lose that distinct variety and
+originality of character, which distinguishes them, not only from
+each other, but from all the world besides.
+
+I had a few of King William's shillings, as smooth as glass, in my
+pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of
+my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so
+far: -
+
+See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before
+him upon the table, - by jingling and rubbing one against another
+for seventy years together in one body's pocket or another's, they
+are become so much alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling
+from another.
+
+The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but
+few people's hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine
+hand of Nature has given them; - they are not so pleasant to feel,
+- but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look
+you see whose image and superscription they bear. - But the French,
+Monsieur le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said),
+have so many excellences, they can the better spare this; - they
+are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good temper'd
+people as is under heaven; - if they have a fault - they are too
+SERIOUS.
+
+MON DIEU! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.
+
+MAIS VOUS PLAISANTEZ, said he, correcting his exclamation. - I laid
+my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him it was
+my most settled opinion.
+
+The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my
+reasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C-
+.
+
+But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup
+with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of
+knowing you retract your opinion, - or, in what manner you support
+it. - But, if you do support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you
+must do it with all your powers, because you have the whole world
+against you. - I promised the Count I would do myself the honour of
+dining with him before I set out for Italy; - so took my leave.
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION.  PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with
+a bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me. - I do not know,
+said the porter, whether she is gone away or not.  I took the key
+of my chamber of him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within
+ten steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her
+coming easily down.
+
+It was the fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE I had walked along the Quai de
+Conti with; Madame de R- had sent her upon some commission to a
+MARCHANDE DES MODES within a step or two of the Hotel de Modene;
+and as I had fail'd in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I
+had left Paris; and if so, whether I had not left a letter
+addressed to her.
+
+As the fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE was so near my door, she returned
+back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I
+wrote a card.
+
+It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,
+- the crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as
+those of the bed) were drawn close: - the sun was setting, and
+reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair FILLE DE
+CHAMBRE'S face, - I thought she blush'd; - the idea of it made me
+blush myself: - we were quite alone; and that superinduced a second
+blush before the first could get off.
+
+There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the blood is
+more in fault than the man: - 'tis sent impetuous from the heart,
+and virtue flies after it, - not to call it back, but to make the
+sensation of it more delicious to the nerves: -'tis associated. -
+
+But I'll not describe it; - I felt something at first within me
+which was not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had
+given her the night before. - I sought five minutes for a card; - I
+knew I had not one. - I took up a pen. - I laid it down again; - my
+hand trembled: - the devil was in me.
+
+I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist,
+he will fly from us; - but I seldom resist him at all; from a
+terror, though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat;
+- so I give up the triumph for security; and, instead of thinking
+to make him fly, I generally fly myself.
+
+The fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE came close up to the bureau where I was
+looking for a card - took up first the pen I cast down, then
+offer'd to hold me the ink; she offer'd it so sweetly, I was going
+to accept it; - but I durst not; - I have nothing, my dear, said I,
+to write upon. - Write it, said she, simply, upon anything. -
+
+I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon
+thy lips. -
+
+If I do, said I, I shall perish; - so I took her by the hand, and
+led her to the door, and begg'd she would not forget the lesson I
+had given her. - She said, indeed she would not; - and, as she
+uttered it with some earnestness, she turn'd about, and gave me
+both her hands, closed together, into mine; - it was impossible not
+to compress them in that situation; - I wish'd to let them go; and
+all the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it,
+- and still I held them on. - In two minutes I found I had all the
+battle to fight over again; - and I felt my legs and every limb
+about me tremble at the idea.
+
+The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where
+we were standing. - I had still hold of her hands - and how it
+happened I can give no account; but I neither ask'd her - nor drew
+her - nor did I think of the bed; - but so it did happen, we both
+sat down.
+
+I'll just show you, said the fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE, the little
+purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown.  So she put her
+hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some
+time - then into the left. - "She had lost it." - I never bore
+expectation more quietly; - it was in her right pocket at last; -
+she pull'd it out; it was of green taffeta, lined with a little bit
+of white quilted satin, and just big enough to hold the crown: she
+put it into my hand; - it was pretty; and I held it ten minutes
+with the back of my hand resting upon her lap - looking sometimes
+at the purse, sometimes on one side of it.
+
+A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair
+FILLE DE CHAMBRE, without saying a word, took out her little
+housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew'd it up. - I foresaw it
+would hazard the glory of the day; and, as she pass'd her hand in
+silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the
+laurels shake which fancy had wreath'd about my head.
+
+A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was
+just falling off. - See, said the FILLE DE CHAMBRE, holding up her
+foot. - I could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return,
+and putting in the strap, - and lifting up the other foot with it,
+when I had done, to see both were right, - in doing it too
+suddenly, it unavoidably threw the fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE off her
+centre, - and then -
+
+
+THE CONQUEST.
+
+
+YES, - and then -.  Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts
+can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it
+that man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to
+the Father of spirits but for his conduct under them?
+
+If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of
+love and desire are entangled with the piece, - must the whole web
+be rent in drawing them out? - Whip me such stoics, great Governor
+of Nature! said I to myself: - wherever thy providence shall place
+me for the trials of my virtue; - whatever is my danger, - whatever
+is my situation, - let me feel the movements which rise out of it,
+and which belong to me as a man, - and, if I govern them as a good
+one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us,
+and not we ourselves.
+
+As I finished my address, I raised the fair FILLE DE CHAMBRE up by
+the hand, and led her out of the room: - she stood by me till I
+locked the door and put the key in my pocket, - and then, - the
+victory being quite decisive - and not till then, I press'd my lips
+to her cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the
+gate of the hotel.
+
+
+THE MYSTERY.  PARIS.
+
+
+IF a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back
+instantly to my chamber; - it was touching a cold key with a flat
+third to it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call'd
+forth my affections: - therefore, when I let go the hand of the
+FILLE DE CHAMBRE, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some
+time, looking at every one who pass'd by, - and forming conjectures
+upon them, till my attention got fix'd upon a single object which
+confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.
+
+It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which
+passed and repass'd sedately along the street, making a turn of
+about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel; - the man
+was about fifty-two - had a small cane under his arm - was dress'd
+in a dark drab-colour'd coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seem'd
+to have seen some years service: - they were still clean, and there
+was a little air of frugal PROPRETE throughout him.  By his pulling
+off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way,
+I saw he was asking charity: so I got a sous or two out of my
+pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn. - He pass'd by
+me without asking anything - and yet did not go five steps further
+before he ask'd charity of a little woman. - I was much more likely
+to have given of the two. - He had scarce done with the woman, when
+he pull'd off his hat to another who was coming the same way. - An
+ancient gentleman came slowly - and, after him, a young smart one.
+- He let them both pass, and ask'd nothing.  I stood observing him
+half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and
+forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.
+
+There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to
+work, and to no purpose: - the first was, why the man should ONLY
+tell his story to the sex; - and, secondly, - what kind of story it
+was, and what species of eloquence it could be, which soften'd the
+hearts of the women, which he knew 'twas to no purpose to practise
+upon the men.
+
+There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery; -
+the one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and
+in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition; -
+the other was, it was always successful. - He never stopp'd a
+woman, but she pull'd out her purse, and immediately gave him
+something.
+
+I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.
+
+I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I
+walk'd upstairs to my chamber.
+
+
+THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.  PARIS.
+
+
+I WAS immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came
+into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere. - How
+so, friend? said I. - He answered, I had had a young woman lock'd
+up with me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and 'twas
+against the rules of his house. - Very well, said I, we'll all part
+friends then, - for the girl is no worse, - and I am no worse, -
+and you will be just as I found you. - It was enough, he said, to
+overthrow the credit of his hotel. - VOYEZ VOUS, Monsieur, said he,
+pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon. - I own
+it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my pride not
+suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted him
+to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that
+night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.
+
+I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
+girls - 'Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever
+reckon'd upon - Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning. -
+And does the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a
+difference in the sin? - It made a difference, he said, in the
+scandal. - I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannot say I
+was intolerably out of temper with the man. - I own it is
+necessary, resumed the master of the hotel, that a stranger at
+Paris should have the opportunities presented to him of buying lace
+and silk stockings and ruffles, ET TOUT CELA; - and 'tis nothing if
+a woman comes with a band-box. - O, my conscience! said I, she had
+one but I never look'd into it. - Then Monsieur, said he, has
+bought nothing? - Not one earthly thing, replied I. - Because, said
+he, I could recommend one to you who would use you EN CONSCIENCE. -
+But I must see her this night, said I. - He made me a low bow, and
+walk'd down.
+
+Now shall I triumph over this MAITRE D'HOTEL, cried I, - and what
+then?  Then I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow. - And
+what then?  What then? - I was too near myself to say it was for
+the sake of others. - I had no good answer left; - there was more
+of spleen than principle in my project, and I was sick of it before
+the execution.
+
+In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace. - I'll
+buy nothing, however, said I, within myself.
+
+The grisette would show me everything. - I was hard to please: she
+would not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid
+all her laces one after another before me; - unfolded and folded
+them up again one by one with the most patient sweetness. - I might
+buy, - or not; - she would let me have everything at my own price:
+- the poor creature seem'd anxious to get a penny; and laid herself
+out to win me, and not so much in a manner which seem'd artful, as
+in one I felt simple and caressing.
+
+If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
+worse; - my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as
+quietly as the first. - Why should I chastise one for the trespass
+of another?  If thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host,
+thought I, looking up in her face, so much harder is thy bread.
+
+If I had not had more than four louis d'ors in my purse, there was
+no such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had
+first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.
+
+- The master of the hotel will share the profit with her; - no
+matter, - then I have only paid as many a poor soul has PAID before
+me, for an act he COULD not do, or think of.
+
+
+THE RIDDLE.  PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how
+sorry the master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding
+me change my lodgings.
+
+A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down with enmity
+in his heart, if he can help it. - So I bid La Fleur tell the
+master of the hotel, that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I
+had given him; - and you may tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added
+I, that if the young woman should call again, I shall not see her.
+
+This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after
+so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if
+it was possible, with all the virtue I enter'd it.
+
+C'EST DEROGER E NOBLESSE, MONSIEUR, said La Fleur, making me a bow
+down to the ground as he said it. - ET ENCORE, MONSIEUR, said he,
+may change his sentiments; - and if (PAR HAZARD) he should like to
+amuse himself, - I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting
+him. -
+
+MON DIEU! said La Fleur, - and took away.
+
+In an hour's time he came to put me to bed, and was more than
+commonly officious: - something hung upon his lips to say to me, or
+ask me, which he could not get off: I could not conceive what it
+was, and indeed gave myself little trouble to find it out, as I had
+another riddle so much more interesting upon my mind, which was
+that of the man's asking charity before the door of the hotel. - I
+would have given anything to have got to the bottom of it; and
+that, not out of curiosity, - 'tis so low a principle of enquiry,
+in general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with a
+two-sous piece; - but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so
+certainly soften'd the heart of every woman you came near, was a
+secret at least equal to the philosopher's stone; had I both the
+Indies, I would have given up one to have been master of it.
+
+I toss'd and turn'd it almost all night long in my brains to no
+manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my
+spirits as much troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of
+Babylon had been with his; and I will not hesitate to affirm, it
+would have puzzled all the wise men of Paris as much as those of
+Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
+
+
+LE DIMANCHE.  PARIS.
+
+
+IT was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my
+coffee and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly
+array'd, I scarce knew him.
+
+I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver
+button and loop, and four louis d'ors, POUR S'ADONISER, when we got
+to Paris; and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders
+with it.
+
+He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of
+breeches of the same. - They were not a crown worse, he said, for
+the wearing. - I wish'd him hang'd for telling me. - They look'd so
+fresh, that though I knew the thing could not be done, yet I would
+rather have imposed upon my fancy with thinking I had bought them
+new for the fellow, than that they had come out of the Rue de
+Friperie.
+
+This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
+
+He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat,
+fancifully enough embroidered: - this was indeed something the
+worse for the service it had done, but 'twas clean scour'd; - the
+gold had been touch'd up, and upon the whole was rather showy than
+otherwise; - and as the blue was not violent, it suited with the
+coat and breeches very well: he had squeez'd out of the money,
+moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted with the
+FRIPIER upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees. - He had
+purchased muslin ruffles, BIEN BRODEES, with four livres of his own
+money; - and a pair of white silk stockings for five more; - and to
+top all, nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing
+him a sous.
+
+He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the
+first style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast. - In a
+word, there was that look of festivity in everything about him,
+which at once put me in mind it was Sunday; - and, by combining
+both together, it instantly struck me, that the favour he wish'd to
+ask of me the night before, was to spend the day as every body in
+Paris spent it besides.  I had scarce made the conjecture, when La
+Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a look of trust, as if I
+should not refuse him, begg'd I would grant him the day, POUR FAIRE
+LE GALANT VIS-E-VIS DE SA MAITRESSE.
+
+Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-e-vis Madame
+de R-. - I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would
+not have mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress'd
+as La Fleur was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse
+spared him.
+
+But we must FEEL, not argue in these embarrassments. - The sons and
+daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in
+their contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little
+vanities and wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well
+as their task-masters; - no doubt, they have set their self-denials
+at a price, - and their expectations are so unreasonable, that I
+would often disappoint them, but that their condition puts it so
+much in my power to do it.
+
+BEHOLD, - BEHOLD, I AM THY SERVANT - disarms me at once of the
+powers of a master. -
+
+Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
+
+- And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in
+so little a time at Paris?  La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast,
+and said 'twas a PETITE DEMOISELLE, at Monsieur le Count de B-'s. -
+La Fleur had a heart made for society; and, to speak the truth of
+him, let as few occasions slip him as his master; - so that somehow
+or other, - but how, - heaven knows, - he had connected himself
+with the demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during the
+time I was taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough
+for me to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived to
+make it do to win the maid to his.  The family, it seems, was to be
+at Paris that day, and he had made a party with her, and two or
+three more of the Count's household, upon the boulevards.
+
+Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all
+your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights
+of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the
+earth.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.  PARIS.
+
+
+LA FLEUR had left me something to amuse myself with for the day
+more than I had bargain'd for, or could have enter'd either into
+his head or mine.
+
+He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and
+as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had
+begg'd a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and
+his hand. - As that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon
+the table as it was; and as I resolved to stay within all day, I
+ordered him to call upon the TRAITEUR, to bespeak my dinner, and
+leave me to breakfast by myself.
+
+When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
+window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper; - but
+stopping to read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second
+and third, - I thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and
+drawing a chair up to it, I sat down to read it.
+
+It was in the old French of Rabelais's time, and for aught I know
+might have been wrote by him: - it was moreover in a Gothic letter,
+and that so faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost
+me infinite trouble to make anything of it. - I threw it down; and
+then wrote a letter to Eugenius; - then I took it up again, and
+embroiled my patience with it afresh; - and then to cure that, I
+wrote a letter to Eliza. - Still it kept hold of me; and the
+difficulty of understanding it increased but the desire.
+
+I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle
+of Burgundy; I at it again, - and, after two or three hours poring
+upon it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon
+did upon a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it;
+but to make sure of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it
+into English, and see how it would look then; - so I went on
+leisurely, as a trifling man does, sometimes writing a sentence, -
+then taking a turn or two, - and then looking how the world went,
+out of the window; so that it was nine o'clock at night before I
+had done it. - I then began and read it as follows.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.  PARIS.
+
+
+- NOW, as the notary's wife disputed the point with the notary with
+too much heat, - I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the
+parchment) that there was another notary here only to set down and
+attest all this. -
+
+- And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily
+up. - The notary's wife was a little fume of a woman, and the
+notary thought it well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply. - I
+would go, answered he, to bed. - You may go to the devil, answer'd
+the notary's wife.
+
+Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two
+rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary
+not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that
+moment sent him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and
+cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walk'd out,
+ill at ease, towards the Pont Neuf.
+
+Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have
+pass'd over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest, - the
+finest, - the grandest, - the lightest, - the longest, - the
+broadest, that ever conjoin'd land and land together upon the face
+of the terraqueous globe.
+
+[BY THIS IT SEEMS AS IF THE AUTHOR OF THE FRAGMENT HAD NOT BEEN A
+FRENCHMAN.]
+
+The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can
+allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or
+about Paris, 'tis more blasphemously SACRE DIEU'D there than in any
+other aperture of the whole city, - and with reason good and
+cogent, Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying GARDE
+D'EAU, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who
+cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two
+livres and a half, which is its full worth.
+
+The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry,
+instinctively clapp'd his cane to the side of it, but in raising it
+up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the
+sentinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear
+into the Seine. -
+
+- 'TIS AN ILL WIND, said a boatman, who catched it, WHICH BLOWS
+NOBODY ANY GOOD.
+
+The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers,
+and levell'd his arquebuss.
+
+Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman's
+paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out,
+she had borrow'd the sentry's match to light it: - it gave a
+moment's time for the Gascon's blood to run cool, and turn the
+accident better to his advantage. - 'TIS AN ILL WIND, said he,
+catching off the notary's castor, and legitimating the capture with
+the boatman's adage.
+
+The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de
+Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he
+walked along in this manner: -
+
+Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of
+hurricanes all my days: - to be born to have the storm of ill
+language levell'd against me and my profession wherever I go; to be
+forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a
+woman; - to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and
+despoil'd of my castor by pontific ones! - to be here, bareheaded,
+in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!
+- Where am I to lay my head? - Miserable man! what wind in the two-
+and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it
+does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
+
+As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this
+sort, a voice call'd out to a girl, to bid her run for the next
+notary. - Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of
+his situation, walk'd up the passage to the door, and passing
+through an old sort of a saloon, was usher'd into a large chamber,
+dismantled of everything but a long military pike, - a breastplate,
+- a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four
+different places against the wall.
+
+An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless
+decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at
+that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a
+little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and
+close by the table was placed a chair: - the notary sat him down in
+it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which
+he had in his pocket, he placed them before him; and dipping his
+pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed
+everything to make the gentleman's last will and testament
+
+Alas!  MONSIEUR LE NOTAIRE, said the gentleman, raising himself up
+a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
+bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
+peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits
+arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from
+me. - It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind; -
+it will make the fortunes of your house. - The notary dipp'd his
+pen into his inkhorn. - Almighty Director of every event in my
+life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his
+hands towards heaven, - Thou, whose hand has led me on through such
+a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation,
+assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted
+man; - direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that
+this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
+from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to
+be condemn'd or acquitted! - the notary held up the point of his
+pen betwixt the taper and his eye. -
+
+It is a story, MONSIEUR LE NOTAIRE, said the gentleman, which will
+rouse up every affection in nature; - it will kill the humane, and
+touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -
+
+- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a
+third time into his ink-horn - and the old gentleman, turning a
+little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these
+words: -
+
+- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then
+enter'd the room.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. (1)  PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to
+comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other
+sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to
+keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the
+boulevards. - Then prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to
+the Count de B-'s hotel, and see if thou canst get it. - There is
+no doubt of it, said La Fleur; - and away he flew.
+
+In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
+breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could
+arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment.  JUSTE CIEL!
+in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
+tender farewell of her - his faithless mistress had given his GAGE
+D'AMOUR to one of the Count's footmen, - the footman to a young
+sempstress, - and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at
+the end of it. - Our misfortunes were involved together: - I gave a
+sigh, - and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.
+
+- How perfidious! cried La Fleur. - How unlucky! said I.
+
+- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if
+she had lost it. - Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
+
+Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
+
+
+THE ACT OF CHARITY.  PARIS.
+
+
+THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
+an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
+not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller. - I count little of
+the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
+streets. - Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but
+in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene
+of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded
+together, - and yet they are absolutely fine; - and whenever I have
+a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a
+preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of
+'em; - and for the text, - "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia
+and Pamphylia," - is as good as any one in the Bible.
+
+There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique
+into a narrow street; 'tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a
+FIACRE, (2) or wish to get off quietly o'foot when the opera is
+done.  At the end of it, towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a
+small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get
+half-way down, but near the door - 'tis more for ornament than use:
+you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns, - but
+does little good to the world, that we know of.
+
+In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached
+within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-
+arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for
+a FIACRE; - as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior
+right; so edged myself up within a yard or little more of them, and
+quietly took my stand. - I was in black, and scarce seen.
+
+The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about
+thirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty:
+there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of
+them; - they seem'd to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by
+caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations. - I could have
+wish'd to have made them happy: - their happiness was destin'd that
+night, to come from another quarter.
+
+A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at
+the end of it, begg'd for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the
+love of heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the
+quota of an alms - and that the sum should be twelve times as much
+as what is usually given in the dark. - They both seemed astonished
+at it as much as myself. - Twelve sous! said one. - A twelve-sous
+piece! said the other, - and made no reply.
+
+The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their
+rank; and bow'd down his head to the ground.
+
+Poo! said they, - we have no money.
+
+The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew'd his
+supplication.
+
+- Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears
+against me. - Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have
+no change. - Then God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply
+those joys which you can give to others without change! - I
+observed the elder sister put her hand into her pocket. - I'll see,
+said she, if I have a sous.  A sous! give twelve, said the
+supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be bountiful to a
+poor man.
+
+- I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.
+
+My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder, -
+what is it but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright
+eyes so sweet, that they outshine the morning even in this dark
+passage? and what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his
+brother say so much of you both as they just passed by?
+
+The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same
+time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out
+a twelve-sous piece.
+
+The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more; - it
+was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the
+twelve-sous piece in charity; - and, to end the dispute, they both
+gave it together, and the man went away.
+
+
+THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.  PARIS.
+
+
+I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in
+asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so
+puzzled me; - and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis
+of it: - 'twas flattery.
+
+Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly
+are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly
+dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most
+difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!
+
+The poor man, as he was not straiten'd for time, had given it here
+in a larger dose: 'tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a
+less form, for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the
+streets: but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and
+qualify it, - I vex not my spirit with the enquiry; - it is enough
+the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces - and they can best tell
+the rest, who have gained much greater matters by it.
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WE get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as
+receiving them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the
+ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.
+
+Monsieur le Count de B-, merely because he had done me one kindness
+in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the
+few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of
+rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.
+
+I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honours to
+some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should
+have dined or supp'd a single time or two round, and then, by
+TRANSLATING French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should
+presently have seen, that I had hold of the COUVERT (3) of some
+more entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned all my
+places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could
+not keep them. - As it was, things did not go much amiss.
+
+I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B-: in
+days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of
+chivalry in the COUR D'AMOUR, and had dress'd himself out to the
+idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. - The Marquis de B-
+wish'd to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his
+brain.  "He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much
+of the English ladies. - Stay where you are, I beseech you,
+Monsieur le Marquis, said I. - LES MESSIEURS ANGLOIS can scarce get
+a kind look from them as it is. - The Marquis invited me to supper.
+
+Monsieur P-, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our
+taxes.  They were very considerable, he heard. - If we knew but how
+to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.
+
+I could never have been invited to Mons. P-'s concerts upon any
+other terms.
+
+I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q- as an ESPRIT. - Madame de
+Q- was an ESPRIT herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and
+hear me talk.  I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not
+care a sous whether I had any wit or no; - I was let in, to be
+convinced she had.  I call heaven to witness I never once opened
+the door of my lips.
+
+Madame de V- vow'd to every creature she met - "She had never had a
+more improving conversation with a man in her life."
+
+There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman. - She is
+coquette, - then deist, -then DEVOTE: the empire during these is
+never lost, - she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years
+and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-
+peoples it with slaves of infidelity, - and then with the slaves of
+the church.
+
+Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the
+colour of the rose was fading fast away; - she ought to have been a
+deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first
+visit.
+
+She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of
+disputing the point of religion more closely. - In short Madame de
+V- told me she believed nothing. - I told Madame de V- it might be
+her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level
+the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel
+as hers could be defended; - that there was not a more dangerous
+thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; - that it was a
+debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her; - that I had not
+been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to
+form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and
+the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have
+check'd them as they rose up?
+
+We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there is
+need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
+them on us. - But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, - 'tis
+too - too soon.
+
+I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
+V-. - She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abbe M-, that in one half
+hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their
+Encyclopaedia had said against it. - I was listed directly into
+Madame de V-'s COTERIE; - and she put off the epocha of deism for
+two years.
+
+I remember it was in this COTERIE, in the middle of a discourse, in
+which I was showing the necessity of a FIRST cause, when the young
+Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the
+room, to tell me my SOLITAIRE was pinn'd too straight about my
+neck. - It should be PLUS BADINANT, said the Count, looking down
+upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, TO THE WISE -
+
+And FROM THE WISE, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,
+- IS ENOUGH.
+
+The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
+embraced by mortal man.
+
+For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met. -
+PARDI! CE MONSIEUR YORICK A AUTANT D'ESPRIT QUE NOUS AUTRES. - IL
+RAISONNE BIEN, said another. - C'EST UN BON ENFANT, said a third. -
+And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all
+the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest RECKONING; - I
+grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain of a slave; - every sentiment
+of honour revolted against it; - the higher I got, the more was I
+forced upon my BEGGARLY SYSTEM; - the better the COTERIE, - the
+more children of Art; - I languish'd for those of Nature: and one
+night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen
+different people, I grew sick, - went to bed; - order'd La Fleur to
+get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
+
+
+MARIA.  MOULINES.
+
+
+I NEVER felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
+now, - to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of
+France, - in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
+abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a
+journey, through each step of which Music beats time to LABOUR, and
+all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to
+pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at
+every group before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with
+adventures. -
+
+Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have
+but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of
+these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy,
+met with near Moulines.
+
+The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a
+little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood
+where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I could
+not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of
+the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to enquire after
+her.
+
+'Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in
+quest of melancholy adventures.  But I know not how it is, but I am
+never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me,
+as when I am entangled in them.
+
+The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before
+she open'd her mouth. - She had lost her husband; he had died, she
+said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month
+before. - She had feared at first, she added, that it would have
+plunder'd her poor girl of what little understanding was left; -
+but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: - still,
+she could not rest. - Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was
+wandering somewhere about the road.
+
+Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La
+Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back
+of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?
+I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.
+
+When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little
+opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria
+sitting under a poplar.  She was sitting with her elbow in her lap,
+and her head leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook
+ran at the foot of the tree.
+
+I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La
+Fleur to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.
+
+She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her,
+except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a
+silk net. - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green
+riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of
+which hung her pipe. - Her goat had been as faithless as her lover;
+and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept
+tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew
+him towards her with the string. - "Thou shalt not leave me,
+Sylvio," said she.  I look'd in Maria's eyes and saw she was
+thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
+for, as she utter'd them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they
+fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep'd it in my own, - and
+then in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip'd hers again; -
+and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I
+am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter
+and motion.
+
+I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
+materialists have pester'd the world ever convince me to the
+contrary.
+
+
+MARIA.
+
+
+WHEN Maria had come a little to herself, I ask'd her if she
+remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt
+her and her goat about two years before?  She said she was
+unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: -
+that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that
+her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the
+theft; - she had wash'd it, she said, in the brook, and kept it
+ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should
+ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her.  As
+she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to
+let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine
+leaves, tied round with a tendril; - on opening it, I saw an S.
+marked in one of the corners.
+
+She had since that, she told me, stray'd as far as Rome, and walk'd
+round St. Peter's once, - and return'd back; - that she found her
+way alone across the Apennines; - had travell'd over all Lombardy,
+without money, - and through the flinty roads of Savoy without
+shoes: - how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she
+could not tell; - but GOD TEMPERS THE WIND, said Maria, TO THE
+SHORN LAMB.
+
+Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own
+land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter
+thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; -
+I would be kind to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and
+wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back; - when the
+sun went down I would say my prayers: and when I had done thou
+shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense
+of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with
+that of a broken heart!
+
+Nature melted within me, as I utter'd this; and Maria observing, as
+I took out my handkerchief, that it was steep'd too much already to
+be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. - And where will
+you dry it, Maria? said I. - I'll dry it in my bosom, said she: -
+'twill do me good.
+
+And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.
+
+I touch'd upon the string on which hung all her sorrows: - she
+look'd with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then,
+without saying any thing, took her pipe and play'd her service to
+the Virgin. - The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; - in a
+moment or two Maria returned to herself, - let her pipe fall, - and
+rose up.
+
+And where are you going, Maria? said I. - She said, to Moulines. -
+Let us go, said I, together. - Maria put her arm within mine, and
+lengthening the string, to let the dog follow, - in that order we
+enter'd Moulines.
+
+
+MARIA.  MOULINES.
+
+
+THOUGH I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet,
+when we got into the middle of this, I stopp'd to take my last look
+and last farewell of Maria.
+
+Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine
+forms: - affliction had touched her looks with something that was
+scarce earthly; - still she was feminine; - and so much was there
+about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in
+woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and
+those of Eliza out of mine, she should NOT ONLY EAT OF MY BREAD AND
+DRINK OF MY OWN CUP, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto
+me as a daughter.
+
+Adieu, poor luckless maiden! - Imbibe the oil and wine which the
+compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours
+into thy wounds; - the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only
+bind them up for ever.
+
+
+THE BOURBONNNOIS.
+
+
+THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so
+joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage,
+through this part of France; but pressing through this gate, of
+sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me.  In every
+scene of festivity, I saw Maria in the background of the piece,
+sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons
+before I was able to cast a shade across her.
+
+- Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in
+our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down
+upon his bed of straw - and 'tis thou who lift'st him up to Heaven!
+- Eternal Fountain of our feelings! - 'tis here I trace thee - and
+this is thy "DIVINITY WHICH STIRS WITHIN ME;" - not that, in some
+sad and sickening moments, "MY SOUL SHRINKS BACK UPON HERSELF, AND
+STARTLES AT DESTRUCTION;" - mere pomp of words! - but that I feel
+some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself; - all comes
+from thee, great - great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if
+a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest
+desert of thy creation. - Touch'd with thee, Eugenius draws my
+curtain when I languish - hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the
+weather for the disorder of his nerves.  Thou giv'st a portion of
+it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest
+mountains; - he finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock. - This
+moment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with
+piteous inclination looking down upon it! - Oh! had I come one
+moment sooner! it bleeds to death! - his gentle heart bleeds with
+it. -
+
+Peace to thee, generous swain! - I see thou walkest off with
+anguish, - but thy joys shall balance it; - for, happy is thy
+cottage, - and happy is the sharer of it, - and happy are the lambs
+which sport about you!
+
+
+THE SUPPER.
+
+
+A SHOE coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the
+beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
+twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was
+of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a
+point of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could;
+but the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the
+chaise box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go
+on.
+
+He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty
+piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his
+other fore foot.  I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and
+seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a
+great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.
+The look of the house, and of every thing about it, as we drew
+nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. - It was a little farm-
+house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as
+much corn; - and close to the house, on one side, was a POTAGERIE
+of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty
+in a French peasant's house; - and, on the other side, was a little
+wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it.  It was about eight
+in the evening when I got to the house - so I left the postilion to
+manage his point as he could; - and, for mine, I walked directly
+into the house.
+
+The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with
+five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a
+joyous genealogy out of them.
+
+They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large
+wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine
+at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: -
+'twas a feast of love.
+
+The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality
+would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the
+moment I enter'd the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the
+family; and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I
+could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the
+loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a
+testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a
+welcome mix'd with thanks that I had not seem'd to doubt it.
+
+Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this
+morsel so sweet, - and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I
+took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain
+upon my palate to this hour?
+
+If the supper was to my taste, - the grace which followed it was
+much more so.
+
+
+THE GRACE.
+
+
+WHEN supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with
+the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the
+moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether
+into a back apartment to tie up their hair, - and the young men to
+the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and in three
+minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the
+house to begin. - The old man and his wife came out last, and
+placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.
+
+The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon
+the vielle, - and at the age he was then of, touch'd it well enough
+for the purpose.  His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,
+- then intermitted, - and join'd her old man again, as their
+children and grand-children danced before them.
+
+It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some
+pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I
+fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from
+that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.  In a
+word, I thought I beheld RELIGION mixing in the dance: - but, as I
+had never seen her so engaged, I should have look'd upon it now as
+one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally
+misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended,
+said, that this was their constant way; and that all his life long
+he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his
+family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful
+and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
+illiterate peasant could pay, -
+
+Or a learned prelate either, said I.
+
+
+THE CASE OF DELICACY.
+
+
+WHEN you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently
+down to Lyons: - adieu, then, to all rapid movements!  'Tis a
+journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be
+in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his
+time with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to
+Turin, through Savoy.
+
+Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the
+treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the
+world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it. - Nature! in the
+midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness
+thou hast created: with all thy great works about thee, little hast
+thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle; - but to
+that little thou grantest safety and protection; and sweet are the
+dwellings which stand so shelter'd.
+
+Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden
+turns and dangers of your roads, - your rocks, - your precipices; -
+the difficulties of getting up, - the horrors of getting down, -
+mountains impracticable, - and cataracts, which roll down great
+stones from their summits, and block his road up. - The peasants
+had been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind
+between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my voiturin got to
+the place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage
+could any how be gain'd: there was nothing but to wait with
+patience; - 'twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the
+delay, and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to put
+up five miles short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn
+by the roadside.
+
+I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber - got a good fire -
+order'd supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a
+voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant maid.
+
+As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess, -
+without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she
+usher'd them in, that there was nobody in it but an English
+gentleman; - that there were two good beds in it, and a closet
+within the room which held another.  The accent in which she spoke
+of this third bed, did not say much for it; - however, she said
+there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say, the
+gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters. - I left not
+the lady a moment to make a conjecture about it - so instantly made
+a declaration that I would do anything in my power.
+
+As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber,
+I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to
+do the honours of it; - so I desired the lady to sit down, -
+pressed her into the warmest seat, - called for more wood, -
+desired the hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to
+favour us with the very best wine.
+
+The lady had scarce warm'd herself five minutes at the fire, before
+she began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and
+the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they return'd
+perplexd; - I felt for her - and for myself: for in a few minutes,
+what by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much
+embarrassed as it was possible the lady could be herself.
+
+That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was
+enough simply by itself to have excited all this; - but the
+position of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to
+each other as only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt
+them, rendered the affair still more oppressive to us; - they were
+fixed up moreover near the fire; and the projection of the chimney
+on one side, and a large beam which cross'd the room on the other,
+formed a kind of recess for them that was no way favourable to the
+nicety of our sensations: - if anything could have added to it, it
+was that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us
+off from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which
+in either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside
+them, though a thing not to be wish'd, yet there was nothing in it
+so terrible which the imagination might not have pass'd over
+without torment.
+
+As for the little room within, it offer'd little or no consolation
+to us: 'twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-
+shutter, and with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in
+it to keep out the tempest of the night.  I did not endeavour to
+stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced
+the case in course to this alternative - That the lady should
+sacrifice her health to her feelings, and take up with the closet
+herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her maid, - or that the
+girl should take the closet, &c., &c.
+
+The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health
+in her cheeks.  The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and
+lively a French girl as ever moved. - There were difficulties every
+way, - and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us
+into the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were
+removing it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now. - I have
+only to add, that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our
+spirits, that we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt
+to each other upon the occasion.
+
+We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it
+than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish'd, our tongues had
+been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at liberty; - but
+the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down
+her FILLE DE CHAMBRE for a couple of them; so that by the time
+supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired
+with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without
+reserve upon our situation.  We turn'd it every way, and debated
+and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two
+hours' negotiation; at the end of which the articles were settled
+finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a
+treaty of peace, - and I believe with as much religion and good
+faith on both sides as in any treaty which has yet had the honour
+of being handed down to posterity.
+
+They were as follow: -
+
+First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur, - and he
+thinking the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists
+upon the concession on the lady's side of taking up with it.
+
+Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the
+curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear
+likewise too scanty to draw close, that the FILLE DE CHAMBRE shall
+fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and
+thread, in such manner as shall be deem'd a sufficient barrier on
+the side of Monsieur.
+
+2dly.  It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall
+lie the whole night through in his ROBE DE CHAMBRE.
+
+Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a ROBE DE CHAMBRE; he
+having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk
+pair of breeches.
+
+The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of
+the article, - for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for
+the ROBE DE CHAMBRE; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that
+I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.
+
+3dly.  It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that
+after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire
+extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word the
+whole night.
+
+Granted; provided Monsieur's saying his prayers might not be deemed
+an infraction of the treaty.
+
+There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the
+manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress
+and get to bed; - there was but one way of doing it, and that I
+leave to the reader to devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is
+not the most delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of his own
+imagination, - against which this is not my first complaint.
+
+Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
+situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not
+shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn'd and turn'd
+again, till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience
+both wearing out, - O, my God! said I.
+
+- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no
+more slept than myself. - I begg'd a thousand pardons - but
+insisted it was no more than an ejaculation.  She maintained 'twas
+an entire infraction of the treaty - I maintained it was provided
+for in the clause of the third article.
+
+The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken'd
+her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear
+two or three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.
+
+Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I, - stretching my arm out of
+bed by way of asseveration. -
+
+(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed
+against the remotest idea of decorum for the world); -
+
+But the FILLE DE CHAMBRE hearing there were words between us, and
+fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently
+out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close
+to our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which
+separated them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line
+betwixt her mistress and me: -
+
+So that when I stretch'd out my hand I caught hold of the FILLE DE
+CHAMBRE'S -
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+(1) Nosegay.
+
+(2) Hackney coach.
+
+(3) Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg eText A Sentimental Journey through
+France and Italy
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: A Sentimental Journey
+
+Author: Laurence Sterne
+
+Release Date: February, 1997  [EBook #804]
+[This file was first posted on February 12, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1892 George Bell and Son edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
+
+
+
+
+They order, said I, this matter better in France.--You have been in
+France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most
+civil triumph in the world.--Strange! quoth I, debating the matter
+with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely
+no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: --
+I'll look into them:  so, giving up the argument,--I went straight
+to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk
+breeches,--"the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve,
+"will do;"--took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing
+at nine the next morning,--by three I had got sat down to my dinner
+upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I
+died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have
+suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine;--my shirts, and
+black pair of silk breeches,--portmanteau and all, must have gone
+to the King of France;--even the little picture which I have so
+long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with
+me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck!--Ungenerous!
+to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects
+had beckoned to their coast!--By heaven!  Sire, it is not well
+done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch of a people so
+civilized and courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine
+feelings, that I have to reason with! -
+
+But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health,
+to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary,
+high honour for the humanity of his temper,--I rose up an inch
+taller for the accommodation.
+
+- No--said I--the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race:  they may be
+misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.
+As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my
+cheek--more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least
+of two livres a bottle, which was such as I had been drinking)
+could have produced.
+
+- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
+this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so
+many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
+the way?
+
+When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
+the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and
+holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
+sought for an object to share it with.--In doing this, I felt every
+vessel in my frame dilate,--the arteries beat all cheerily
+together, and every power which sustained life, performed it with
+so little friction, that 'twould have confounded the most physical
+precieuse in France; with all her materialism, she could scarce
+have called me a machine. -
+
+I'm confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her creed.
+
+The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as
+she could go;--I was at peace with the world before, and this
+finish'd the treaty with myself. -
+
+- Now, was I King of France, cried I--what a moment for an orphan
+to have begg'd his father's portmanteau of me!
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of
+St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent.
+No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies--or one
+man may be generous, as another is puissant;--sed non quoad hanc--
+or be it as it may,--for there is no regular reasoning upon the
+ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same
+causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves:
+'twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so:  I'm sure
+at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly
+satisfied, to have it said by the world, "I had had an affair with
+the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame," than have it
+pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
+of both.
+
+- But, be this as it may,--the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I
+was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly,
+I put my purse into my pocket--buttoned it--set myself a little
+more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was
+something, I fear, forbidding in my look:  I have his figure this
+moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which
+deserved better.
+
+The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
+white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might
+be about seventy;--but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which
+was in them, which seemed more temper'd by courtesy than years,
+could be no more than sixty: --Truth might lie between--He was
+certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance,
+notwithstanding something seem'd to have been planting-wrinkles in
+it before their time, agreed to the account.
+
+It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted,--mild,
+pale--penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
+ignorance looking downwards upon the earth;--it look'd forwards;
+but look'd as if it look'd at something beyond this world.--How one
+of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a
+monk's shoulders best knows:  but it would have suited a Bramin,
+and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.
+
+The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
+put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither
+elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so:
+it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it
+lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure,--but it
+was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my
+imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.
+
+When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and
+laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with
+which he journey'd being in his right)--when I had got close up to
+him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of
+his convent, and the poverty of his order;--and did it with so
+simple a grace,--and such an air of deprecation was there in the
+whole cast of his look and figure,--I was bewitch'd not to have
+been struck with it.
+
+- A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single
+sous.
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+- 'Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes,
+with which he had concluded his address;--'tis very true,--and
+heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the
+world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the
+many GREAT CLAIMS which are hourly made upon it.
+
+As I pronounced the words GREAT CLAIMS, he gave a slight glance
+with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic: --I felt the
+full force of the appeal--I acknowledge it, said I: --a coarse
+habit, and that but once in three years with meagre diet,--are no
+great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn'd
+in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish
+to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of
+the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm;--the captive who lies
+down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
+languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the ORDER
+OF MERCY, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am,
+continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it
+have been open'd to you, for the ransom of the unfortunate.--The
+monk made me a bow.--But of all others, resumed I, the unfortunate
+of our own country, surely, have the first rights; and I have left
+thousands in distress upon our own shore.--The monk gave a cordial
+wave with his head,--as much as to say, No doubt there is misery
+enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent-
+-But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his
+tunic, in return for his appeal--we distinguish, my good father!
+betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour--
+and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other
+plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, FOR THE
+LOVE OF GOD.
+
+The poor Franciscan made no reply:  a hectic of a moment pass'd
+across his cheek, but could not tarry--Nature seemed to have done
+with her resentments in him;--he showed none: --but letting his
+staff fall within his arms, he pressed both his hands with
+resignation upon his breast, and retired.
+
+
+THE MONK.  CALAIS.
+
+
+My heart smote me the moment he shut the door--Psha! said I, with
+an air of carelessness, three several times--but it would not do:
+every ungracious syllable I had utter'd crowded back into my
+imagination:  I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan,
+but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the
+disappointed, without the addition of unkind language.--I
+consider'd his gray hairs--his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter
+and gently ask me what injury he had done me?--and why I could use
+him thus?--I would have given twenty livres for an advocate.--I
+have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just
+set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
+along.
+
+
+THE DESOBLIGEANT.  CALAIS.
+
+
+When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage
+however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for
+making a bargain.  Now there being no travelling through France and
+Italy without a chaise,--and nature generally prompting us to the
+thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy
+or hire something of that kind to my purpose:  an old desobligeant
+in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight,
+so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony
+with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein,
+the master of the hotel: --but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
+vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
+opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
+at the inn,--I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being
+determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote
+the preface to it in the desobligeant.
+
+
+PREFACE.  IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+
+
+It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
+nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain
+boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she
+has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by
+laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his
+ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home.  It is there only that
+she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of
+his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which in all
+countries and ages has ever been too heavy for one pair of
+shoulders.  'Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of
+spreading our happiness sometimes beyond HER limits, but 'tis so
+ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and
+dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs, and
+habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our
+sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total
+impossibility.
+
+It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
+commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer:  he must buy
+what he has little occasion for, at their own price;--his
+conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a
+large discount,--and this, by the by, eternally driving him into
+the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he
+can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his
+party -
+
+This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw
+of this desobligeant will but let me get on) into the efficient as
+well as final causes of travelling -
+
+Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for
+some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these
+general causes:-
+
+
+Infirmity of body,
+Imbecility of mind, or
+Inevitable necessity.
+
+
+The first two include all those who travel by land or by water,
+labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and
+combined ad infinitum.
+
+The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
+especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
+benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the
+direction of governors recommended by the magistrate;--or young
+gentlemen transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and
+travelling under the direction of governors recommended by Oxford,
+Aberdeen, and Glasgow.
+
+There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they
+would not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of
+this nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid
+a confusion of character.  And these men I speak of, are such as
+cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of
+saving money for various reasons and upon various pretences:  but
+as they might also save themselves and others a great deal of
+unnecessary trouble by saving their money at home,--and as their
+reasons for travelling are the least complex of any other species
+of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by the name of
+
+
+Simple Travellers.
+
+
+Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
+HEADS:-
+
+
+Idle Travellers,
+Inquisitive Travellers,
+Lying Travellers,
+Proud Travellers,
+Vain Travellers,
+Splenetic Travellers.
+
+
+Then follow:
+
+
+The Travellers of Necessity,
+The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,
+The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
+The Simple Traveller,
+
+
+And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
+thereby myself) who have travell'd, and of which I am now sitting
+down to give an account,--as much out of NECESSITY, and the besoin
+de Voyager, as any one in the class.
+
+I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and
+observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my
+forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely
+to myself;--but I should break in upon the confines of the VAIN
+Traveller, in wishing to draw attention towards me, till I have
+some better grounds for it than the mere NOVELTY OF MY VEHICLE.
+
+It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself,
+that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine
+his own place and rank in the catalogue;--it will be one step
+towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some
+tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the
+present hour.
+
+The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of
+Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the
+same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French
+mountains,--he was too phlegmatic for that--but undoubtedly he
+expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or
+bad, or indifferent,--he knew enough of this world to know, that it
+did not depend upon his choice, but that what is generally called
+CHOICE, was to decide his success:  however, he hoped for the best;
+and in these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude
+of his head, and the depth of his discretion, Mynheer might
+possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by discovering his
+nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.
+
+Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting
+through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge
+and improvements.
+
+Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for
+that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is
+all a lottery;--and even where the adventurer is successful, the
+acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to
+any profit: --but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way,
+both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a
+man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live
+contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements,
+especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of
+either;--and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time
+cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive
+Traveller has measured to see sights and look into discoveries; all
+which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might have seen
+dry-shod at home.  It is an age so full of light, that there is
+scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed
+and interchanged with others.--Knowledge in most of its branches,
+and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof
+those may partake who pay nothing.--But there is no nation under
+heaven--and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day
+come and give an account of this work)--that I do not speak it
+vauntingly,--but there is no nation under heaven abounding with
+more variety of learning,--where the sciences may be more fitly
+woo'd, or more surely won, than here,--where art is encouraged, and
+will so soon rise high,--where Nature (take her altogether) has so
+little to answer for,--and, to close all, where there is more wit
+and variety of character to feed the mind with: --Where then, my
+dear countrymen, are you going? -
+
+We are only looking at this chaise, said they.--Your most obedient
+servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat.--We
+were wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an Inquisitive
+Traveller,--what could occasion its motion.--'Twas the agitation,
+said I, coolly, of writing a preface.--I never heard, said the
+other, who was a Simple Traveller, of a preface wrote in a
+desobligeant.--It would have been better, said I, in a vis-a-vis.
+
+- As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to
+my room.
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I perceived that something darken'd the passage more than myself,
+as I stepp'd along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein,
+the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and
+with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to
+put me in mind of my wants.  I had wrote myself pretty well out of
+conceit with the desobligeant, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it,
+with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck
+my fancy that it belong'd to some Innocent Traveller, who, on his
+return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein's honour to make the most
+of.  Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of
+Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein's coach-yard; and having
+sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,
+though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had
+not profited much by its adventures,--but by none so little as the
+standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein's
+coach-yard.  Much indeed was not to be said for it,--but something
+might;--and when a few words will rescue misery out of her
+distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.
+
+- Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of
+my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a
+point of getting rid of this unfortunate desobligeant;--it stands
+swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.
+
+Mon Dieu! said Mons. Dessein,--I have no interest--Except the
+interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons.
+Dessein, in their own sensations,--I'm persuaded, to a man who
+feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night,
+disguise it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits: --You
+suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine -
+
+I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a
+compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within
+himself, whether to take it, or let it alone:  a Frenchman never
+is:  Mons. Dessein made me a bow.
+
+C'est bien vrai, said he.--But in this case I should only exchange
+one disquietude for another, and with loss:  figure to yourself, my
+dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces
+before you had got half-way to Paris,--figure to yourself how much
+I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of
+honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.
+
+The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
+not help tasting it,--and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without
+more casuistry we walk'd together towards his Remise, to take a
+view of his magazine of chaises.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it
+be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller
+thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them,
+but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his
+conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along
+with him to Hyde-park corner to fight a duel.  For my own part,
+being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur
+Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to
+which the situation is incident;--I looked at Monsieur Dessein
+through and through--eyed him as he walk'd along in profile,--then,
+en face;--thought like a Jew,--then a Turk,--disliked his wig,--
+cursed him by my gods,--wished him at the devil. -
+
+- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly
+account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be
+overreached in?--Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a
+man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment,--base,
+ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man's
+hand against thee.--Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to
+her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I
+had seen in conference with the monk: --she had followed us
+unperceived.--Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my own;--
+she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two
+fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve,--and I led her up to
+the door of the Remise.
+
+Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times before he
+had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand:  we were as
+impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the
+obstacle that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing
+it:  so that Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in
+mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the Remise, and
+said he would be back in five minutes.
+
+Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one
+of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street:  in the
+latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;--
+when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank,--you draw purely from
+yourselves.  A silence of a single moment upon Mons. Dessein's
+leaving us, had been fatal to the situation--she had infallibly
+turned about;--so I begun the conversation instantly. -
+
+- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for
+the weaknesses of my heart in this tour,--but to give an account of
+them)--shall be described with the same simplicity with which I
+felt them.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
+desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with a
+lady just arrived at the inn--I told him the truth,--but I did not
+tell him the whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by
+the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to.  Suspicion
+crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had passed:
+something jarred upon it within me,--I wished him at his convent.
+
+When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the
+judgment a world of pains.--I was certain she was of a better order
+of beings;--however, I thought no more of her, but went on and
+wrote my preface.
+
+The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
+guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I
+thought, her good education and her good sense; and as I led her
+on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a
+calmness over all my spirits -
+
+- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
+world with him! -
+
+I had not yet seen her face--'twas not material:  for the drawing
+was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of
+the Remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
+as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the
+Tiber for it;--but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and
+albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and
+images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest
+out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a
+shame to break with thee.
+
+When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
+from across her forehead, and let me see the original: --it was a
+face of about six-and-twenty,--of a clear transparent brown, simply
+set off without rouge or powder;--it was not critically handsome,
+but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in,
+attached me much more to it,--it was interesting:  I fancied it
+wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its
+declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and
+was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;--but a
+thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I
+wish'd to know what they had been--and was ready to inquire, (had
+the same bon ton of conversation permitted, as in the days of
+Esdras)--"What ailelh thee? and why art thou disquieted? and why is
+thy understanding troubled?"--In a word, I felt benevolence for
+her; and resolv'd some way or other to throw in my mite of
+courtesy,--if not of service.
+
+Such were my temptations;--and in this disposition to give way to
+them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and
+with our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remise than
+what was absolutely necessary.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+This certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little
+lightly as I began, must be one of Fortune's whimsical doings; to
+take two utter strangers by their hands,--of different sexes, and
+perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in one moment
+place them together in such a cordial situation as Friendship
+herself could scarce have achieved for them, had she projected it
+for a month.
+
+- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
+embarrassed you by the adventure -
+
+When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed
+as to hint at the circumstances which make it so:  you thank
+Fortune, continued she--you had reason--the heart knew it, and was
+satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent
+notice of it to the brain to reverse the judgment?
+
+In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
+a sufficient commentary upon the text.
+
+It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness
+of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier
+occasions could not have inflicted.--I was mortified with the loss
+of her hand, and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither
+oil nor wine to the wound:  I never felt the pain of a sheepish
+inferiority so miserably in my life.
+
+The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these
+discomfitures.  In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the
+cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some way or
+other, God knows how, I regained my situation.
+
+- She had nothing to add.
+
+I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady,
+thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been
+mistaken in her character; but upon turning her face towards me,
+the spirit which had animated the reply was fled,--the muscles
+relaxed, and I beheld the same unprotected look of distress which
+first won me to her interest: --melancholy! to see such
+sprightliness the prey of sorrow,--I pitied her from my soul; and
+though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid heart,--I could
+have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though it was in
+the open street, without brushing.
+
+The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across
+hers, told her what was passing within me:  she looked down--a
+silence of some moments followed.
+
+I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts
+towards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I
+felt in the palm of my own,--not as if she was going to withdraw
+hers--but as if she thought about it;--and I had infallibly lost it
+a second time, had not instinct more than reason directed me to the
+last resource in these dangers,--to hold it loosely, and in a
+manner as if I was every moment going to release it, of myself; so
+she let it continue, till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key;
+and in the mean time I set myself to consider how I should undo the
+ill impressions which the poor monk's story, in case he had told it
+her, must have planted in her breast against me.
+
+
+THE SNUFF BOX.  CALAIS.
+
+
+The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him
+crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the
+line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no.--He
+stopp'd, however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of
+frankness:  and having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented
+it open to me.--You shall taste mine--said I, pulling out my box
+(which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his hand.--
+'Tis most excellent, said the monk.  Then do me the favour, I
+replied, to accept of the box and all, and when you take a pinch
+out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace offering of a man
+who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.
+
+The poor monk blush'd as red as scarlet.  Mon Dieu! said he,
+pressing his hands together--you never used me unkindly.--I should
+think, said the lady, he is not likely.  I blush'd in my turn; but
+from what movements, I leave to the few who feel, to analyze.--
+Excuse me, Madame, replied I,--I treated him most unkindly; and
+from no provocations.--'Tis impossible, said the lady.--My God!
+cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seem'd not to
+belong to him--the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of my
+zeal.--The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in maintaining it
+was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his, could give
+offence to any.
+
+I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and
+pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it.--We remained
+silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which takes
+place, when, in such a circle, you look for ten minutes in one
+another's faces without saying a word.  Whilst this lasted, the
+monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon
+as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction--he
+made me a low bow, and said, 'twas too late to say whether it was
+the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in
+this contest--but be it as it would,--he begg'd we might exchange
+boxes.--In saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he
+took mine from me in the other, and having kissed it,--with a
+stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom,--and
+took his leave.
+
+I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion,
+to help my mind on to something better:  in truth, I seldom go
+abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it
+the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the
+justlings of the world:  they had found full employment for his, as
+I learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his
+age, when upon some military services ill requited, and meeting at
+the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest of passions,
+he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and took sanctuary not
+so much in his convent as in himself.
+
+I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my
+last return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I
+heard he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in
+his convent, but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery
+belonging to it, about two leagues off:  I had a strong desire to
+see where they had laid him,--when, upon pulling out his little
+horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking up a nettle or two at
+the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all
+struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I burst into a
+flood of tears: --but I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the world
+not to smile, but to pity me.
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I had never quitted the lady's hand all this time, and had held it
+so long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go,
+without first pressing it to my lips:  the blood and spirits, which
+had suffered a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.
+
+Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard,
+happening at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our
+communications, naturally took it into their heads that we must be
+MAN AND WIFE at least; so, stopping as soon as they came up to the
+door of the Remise, the one of them who was the Inquisitive
+Traveller, ask'd us, if we set out for Paris the next morning?--I
+could only answer for myself, I said; and the lady added, she was
+for Amiens.--We dined there yesterday, said the Simple Traveller.--
+You go directly through the town, added the other, in your road to
+Paris.  I was going to return a thousand thanks for the
+intelligence, THAT AMIENS WAS IN THE ROAD TO PARIS, but, upon
+pulling out my poor monk's little horn box to take a pinch of
+snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage to
+Dover.--They left us alone. -
+
+- Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg
+of this distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise?--and what
+mighty mischief could ensue?
+
+Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the
+alarm, as I stated the proposition.--It will oblige you to have a
+third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your
+pocket;--You know not what she is, said Caution;--or what scrapes
+the affair may draw you into, whisper'd Cowardice. -
+
+Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, 'twill be said you went
+off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that
+purpose; -
+
+- You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the
+world;--or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church;--or be any thing in
+it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.
+
+But 'tis a civil thing, said I;--and as I generally act from the
+first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which
+serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with
+adamant--I turned instantly about to the lady. -
+
+- But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading,
+and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I
+had made the determination; so I set off after her with a long
+stride, to make her the proposal, with the best address I was
+master of:  but observing she walk'd with her cheek half resting
+upon the palm of her hand,--with the slow short-measur'd step of
+thoughtfulness,--and with her eyes, as she went step by step, fixed
+upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same cause
+herself.--God help her! said I, she has some mother-in-law, or
+tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to consult upon the
+occasion, as well as myself:  so not caring to interrupt the
+process, and deeming it more gallant to take her at discretion than
+by surprise, I faced about and took a short turn or two before the
+door of the Remise, whilst she walk'd musing on one side.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+Having, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my
+fancy "that she was of the better order of beings;"--and then laid
+it down as a second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she
+was a widow, and wore a character of distress,--I went no further;
+I got ground enough for the situation which pleased me;--and had
+she remained close beside my elbow till midnight, I should have
+held true to my system, and considered her only under that general
+idea.
+
+She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something
+within me called out for a more particular enquiry;--it brought on
+the idea of a further separation: --I might possibly never see her
+more: --The heart is for saving what it can; and I wanted the
+traces through which my wishes might find their way to her, in case
+I should never rejoin her myself; in a word, I wished to know her
+name,--her family's--her condition; and as I knew the place to
+which she was going, I wanted to know from whence she came:  but
+there was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred little
+delicacies stood in the way.  I form'd a score different plans.--
+There was no such thing as a man's asking her directly;--the thing
+was impossible.
+
+A little French debonnaire captain, who came dancing down the
+street, showed me it was the easiest thing in the world:  for,
+popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returning back to the
+door of the Remise, he introduced himself to my acquaintance, and
+before he had well got announced, begg'd I would do him the honour
+to present him to the lady.--I had not been presented myself;--so
+turning about to her, he did it just as well, by asking her if she
+had come from Paris?  No:  she was going that route, she said.--
+Vous n'etes pas de Londres?--She was not, she replied.--Then Madame
+must have come through Flanders.--Apparemment vous etes Flammande?
+said the French captain.--The lady answered, she was.--Peut etre de
+Lisle? added he.--She said, she was not of Lisle.--Nor Arras?--nor
+Cambray?--nor Ghent?--nor Brussels?--She answered, she was of
+Brussels.
+
+He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last
+war;--that it was finely situated, pour cela,--and full of noblesse
+when the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the lady made
+a slight courtesy)--so giving her an account of the affair, and of
+the share he had had in it,--he begg'd the honour to know her
+name,--so made his bow.
+
+- Et Madame a son Mari?--said he, looking back when he had made two
+steps,--and, without staying for an answer--danced down the street.
+
+Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could
+not have done as much.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with
+the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his
+magazine of chaises.
+
+The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open'd the
+door of the Remise, was another old tatter'd desobligeant; and
+notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my
+fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before,--the very sight
+of it stirr'd up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I
+thought 'twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could
+first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more
+charity for the man who could think of using it.
+
+I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself:  so
+Mons. Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast,
+telling us, as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by
+my lord A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had gone no further
+than Paris, so were in all respects as good as new.--They were too
+good;--so I pass'd on to a third, which stood behind, and forthwith
+begun to chaffer for the price.--But 'twill scarce hold two, said
+I, opening the door and getting in.--Have the goodness, Madame,
+said Mons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in.--The lady
+hesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter that moment
+beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door of the chaise
+upon us, and left us.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+C'est bien comique, 'tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from
+the reflection that this was the second time we a had been left
+together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies,--c'est bien
+comique, said she. -
+
+- There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use
+which the gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to,--to make love
+the first moment, and an offer of his person the second.
+
+'Tis their fort, replied the lady.
+
+It is supposed so at least;--and how it has come to pass, continued
+I, I know not; but they have certainly got the credit of
+understanding more of love, and making it better than any other
+nation upon earth; but, for my own part, I think them arrant
+bunglers, and in truth the worst set of marksmen that ever tried
+Cupid's patience.
+
+- To think of making love by SENTIMENTS!
+
+I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of
+remnants: --and to do it--pop--at first sight, by declaration--is
+submitting the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with all
+their pours and contres, by an unheated mind.
+
+The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.
+
+Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:-
+
+That grave people hate love for the name's sake; -
+
+That selfish people hate it for their own; -
+
+Hypocrites for heaven's; -
+
+And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse
+frightened than hurt by the very report,--what a want of knowledge
+in this branch of commence a man betrays, whoever lets the word
+come out of his lips, till an hour or two, at least, after the time
+that his silence upon it becomes tormenting.  A course of small,
+quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm,--nor so vague as to
+be misunderstood--with now and then a look of kindness, and little
+or nothing said upon it,--leaves nature for your mistress, and she
+fashions it to her mind. -
+
+Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been
+making love to me all this while.
+
+
+THE REMISE.  CALAIS.
+
+
+Monsieur Dessein came back to let us out of the chaise, and
+acquaint the lady, the count de L-, her brother, was just arrived
+at the hotel.  Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I
+cannot say that I rejoiced in my heart at the event--and could not
+help telling her so;--for it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said
+I, that I was going to make to you -
+
+- You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her
+hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me.--A man my good Sir, has
+seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a
+presentiment of it some moments before. -
+
+Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation.--But I
+think, said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend,--
+and, to deal frankly with you, had determined to accept it.--If I
+had--(she stopped a moment)--I believe your good will would have
+drawn a story from me, which would have made pity the only
+dangerous thing in the journey.
+
+In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with a
+look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise,-
+-and bid adieu.
+
+
+IN THE STREET.  CALAIS.
+
+
+I never finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my
+life:  my time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing
+every moment of it would be as two, till I put myself into motion,-
+-I ordered post horses directly, and walked towards the hotel.
+
+Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting
+that I had been little more than a single hour in Calais, -
+
+- What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this
+little span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing,
+and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually
+holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he
+can FAIRLY lay his hands on!
+
+- If this won't turn out something,--another will;--no matter,--
+'tis an assay upon human nature--I get my labour for my pains,--
+'tis enough;--the pleasure of the experiment has kept my senses and
+the best part of my blood awake, and laid the gross to sleep.
+
+I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis
+all barren;--and so it is:  and so is all the world to him who will
+not cultivate the fruits it offers.  I declare, said I, clapping my
+hands cheerily together, that were I in a desert, I would find out
+wherewith in it to call forth my affections: --if I could not do
+better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some
+melancholy cypress to connect myself to;--I would court their
+shade, and greet them kindly for their protection.--I would cut my
+name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout
+the desert:  if their leaves wither'd, I would teach myself to
+mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them.
+
+The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris,--from
+Paris to Rome,--and so on;--but he set out with the spleen and
+jaundice, and every object he pass'd by was discoloured or
+distorted.--He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing but the
+account of his miserable feelings.
+
+I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon: --he was
+just coming out of it.--'TIS NOTHING BUT A HUGE COCKPIT, said he: -
+-I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied
+I;--for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul
+upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common strumpet,
+without the least provocation in nature.
+
+I popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a
+sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, "wherein he spoke
+of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals that
+each other eat:  the Anthropophagi:"--he had been flayed alive, and
+bedevil'd, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he
+had come at. -
+
+- I'll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world.  You had better
+tell it, said I, to your physician.
+
+Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on
+from Rome to Naples,--from Naples to Venice,--from Venice to
+Vienna,--to Dresden, to Berlin, without one generous connection or
+pleasurable anecdote to tell of; but he had travell'd straight on,
+looking neither to his right hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity
+should seduce him out of his road.
+
+Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
+possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give
+it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to
+hail their arrival.--Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and
+Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of
+love, and fresh congratulations of their common felicity.--I
+heartily pity them; they have brought up no faculties for this
+work; and, were the happiest mansion in heaven to be allotted to
+Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so far from being happy,
+that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus would do penance there
+to all eternity!
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I had once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got
+out in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to
+help the postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out
+what was wanting.--Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the
+landlord's asking me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to
+me, that that was the very thing.
+
+A servant!  That I do most sadly, quoth I.--Because, Monsieur, said
+the landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who would be very
+proud of the honour to serve an Englishman.--But why an English
+one, more than any other?--They are so generous, said the
+landlord.--I'll be shot if this is not a livre out of my pocket,
+quoth I to myself, this very night.--But they have wherewithal to
+be so, Monsieur, added he.--Set down one livre more for that, quoth
+I.--It was but last night, said the landlord, qu'un milord Anglois
+presentoit un ecu a la fille de chambre.--Tant pis pour
+Mademoiselle Janatone, said I.
+
+Now Janatone, being the landlord's daughter, and the landlord
+supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I
+should not have said tant pis--but, tant mieux.  Tant mieux,
+toujours, Monsieur, said he, when there is any thing to be got--
+tant pis, when there is nothing.  It comes to the same thing, said
+I.  Pardonnez-moi, said the landlord.
+
+I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that
+tant pis and tant mieux, being two of the great hinges in French
+conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the
+use of them, before he gets to Paris.
+
+A prompt French marquis at our ambassador's table demanded of Mr.
+H-, if he was H- the poet?  No, said Mr. H-, mildly.--Tant pis,
+replied the marquis.
+
+It is H- the historian, said another,--Tant mieux, said the
+marquis.  And Mr. H-, who is a man of an excellent heart, return'd
+thanks for both.
+
+When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La
+Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spoke of,--saying
+only first, That as for his talents he would presume to say
+nothing,--Monsieur was the best judge what would suit him; but for
+the fidelity of La Fleur he would stand responsible in all he was
+worth.
+
+The landlord deliver'd this in a manner which instantly set my mind
+to the business I was upon;--and La Fleur, who stood waiting
+without, in that breathless expectation which every son of nature
+of us have felt in our turns, came in.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I am apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but
+never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to
+so poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always
+suffer my judgment to draw back something on that very account,--
+and this more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the
+case;--and I may add, the gender too, of the person I am to govern.
+
+When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make
+for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the
+matter at once in his favour; so I hired him first,--and then began
+to enquire what he could do:  But I shall find out his talents,
+quoth I, as I want them,--besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.
+
+Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum,
+and play a march or two upon the fife.  I was determined to make
+his talents do; and can't say my weakness was ever so insulted by
+my wisdom as in the attempt.
+
+La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen
+do, with SERVING for a few years; at the end of which, having
+satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of
+beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open'd no
+further track of glory to him,--he retired a ses terres, and lived
+comme il plaisoit a Dieu;--that is to say, upon nothing.
+
+- And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in
+this tour of yours through France and Italy!--Psha! said I, and do
+not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum compagnon du voyage
+the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay
+besides?  When man can extricate himself with an equivoque in such
+an unequal match,--he is not ill off.--But you can do something
+else, La Fleur? said I.--O qu'oui! he could make spatterdashes, and
+play a little upon the fiddle.--Bravo! said Wisdom.--Why, I play a
+bass myself, said I;--we shall do very well.  You can shave, and
+dress a wig a little, La Fleur?--He had all the dispositions in the
+world.--It is enough for heaven! said I, interrupting him,--and
+ought to be enough for me.--So, supper coming in, and having a
+frisky English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet,
+with as much hilarity in his countenance as ever Nature painted in
+one, on the other,--I was satisfied to my heart's content with my
+empire; and if monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be
+as satisfied as I was.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and
+will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little
+further in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to
+repent of the impulses which generally do determine me, than in
+regard to this fellow;--he was a faithful, affectionate, simple
+soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and,
+notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and spatterdash-making,
+which, though very good in themselves, happened to be of no great
+service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity of his
+temper;--it supplied all defects: --I had a constant resource in
+his looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own--I was going
+to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of
+every thing; for, whether 'twas hunger or thirst, or cold or
+nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur
+met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy
+to point them out by,--he was eternally the same; so that if I am a
+piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my
+head I am,--it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by
+reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this
+poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind.  With all
+this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb,--but he seemed at
+first sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before
+I had been three days in Paris with him,--he seemed to be no
+coxcomb at all.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I
+delivered to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my
+half a dozen shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten
+all upon the chaise,--get the horses put to,--and desire the
+landlord to come in with his bill.
+
+C'est un garcon de bonne fortune, said the landlord, pointing
+through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about
+La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the
+postilion was leading out the horses.  La Fleur kissed all their
+hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and
+thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.
+
+- The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town,
+and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him
+will not be felt:  he has but one misfortune in the world,
+continued he, "he is always in love."--I am heartily glad of it,
+said I,--'twill save me the trouble every night of putting my
+breeches under my head.  In saying this, I was making not so much
+La Fleur's eloge as my own, having been in love with one princess
+or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I
+die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it
+must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another:  whilst
+this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up,--I
+can scarce find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I
+always get out of it as fast as I can--and the moment I am
+rekindled, I am all generosity and good-will again; and would do
+anything in the world, either for or with any one, if they will but
+satisfy me there is no sin in it.
+
+- But in saying this,--sure I am commanding the passion,--not
+myself.
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.
+
+
+- The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there,
+trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the
+vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace.  What for poisons,
+conspiracies, and assassinations,--libels, pasquinades, and
+tumults, there was no going there by day--'twas worse by night.
+
+Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the
+Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole
+orchestra was delighted with it:  but of all the passages which
+delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations than
+the tender strokes of nature which the poet had wrought up in that
+pathetic speech of Perseus, O Cupid, prince of gods and men! &c.
+Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and talked of
+nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,--"O Cupid! prince of gods
+and men!"--in every street of Abdera, in every house, "O Cupid!
+Cupid!"--in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet
+melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,--nothing but
+"Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!"--The fire caught--and the
+whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.
+
+No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,--not a single
+armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;--Friendship
+and Virtue met together, and kiss'd each other in the street; the
+golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera--every
+Abderite took his eaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her
+purple web, and chastely sat her down and listened to the song.
+
+'Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire
+extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea,
+to have done this.
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in
+the inn, unless you are a little sour'd by the adventure, there is
+always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into
+your chaise; and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty,
+who surround you.  Let no man say, "Let them go to the devil!"--
+'tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have had
+sufferings enow without it:  I always think it better to take a few
+sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to
+do so likewise:  he need not be so exact in setting down his
+motives for giving them;--They will be registered elsewhere.
+
+For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few,
+that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first
+public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
+
+A well-a-way! said I,--I have but eight sous in the world, showing
+them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women
+for 'em.
+
+A poor tatter'd soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his
+claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a
+disqualifying bow on his part.  Had the whole parterre cried out,
+Place aux dames, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the
+sentiment of a deference for the sex with half the effect.
+
+Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that
+beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other
+countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?
+
+- I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
+politesse.
+
+A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in
+the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once
+been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously
+offer'd a pinch on both sides of him:  it was a gift of
+consequence, and modestly declined. --The poor little fellow
+pressed it upon them with a nod of welcomeness.--Prenez en--prenez,
+said he, looking another way; so they each took a pinch.--Pity thy
+box should ever want one! said I to myself; so I put a couple of
+sous into it--taking a small pinch out of his box, to enhance their
+value, as I did it.  He felt the weight of the second obligation
+more than of the first,--'twas doing him an honour,--the other was
+only doing him a charity;--and he made me a bow down to the ground
+for it.
+
+- Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been
+campaigned and worn out to death in the service--here's a couple of
+sous for thee.--Vive le Roi! said the old soldier.
+
+I had then but three sous left:  so I gave one, simply, pour
+l'amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg'd.--The
+poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any
+other motive.
+
+Mon cher et tres-charitable Monsieur.--There's no opposing this,
+said I.
+
+Milord Anglois--the very sound was worth the money;--so I gave MY
+LAST SOUS FOR IT.  But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked
+a pauvre honteux, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and
+who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask'd one
+for himself:  he stood by the chaise a little without the circle,
+and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days.-
+-Good God! said I--and I have not one single sous left to give
+him.--But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature,
+stirring within me;--so I gave him--no matter what--I am ashamed to
+say HOW MUCH now,--and was ashamed to think how little, then:  so,
+if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these
+two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two
+what was the precise sum.
+
+I could afford nothing for the rest, but Dieu vous benisse!
+
+- Et le bon Dieu vous benisse encore, said the old soldier, the
+dwarf, &c.  The pauvre honteux could say nothing;--he pull'd out a
+little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away--and I
+thought he thanked me more than them all.
+
+
+THE BIDET.
+
+
+Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise
+with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and
+La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little
+bidet, and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)--he
+canter'd away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.-
+-But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of
+life!  A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to
+La Fleur's career;--his bidet would not pass by it,--a contention
+arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd out of his jack-
+boots the very first kick.
+
+La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more
+nor less upon it, than Diable!  So presently got up, and came to
+the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he
+would have beat his drum.
+
+The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back
+again,--then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but
+by the dead ass: --La Fleur insisted upon the thing--and the bidet
+threw him.
+
+What's the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine?
+Monsieur, said he, c'est un cheval le plus opiniatre du monde.--
+Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.
+So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the
+bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to Montreuil.-
+-Peste! said La Fleur.
+
+It is not mal-a-propos to take notice here, that though La Fleur
+availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this
+encounter,--namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are,
+nevertheless, three in the French language:  like the positive,
+comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for
+every unexpected throw of the dice in life.
+
+Le Diable! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally
+used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only
+fall out contrary to your expectations; such as--the throwing once
+doublets--La Fleur's being kick'd off his horse, and so forth.--
+Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always--Le Diable!
+
+But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in
+that of the bidet's running away after, and leaving La Fleur
+aground in jack-boots,--'tis the second degree.
+
+'Tis then Peste!
+
+And for the third -
+
+- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I
+reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so
+refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the
+use of it. -
+
+Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in
+distress!--what ever is my CAST, grant me but decent words to
+exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.
+
+- But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take
+every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
+
+La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the
+bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight,--and then, you
+may imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole
+affair.
+
+As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots,
+there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the
+chaise, or into it. -
+
+I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-
+house at Nampont.
+
+
+NAMPONT.  THE DEAD ASS.
+
+
+- And this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his
+wallet--and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou
+been alive to have shared it with me.--I thought, by the accent, it
+had been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his ass, and to
+the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La
+Fleur's misadventure.  The man seemed to lament it much; and it
+instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he
+did it with more true touches of nature.
+
+The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the
+ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time
+to time,--then laid them down,--look'd at them, and shook his head.
+He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to
+eat it; held it some time in his hand,--then laid it upon the bit
+of his ass's bridle,--looked wistfully at the little arrangement he
+had made--and then gave a sigh.
+
+The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur
+amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I
+continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over
+their heads.
+
+- He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the
+furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return
+home, when his ass died.  Every one seemed desirous to know what
+business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey
+from his own home.
+
+It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the
+finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the
+eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of
+the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and
+made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, he would go
+in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
+
+When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp'd to pay
+Nature her tribute,--and wept bitterly.
+
+He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set
+out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a
+patient partner of his journey;--that it had eaten the same bread
+with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.
+
+Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern.--La
+Fleur offered him money.--The mourner said he did not want it;--it
+was not the value of the ass--but the loss of him.--The ass, he
+said, he was assured, loved him;--and upon this told them a long
+story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean
+mountains, which had separated them from each other three days;
+during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought
+the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank till they
+met.
+
+Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy
+poor beast; I'm sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.--
+Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when he was alive;--but now
+that he is dead, I think otherwise.--I fear the weight of myself
+and my afflictions together have been too much for him,--they have
+shortened the poor creature's days, and I fear I have them to
+answer for.--Shame on the world! said I to myself.--Did we but love
+each other as this poor soul loved his ass--'twould be something. -
+
+
+NAMPONT.  THE POSTILION.
+
+
+The concern which the poor fellow's story threw me into required
+some attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off
+upon the pave in a full gallop.
+
+The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not
+have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave
+and quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the
+postilion had he but stolen off with me in something like a pensive
+pace.--On the contrary, as the mourner finished his lamentation,
+the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to each of his beasts, and set
+off clattering like a thousand devils.
+
+I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven's sake to go slower:
+--and the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped.--The
+deuce take him and his galloping too--said I,--he'll go on tearing
+my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into a foolish passion,
+and then he'll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.
+
+The postilion managed the point to a miracle:  by the time he had
+got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont,-
+-he had put me out of temper with him,--and then with myself, for
+being so.
+
+My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling
+gallop would have been of real service to me. -
+
+- Then, prithee, get on--get on, my good lad, said I.
+
+The postilion pointed to the hill.--I then tried to return back to
+the story of the poor German and his ass--but I had broke the
+clue,--and could no more get into it again, than the postilion
+could into a trot.
+
+- The deuce go, said I, with it all!  Here am I sitting as candidly
+disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all
+runs counter.
+
+There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds
+out to us:  so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and
+the first word which roused me was Amiens.
+
+- Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,--this is the very town where
+my poor lady is to come.
+
+
+AMIENS.
+
+
+The words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L-'s post-
+chaise, with his sister in it, drove hastily by:  she had just time
+to make me a bow of recognition,--and of that particular kind of
+it, which told me she had not yet done with me.  She was as good as
+her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother's
+servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had
+taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to
+present myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do
+at Paris.  There was only added, she was sorry, but from what
+penchant she had not considered, that she had been prevented
+telling me her story,--that she still owed it to me; and if my
+route should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then
+forgot the name of Madame de L-,--that Madame de L- would be glad
+to discharge her obligation.
+
+Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels;--'tis only
+returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of
+Flanders, home;--'twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but,
+were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my
+journey, in sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery
+told to me by such a sufferer?  To see her weep! and, though I
+cannot dry up the fountain of her tears, what an exquisite
+sensation is there still left, in wiping them away from off the
+cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I'm sitting with my
+handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside her?
+
+There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly
+reproached my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of
+expressions.
+
+It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular
+blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in
+love with some one; and my last flame happening to be blown out by
+a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted
+it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three months
+before,--swearing, as I did it, that it should last me through the
+whole journey.--Why should I dissemble the matter?  I had sworn to
+her eternal fidelity;--she had a right to my whole heart: --to
+divide my affections was to lessen them;--to expose them was to
+risk them:  where there is risk there may be loss: --and what wilt
+thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and
+confidence--so good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
+
+- I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself.--But
+my imagination went on,--I recalled her looks at that crisis of our
+separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu!  I look'd at
+the picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,--and
+blush'd as I look'd at it.--I would have given the world to have
+kiss'd it,--but was ashamed.--And shall this tender flower, said I,
+pressing it between my hands,--shall it be smitten to its very
+root,--and smitten, Yorick! by thee, who hast promised to shelter
+it in thy breast?
+
+Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the
+ground,--be thou my witness--and every pure spirit which tastes it,
+be my witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless
+Eliza went along with me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
+
+In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the
+understanding, will always say too much.
+
+
+THE LETTER.  AMIENS.
+
+
+Fortune had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful
+in his feats of chivalry,--and not one thing had offered to
+signalise his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered
+into it, which was almost four-and-twenty hours.  The poor soul
+burn'd with impatience; and the Count de L-'s servant coming with
+the letter, being the first practicable occasion which offer'd, La
+Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in order to do honour to his
+master, had taken him into a back parlour in the auberge, and
+treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in Picardy; and the
+Count de L-'s servant, in return, and not to be behindhand in
+politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to the
+Count's hotel.  La Fleur's PREVENANCY (for there was a passport in
+his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with
+him; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of
+prudery in showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had
+pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with the
+first note, set the fille de chambre, the maitre d'hotel, the cook,
+the scullion, and all the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old
+monkey, a dancing:  I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen
+since the flood.
+
+Madame de L-, in passing from her brother's apartments to her own,
+hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her fille de chambre
+to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman's
+servant, who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she
+ordered him up.
+
+As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded
+himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de
+L-, on the part of his master,--added a long apocrypha of inquiries
+after Madame de L-'s health,--told her, that Monsieur his master
+was au desespoire for her re-establishment from the fatigues of her
+journey,--and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the letter
+which Madame had done him the honour--And he has done me the
+honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur, to send a billet
+in return.
+
+Madame de L- had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the
+fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations;--
+he trembled for my honour,--and possibly might not altogether be
+unconcerned for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a
+master who could be wanting en egards vis a vis d'une femme! so
+that when Madame de L- asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter,--
+O qu'oui, said La Fleur:  so laying down his hat upon the ground,
+and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with his left
+hand, he began to search for the letter with his right;--then
+contrariwise.--Diable! then sought every pocket--pocket by pocket,
+round, not forgetting his fob: --Peste!--then La Fleur emptied them
+upon the floor,--pulled out a dirty cravat,--a handkerchief,--a
+comb,--a whip lash,--a nightcap,--then gave a peep into his hat,--
+Quelle etourderie!  He had left the letter upon the table in the
+auberge;--he would run for it, and be back with it in three
+minutes.
+
+I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an
+account of his adventure:  he told the whole story simply as it
+was:  and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (par hazard) to
+answer Madame's letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to
+recover the faux pas;--and if not, that things were only as they
+were.
+
+Now I was not altogether sure of my etiquette, whether I ought to
+have wrote or no;--but if I had,--a devil himself could not have
+been angry:  'twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning
+creature for my honour; and, however he might have mistook the
+road,--or embarrassed me in so doing,--his heart was in no fault,--
+I was under no necessity to write;--and, what weighed more than
+all,--he did not look as if he had done amiss.
+
+- 'Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I.--'Twas sufficient.  La
+Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen,
+ink, and paper, in his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them
+close before me, with such a delight in his countenance, that I
+could not help taking up the pen.
+
+I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made
+half a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.
+
+In short, I was in no mood to write.
+
+La Fleur stepp'd out and brought a little water in a glass to
+dilute my ink,--then fetch'd sand and seal-wax.--It was all one; I
+wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.--Le
+diable l'emporte! said I, half to myself,--I cannot write this
+self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I said it.
+
+As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
+respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand
+apologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a
+letter in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a
+corporal's wife, which he durst say would suit the occasion.
+
+I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour.--Then prithee,
+said I, let me see it.
+
+La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm'd
+full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and
+laying it upon the table, and then untying the string which held
+them all together, run them over, one by one, till he came to the
+letter in question,--La voila! said he, clapping his hands:  so,
+unfolding it first, he laid it open before me, and retired three
+steps from the table whilst I read it.
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+Madame,
+
+Je suis penetre de la douleur la plus vive, et reduit en meme temps
+au desespoir par ce retour imprevu du Caporal qui rend notre
+entrevue de ce soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.
+
+Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser a vous.
+
+L'amour n'est rien sans sentiment.
+
+Et le sentiment est encore moins sans amour.
+
+On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se desesperer.
+
+On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi:
+alors ce cera mon tour.
+
+Chacun a son tour.
+
+En attendant--Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle!
+
+Je suis, Madame,
+
+Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux et les plus tendres,
+
+tout a vous,
+
+JAQUES ROQUE.
+
+
+It was but changing the Corporal into the Count,--and saying
+nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday,--and the letter was
+neither right nor wrong: --so, to gratify the poor fellow, who
+stood trembling for my honour, his own, and the honour of his
+letter,--I took the cream gently off it, and whipping it up in my
+own way, I seal'd it up and sent him with it to Madame de L-;--and
+the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris.
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+When a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all
+on floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple
+of cooks--'tis very well in such a place as Paris,--he may drive in
+at which end of a street he will.
+
+A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does
+not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize
+himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it;--I say UP INTO
+IT--for there is no descending perpendicular amongst 'em with a "Me
+voici! mes enfans"--here I am--whatever many may think.
+
+I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone
+in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering
+as I had prefigured them.  I walked up gravely to the window in my
+dusty black coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world
+in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure.--The
+old with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their
+vizards;--the young in armour bright which shone like gold,
+beplumed with each gay feather of the east,--all,--all, tilting at
+it like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore for fame and
+love. -
+
+Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here?  On the very
+first onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an
+atom;--seek,--seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end
+of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays;--there
+thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind
+grisette of a barber's wife, and get into such coteries! -
+
+- May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had
+to present to Madame de R- --I'll wait upon this lady, the very
+first thing I do.  So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber
+directly,--and come back and brush my coat.
+
+
+THE WIG.  PARIS.
+
+
+When the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do
+with my wig:  'twas either above or below his art:  I had nothing
+to do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.
+
+- But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won't stand.--You may
+emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. -
+
+What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I.--The
+utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone
+no further than to have "dipped it into a pail of water."--What
+difference! 'tis like Time to Eternity!
+
+I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas
+which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great
+works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never
+would make a comparison less than a mountain at least.  All that
+can be said against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is
+this: --That the grandeur is MORE in the WORD, and LESS in the
+THING.  No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but
+Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a
+hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment;--the Parisian
+barber meant nothing. -
+
+The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly,
+but a sorry figure in speech;--but, 'twill be said,--it has one
+advantage--'tis in the next room, and the truth of the buckle may
+be tried in it, without more ado, in a single moment.
+
+In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, THE
+FRENCH EXPRESSION PROFESSES MORE THAN IT PERFORMS.
+
+I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national
+characters more in these nonsensical minutiae than in the most
+important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and
+stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose
+amongst them.
+
+I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, that it was
+too late to think of going with my letter to Madame R- that night:
+but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his
+reflections turn to little account; so taking down the name of the
+Hotel de Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any
+determination where to go;--I shall consider of that, said I, as I
+walk along.
+
+
+THE PULSE.  PARIS.
+
+
+Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the
+road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love
+at first sight:  'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger
+in.
+
+- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I
+must turn to go to the Opera Comique?--Most willingly, Monsieur,
+said she, laying aside her work. -
+
+I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came
+along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an
+interruption:  till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked
+in.
+
+She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on
+the far side of the shop, facing the door.
+
+- Tres volontiers, most willingly, said she, laying her work down
+upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was
+sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look,
+that had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I should
+have said--"This woman is grateful."
+
+You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the
+shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take,--you must
+turn first to your left hand,--mais prenez garde--there are two
+turns; and be so good as to take the second--then go down a little
+way and you'll see a church:  and, when you are past it, give
+yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will
+lead you to the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross--and
+there any one will do himself the pleasure to show you. -
+
+She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
+goodnatur'd patience the third time as the first;--and if TONES AND
+MANNERS have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts
+which shut them out,--she seemed really interested that I should
+not lose myself.
+
+I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she
+was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to
+do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I
+told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in
+her eyes,--and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done
+her instructions.
+
+I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot
+every tittle of what she had said;--so looking back, and seeing her
+still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I
+went right or not,--I returned back to ask her, whether the first
+turn was to my right or left,--for that I had absolutely forgot.--
+Is it possible! said she, half laughing.  'Tis very possible,
+replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good
+advice.
+
+As this was the real truth--she took it, as every woman takes a
+matter of right, with a slight curtsey.
+
+- Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me,
+whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel
+of gloves.  I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet
+into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step
+in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the
+place.--So I walk'd in with her to the far side of the shop:  and
+taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as
+if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and
+I instantly sat myself down beside her.
+
+- He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment.--And in that
+moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil
+to you for all these courtesies.  Any one may do a casual act of
+good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the
+temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which
+comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her
+wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman
+in the world.--Feel it, said she, holding out her arm.  So laying
+down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied
+the two forefingers of my other to the artery. -
+
+- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and
+beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical
+manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true
+devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her
+fever.--How wouldst thou have laugh'd and moralized upon my new
+profession!--and thou shouldst have laugh'd and moralized on.--
+Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, "There are worse
+occupations in this world THAN FEELING A WOMAN'S PULSE."--But a
+grisette's! thou wouldst have said,--and in an open shop!  Yorick -
+
+- So much the better:  for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I
+care not if all the world saw me feel it.
+
+
+THE HUSBAND.  PARIS.
+
+
+I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the
+fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour
+into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.--'Twas nobody
+but her husband, she said;--so I began a fresh score.--Monsieur is
+so good, quoth she, as he pass'd by us, as to give himself the
+trouble of feeling my pulse.--The husband took off his hat, and
+making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour--and having said
+that, he put on his hat and walk'd out.
+
+Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,--and can this man be
+the husband of this woman!
+
+Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds
+of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
+
+In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone
+and one flesh:  in the several endowments of mind and body,
+sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general,
+to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and
+wife need to do.
+
+In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different:
+for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in
+the husband, he seldom comes there: --in some dark and dismal room
+behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same
+rough son of Nature that Nature left him.
+
+The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is salique,
+having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the
+women,--by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and
+sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long
+together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth,
+but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant: --
+Monsieur le Mari is little better than the stone under your foot.
+
+- Surely,--surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: --
+thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and
+this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.
+
+- And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.--With all the
+benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected.--
+She was going to say something civil in return--but the lad came
+into the shop with the gloves.--A propos, said I, I want a couple
+of pairs myself.
+
+
+THE GLOVES.  PARIS.
+
+
+The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind
+the counter, reach'd down a parcel and untied it:  I advanced to
+the side over against her:  they were all too large.  The beautiful
+grisette measured them one by one across my hand.--It would not
+alter their dimensions.--She begg'd I would try a single pair,
+which seemed to be the least.--She held it open;--my hand slipped
+into it at once.--It will not do, said I, shaking my head a
+little.--No, said she, doing the same thing.
+
+There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety,--where whim,
+and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all
+the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;-
+-they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can
+scarce say which party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of
+words to swell pages about it--it is enough in the present to say
+again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our
+arms, we both lolled upon the counter--it was narrow, and there was
+just room for the parcel to lay between us.
+
+The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then
+sideways to the window, then at the gloves,--and then at me.  I was
+not disposed to break silence: --I followed her example:  so, I
+looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and
+then at her,--and so on alternately.
+
+I found I lost considerably in every attack: --she had a quick
+black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with
+such penetration, that she look'd into my very heart and reins.--It
+may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did. -
+
+It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me,
+and putting them into my pocket.
+
+I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single
+livre above the price.--I wish'd she had asked a livre more, and
+was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about.--Do you
+think, my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I
+could ask a sous too much of a stranger--and of a stranger whose
+politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to
+lay himself at my mercy?--M'en croyez capable?--Faith! not I, said
+I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So counting the money into
+her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a
+shopkeeper's wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed
+me.
+
+
+THE TRANSLATION.  PARIS.
+
+
+There was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French
+officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man
+whose manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men
+worse; but that I once knew one,--for he is no more,--and why
+should I not rescue one page from violation by writing his name in
+it, and telling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest
+of my flock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at
+this long distance from his death--but my eyes gush out with tears.
+For his sake I have a predilection for the whole corps of veterans;
+and so I strode over the two back rows of benches and placed myself
+beside him.
+
+The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might
+be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon
+as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a
+shagreen case, return'd them and the book into his pocket together.
+I half rose up, and made him a bow.
+
+Translate this into any civilized language in the world--the sense
+is this:
+
+"Here's a poor stranger come into the box--he seems as if he knew
+nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if
+every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose: --'tis
+shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face--and using
+him worse than a German."
+
+The French officer might as well have said it all aloud:  and if he
+had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French
+too, and told him, "I was sensible of his attention, and return'd
+him a thousand thanks for it."
+
+There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to
+get master of this SHORT HAND, and to be quick in rendering the
+several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and
+delineations, into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude,
+I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I
+go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in
+the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought
+off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly
+wrote down and sworn to.
+
+I was going one evening to Martini's concert at Milan, and, was
+just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F- was
+coming out in a sort of a hurry: --she was almost upon me before I
+saw her; so I gave a spring to once side to let her pass.--She had
+done the same, and on the same side too; so we ran our heads
+together:  she instantly got to the other side to get out:  I was
+just as unfortunate as she had been, for I had sprung to that side,
+and opposed her passage again.--We both flew together to the other
+side, and then back,--and so on: --it was ridiculous:  we both
+blush'd intolerably:  so I did at last the thing I should have done
+at first;--I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more
+difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made
+her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the
+end of the passage.  She look'd back twice, and walk'd along it
+rather sideways, as if she would make room for any one coming up
+stairs to pass her.--No, said I--that's a vile translation:  the
+Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that
+opening is left for me to do it in;--so I ran and begg'd pardon for
+the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention to
+have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by the same
+intention towards me;--so we reciprocally thank'd each other.  She
+was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no cicisbeo near her, I
+begg'd to hand her to her coach;--so we went down the stairs,
+stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the
+adventure.--Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had handed her in,
+I made six different efforts to let you go out.--And I made six
+efforts, replied she, to let you enter.--I wish to heaven you would
+make a seventh, said I.--With all my heart, said she, making room.-
+-Life is too short to be long about the forms of it,--so I
+instantly stepp'd in, and she carried me home with her.--And what
+became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows
+more than I.
+
+I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the
+translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to
+make in Italy.
+
+
+THE DWARF.  PARIS.
+
+
+I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by
+one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so
+that being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds
+for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,--
+and that was, the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such
+numbers of dwarfs.--No doubt she sports at certain times in almost
+every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her
+amusements.--The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.
+
+As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, I measured
+every body I saw walking in the streets by it.--Melancholy
+application! especially where the size was extremely little,--the
+face extremely dark,--the eyes quick,--the nose long,--the teeth
+white,--the jaw prominent,--to see so many miserables, by force of
+accidents driven out of their own proper class into the very verge
+of another, which it gives me pain to write down: --every third man
+a pigmy!--some by rickety heads and hump backs;--others by bandy
+legs;--a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and
+seventh years of their growth;--a fourth, in their perfect and
+natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and
+stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.
+
+A Medical Traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages;--a
+Splenetic one, to want of air;--and an Inquisitive Traveller, to
+fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses,--the
+narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the
+sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and
+sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted
+for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these
+matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be
+increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
+world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop'd up,
+that they had not actually room enough to get them.--I do not call
+it getting anything, said he;--'tis getting nothing.--Nay,
+continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than
+nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty
+years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed
+upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.  Now, Mr. Shandy
+being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
+
+As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found
+it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is
+verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris.  I was walking down
+that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and
+observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter
+which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and help'd
+him over.  Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I
+perceived he was about forty.--Never mind, said I, some good body
+will do as much for me when I am ninety.
+
+I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be
+merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have
+neither size nor strength to get on in the world.--I cannot bear to
+see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old
+French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very
+thing happen under the box we sat in.
+
+At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side
+box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is
+full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary.  Though you stand, as in
+the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra.  A poor
+defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other
+into this luckless place;--the night was hot, and he was surrounded
+by beings two feet and a half higher than himself.  The dwarf
+suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which incommoded
+him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet high, who
+stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either
+the stage or the actors.  The poor dwarf did all he could to get a
+peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening
+betwixt the German's arm and his body, trying first on one side,
+then the other; but the German stood square in the most
+unaccommodating posture that can be imagined: --the dwarf might as
+well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well in
+Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's sleeve,
+and told him his distress.--The German turn'd his head back, looked
+down upon him as Goliah did upon David,--and unfeelingly resumed
+his posture.
+
+I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's little
+horn box.--And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear
+monk! so temper'd to BEAR AND FORBEAR!--how sweetly would it have
+lent an ear to this poor soul's complaint!
+
+The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion,
+as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the
+matter?--I told him the story in three words; and added, how
+inhuman it was.
+
+By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first
+transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German
+he would cut off his long queue with his knife.--The German look'd
+back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.
+
+An injury sharpen'd by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes
+every man of sentiment a party:  I could have leap'd out of the box
+to have redressed it.--The old French officer did it with much less
+confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel,
+and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress,--the
+sentinel made his way to it.--There was no occasion to tell the
+grievance,--the thing told himself; so thrusting back the German
+instantly with his musket,--he took the poor dwarf by the hand, and
+placed him before him.--This is noble! said I, clapping my hands
+together.--And yet you would not permit this, said the old officer,
+in England.
+
+- In England, dear Sir, said I, WE SIT ALL AT OUR EASE.
+
+The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in
+case I had been at variance,--by saying it was a bon mot;--and, as
+a bon mot is always worth something at Paris, he offered me a pinch
+of snuff.
+
+
+THE ROSE.  PARIS.
+
+
+It was now my turn to ask the old French officer "What was the
+matter?" for a cry of "Haussez les mains, Monsieur l'Abbe!" re-
+echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as
+unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him.
+
+He told me it was some poor Abbe in one of the upper loges, who, he
+supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in
+order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were
+insisting upon his holding up both his hands during the
+representation.--And can it be supposed, said I, that an
+ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes' pockets?  The old French
+officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of
+knowledge which I had no idea of.
+
+Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment--is it possible,
+that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so
+unclean, and so unlike themselves,--Quelle grossierte! added I.
+
+The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the
+church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe
+was given in it by Moliere:  but like other remains of Gothic
+manners, was declining.--Every nation, continued he, have their
+refinements and grossiertes, in which they take the lead, and lose
+it of one another by turns: --that he had been in most countries,
+but never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others
+seemed to want.  Le POUR et le CONTRE se trouvent en chaque nation;
+there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere; and
+nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one half of the
+world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: --
+that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the scavoir vivre, was
+by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual
+toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow,
+taught us mutual love.
+
+The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour
+and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions
+of his character: --I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook
+the object;--'twas my own way of thinking--the difference was, I
+could not have expressed it half so well.
+
+It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast,--if the
+latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every
+object which he never saw before.--I have as little torment of this
+kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a
+thing gave me pain, and that I blush'd at many a word the first
+month,--which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the
+second.
+
+Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with
+her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two
+leagues out of town.--Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the
+most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues and
+purity of heart.--In our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired
+me to pull the cord.--I asked her if she wanted anything--Rien que
+pour pisser, said Madame de Rambouliet.
+
+Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p-ss on.-
+-And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one PLUCK YOUR ROSE, and
+scatter them in your path,--for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.--
+I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the
+priest of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her
+fountain with a more respectful decorum.
+
+
+THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.  PARIS.
+
+
+What the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
+Polonius's advice to his son upon the same subject into my head,--
+and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare's
+works, I stopp'd at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to
+purchase the whole set.
+
+The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.  Comment! said
+I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt
+us.--He said they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to
+be sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B-.
+
+- And does the Count de B-, said I, read Shakespeare?  C'est un
+esprit fort, replied the bookseller.--He loves English books! and
+what is more to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too.
+You speak this so civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an
+Englishman to lay out a louis d'or or two at your shop.--The
+bookseller made a bow, and was going to say something, when a young
+decent girl about twenty, who by her air and dress seemed to be
+fille de chambre to some devout woman of fashion, come into the
+shop and asked for Les Egarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit:  the
+bookseller gave her the book directly; she pulled out a little
+green satin purse run round with a riband of the same colour, and
+putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the money and
+paid for it.  As I had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both
+walk'd out at the door together.
+
+- And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with The Wanderings of
+the Heart, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has
+first told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache,
+canst thou ever be sure it is so.--Le Dieu m'en garde! said the
+girl.--With reason, said I, for if it is a good one, 'tis pity it
+should be stolen; 'tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a
+better air to your face, than if it was dress'd out with pearls.
+
+The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her
+satin purse by its riband in her hand all the time.--'Tis a very
+small one, said I, taking hold of the bottom of it--she held it
+towards me--and there is very little in it, my dear, said I; but be
+but as good as thou art handsome, and heaven will fill it.  I had a
+parcel of crowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had
+let go the purse entirely, I put a single one in; and, tying up the
+riband in a bow-knot, returned it to her.
+
+The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one: --
+'twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows
+itself down,--the body does no more than tell it.  I never gave a
+girl a crown in my life which gave me half the pleasure.
+
+My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said I,
+if I had not given this along with it:  but now, when you see the
+crown, you'll remember it;--so don't, my dear, lay it out in
+ribands.
+
+Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable;--in
+saying which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me
+her hand: --En verite, Monsieur, je mettrai cet argent apart, said
+she.
+
+When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it
+sanctifies their most private walks:  so, notwithstanding it was
+dusky, yet as both our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple
+of walking along the Quai de Conti together.
+
+She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got
+twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before,
+she made a sort of a little stop to tell me again--she thank'd me.
+
+It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying
+to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been
+rendering it to for the world;--but I see innocence, my dear, in
+your face,--and foul befall the man who ever lays a snare in its
+way!
+
+The girl seem'd affected some way or other with what I said;--she
+gave a low sigh: --I found I was not empowered to enquire at all
+after it,--so said nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue
+de Nevers, where, we were to part.
+
+- But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene?
+She told me it was;--or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault,
+which was the next turn.--Then I'll go, my dear, by the Rue de
+Gueneguault, said I, for two reasons; first, I shall please myself,
+and next, I shall give you the protection of my company as far on
+your way as I can.  The girl was sensible I was civil--and said,
+she wished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St. Pierre.--You
+live there? said I.--She told me she was fille de chambre to Madame
+R-.--Good God! said I, 'tis the very lady for whom I have brought a
+letter from Amiens.--The girl told me that Madame R-, she believed,
+expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to see him: --
+so I desired the girl to present my compliments to Madame R-, and
+say, I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.
+
+We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this
+pass'd.--We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her
+Egarements du Coeur &c. more commodiously than carrying them in her
+hand--they were two volumes:  so I held the second for her whilst
+she put the first into her pocket; and then she held her pocket,
+and I put in the other after it.
+
+'Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are
+drawn together.
+
+We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her
+hand within my arm.--I was just bidding her,--but she did it of
+herself, with that undeliberating simplicity, which show'd it was
+out of her head that she had never seen me before.  For my own
+part, I felt the conviction of consanguinity so strongly, that I
+could not help turning half round to look in her face, and see if I
+could trace out any thing in it of a family likeness.--Tut! said I,
+are we not all relations?
+
+When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I
+stopp'd to bid her adieu for good and all:  the girl would thank me
+again for my company and kindness.--She bid me adieu twice.--I
+repeated it as often; and so cordial was the parting between us,
+that had it happened any where else, I'm not sure but I should have
+signed it with a kiss of charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.
+
+But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,--I did, what
+amounted to the same thing -
+
+- I bid God bless her.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  PARIS.
+
+
+When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired
+after by the Lieutenant de Police.--The deuce take it! said I,--I
+know the reason.  It is time the reader should know it, for in the
+order of things in which it happened, it was omitted:  not that it
+was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have been
+forgotten now;--and now is the time I want it.
+
+I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter'd
+my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and
+looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the
+idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was
+no getting there without a passport.  Go but to the end of a
+street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I
+set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever
+made for knowledge, I could less bear the thoughts of it:  so
+hearing the Count de--had hired the packet, I begg'd he would take
+me in his suite.  The Count had some little knowledge of me, so
+made little or no difficulty,--only said, his inclination to serve
+me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way
+of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass'd there, I
+might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must
+make friends and shift for myself.--Let me get to Paris, Monsieur
+le Count, said I,--and I shall do very well.  So I embark'd, and
+never thought more of the matter.
+
+When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring
+after me,--the thing instantly recurred;--and by the time La Fleur
+had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell
+me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had
+been particularly asked after:  the master of the hotel concluded
+with saying, He hoped I had one.--Not I, faith! said I.
+
+The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an
+infected person, as I declared this;--and poor La Fleur advanced
+three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good
+soul makes to succour a distress'd one: --the fellow won my heart
+by it; and from that single trait I knew his character as
+perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me
+with fidelity for seven years.
+
+Mon seigneur! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting
+himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone
+of it.--If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (apparemment) in
+all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one.--
+Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference.--Then
+certes, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet
+au moins.--Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur'd soul:
+--he'll hurt nobody.--Cela n'empeche pas, said he--you will
+certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning.--But I've taken
+your lodgings for a month, answer'd I, and I'll not quit them a day
+before the time for all the kings of France in the world.  La Fleur
+whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.
+
+Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens tres
+extraordinaires;--and, having both said and sworn it,--he went out.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  THE HOTEL AT PARIS.
+
+
+I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious
+look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I
+had treated it so cavalierly:  and to show him how light it lay
+upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited
+upon me at supper, talk'd to him with more than usual gaiety about
+Paris, and of the Opera Comique.--La Fleur had been there himself,
+and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller's
+shop; but seeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and
+that we walk'd down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem'd it
+unnecessary to follow me a step further;--so making his own
+reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut,--and got to the hotel
+in time to be inform'd of the affair of the police against my
+arrival.
+
+As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup
+himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my
+situation. -
+
+- And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of
+a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to
+set out: --I must tell it here.
+
+Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden'd
+with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how
+much I had taken care for.  Upon telling him the exact sum,
+Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull'd out
+his purse in order to empty it into mine.--I've enough in
+conscience, Eugenius, said I.--Indeed, Yorick, you have not,
+replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you.--But you
+don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I
+have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do
+something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the
+Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at
+the king of France's expense.--I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily:
+really I had forgot that resource.
+
+Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
+
+Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity--or what
+is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs,
+and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of
+it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
+
+- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word.--Make the most
+of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word
+for a tower;--and a tower is but another word for a house you can't
+get out of.--Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.--
+But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and
+patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within,--
+at least for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a
+harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better
+and wiser man than he went in.
+
+I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as
+I settled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no
+small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.--Beshrew the sombre
+pencil! said I, vauntingly--for I envy not its powers, which paints
+the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring.  The mind
+sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and
+blackened:  reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks
+them.--'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition,--the Bastile
+is not an evil to be despised;--but strip it of its towers--fill up
+the fosse,--unbarricade the doors--call it simply a confinement,
+and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper--and not of a man,
+which holds you in it,--the evil vanishes, and you bear the other
+half without complaint.
+
+I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice
+which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get
+out."--I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man,
+woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.
+
+In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words
+repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung
+in a little cage.--"I can't get out,--I can't get out," said the
+starling.
+
+I stood looking at the bird:  and to every person who came through
+the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they
+approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity.  "I
+can't get out," said the starling.--God help thee! said I, but I'll
+let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get
+to the door:  it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire,
+there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces.--I
+took both hands to it.
+
+The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance,
+and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast
+against it as if impatient.--I fear, poor creature! said I, I
+cannot set thee at liberty.--"No," said the starling,-- "I can't
+get out--I can't get out," said the starling.
+
+I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I
+remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to
+which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home.
+Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were
+they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic
+reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked upstairs,
+unsaying every word I had said in going down them.
+
+Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I,--still thou
+art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been
+made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.--
+'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to
+Liberty, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is
+grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change.--
+No TINT of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn
+thy sceptre into iron: --with thee to smile upon him as he eats his
+crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou
+art exiled!--Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last
+step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great Bestower
+of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion,--and
+shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine
+providence, upon those heads which are aching for them!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE.  PARIS.
+
+
+The bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to
+my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to
+myself the miseries of confinement.  I was in a right frame for it,
+and so I gave full scope to my imagination.
+
+I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born
+to no inheritance but slavery:  but finding, however affecting the
+picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the
+multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me. -
+
+- I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his
+dungeon, I then look'd through the twilight of his grated door to
+take his picture.
+
+I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and
+confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was
+which arises from hope deferr'd.  Upon looking nearer I saw him
+pale and feverish:  in thirty years the western breeze had not once
+fann'd his blood;--he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time--
+nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his
+lattice.--His children -
+
+But here my heart began to bleed--and I was forced to go on with
+another part of the portrait.
+
+He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
+corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed:  a
+little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch'd all
+over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there;--he had
+one of these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he
+was etching another day of misery to add to the heap.  As I
+darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye
+towards the door, then cast it down,--shook his head, and went on
+with his work of affliction.  I heard his chains upon his legs, as
+he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle.--He
+gave a deep sigh.--I saw the iron enter into his soul!--I burst
+into tears.--I could not sustain the picture of confinement which
+my fancy had drawn.--I started up from my chair, and calling La
+Fleur:  I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the
+door of the hotel by nine in the morning.
+
+I'll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.
+
+La Fleur would have put me to bed; but--not willing he should see
+anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-
+ache,--I told him I would go to bed by myself,--and bid him go do
+the same.
+
+
+THE STARLING.  ROAD TO VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I got into my remise the hour I proposed:  La Fleur got up behind,
+and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.
+
+As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look
+for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a
+short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of
+the last chapter.
+
+Whilst the Honourable Mr.--was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had
+been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an
+English lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had
+taken it in his breast into the packet;--and, by course of feeding
+it, and taking it once under his protection, in a day or two grew
+fond of it, and got it safe along with him to Paris.
+
+At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the
+starling, and as he had little to do better the five months his
+master staid there, he taught it, in his mother's tongue, the four
+simple words--(and no more)--to which I own'd myself so much its
+debtor.
+
+Upon his master's going on for Italy, the lad had given it to the
+master of the hotel.  But his little song for liberty being in an
+UNKNOWN language at Paris, the bird had little or no store set by
+him:  so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle
+of Burgundy.
+
+In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in
+whose language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of
+him to Lord A-, Lord A- begg'd the bird of me;--in a week Lord A-
+gave him to Lord B-; Lord B- made a present of him to Lord C-; and
+Lord C-'s gentleman sold him to Lord D-'s for a shilling; Lord D-
+gave him to Lord E-; and so on--half round the alphabet.  From that
+rank he pass'd into the lower house, and pass'd the hands of as
+many commoners.  But as all these wanted to GET IN, and my bird
+wanted to GET OUT, he had almost as little store set by him in
+London as in Paris.
+
+It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and
+if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform
+them, that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to
+represent him.
+
+I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to
+this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms.--
+Thus:
+
+[Picture which cannot be reproduced]
+
+- And let the herald's officers twist his neck about if they dare.
+
+
+THE ADDRESS.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I should not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I am
+going to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally
+endeavour to protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de
+C- was an act of compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should
+have done it, I suppose, like other people.
+
+How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my
+servile heart form!  I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.
+
+Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles,
+but putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes
+and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C-'s good
+graces.--This will do, said I.--Just as well, retorted I again, as
+a coat carried up to him by an adventurous tailor, without taking
+his measure.  Fool! continued I,--see Monsieur le Duc's face
+first;--observe what character is written in it;--take notice in
+what posture he stands to hear you;--mark the turns and expressions
+of his body and limbs;--and for the tone,--the first sound which
+comes from his lips will give it you; and from all these together
+you'll compound an address at once upon the spot, which cannot
+disgust the Duke;--the ingredients are his own, and most likely to
+go down.
+
+Well! said I, I wish it well over.--Coward again! as if man to man
+was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in
+the field--why not face to face in the cabinet too?  And trust me,
+Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to himself and betrays
+his own succours ten times where nature does it once.  Go to the
+Duc de C- with the Bastile in thy looks;--my life for it, thou wilt
+be sent back to Paris in half an hour with an escort.
+
+I believe so, said I.--Then I'll go to the Duke, by heaven! with
+all the gaiety and debonairness in the world. -
+
+- And there you are wrong again, replied I.--A heart at ease,
+Yorick, flies into no extremes--'tis ever on its centre.--Well!
+well! cried I, as the coachman turn'd in at the gates, I find I
+shall do very well:  and by the time he had wheel'd round the
+court, and brought me up to the door, I found myself so much the
+better for my own lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a
+victim to justice, who was to part with life upon the top most,--
+nor did I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do
+when I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.
+
+As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who
+possibly might be the maitre d'hotel, but had more the air of one
+of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de C- was busy.--I am
+utterly ignorant, said I, of the forms of obtaining an audience,
+being an absolute stranger, and what is worse in the present
+conjuncture of affairs, being an Englishman too.--He replied, that
+did not increase the difficulty.--I made him a slight bow, and told
+him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le Duc.  The
+secretary look'd towards the stairs, as if he was about to leave me
+to carry up this account to some one.--But I must not mislead you,
+said I,--for what I have to say is of no manner of importance to
+Monsieur le Duc de C---but of great importance to myself.--C'est
+une autre affaire, replied he.--Not at all, said I, to a man of
+gallantry.--But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger
+hope to have access?--In not less than two hours, said he, looking
+at his watch.  The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to
+justify the calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect;--
+and as walking backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul
+to commune with, was for the time as bad as being in the Bastile
+itself, I instantly went back to my remise, and bid the coachman
+drive me to the Cordon Bleu, which was the nearest hotel.
+
+I think there is a fatality in it;--I seldom go to the place I set
+out for.
+
+
+LE PATISSIER.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+Before I had got half way down the street I changed my mind:  as I
+am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the
+town; so I pull'd the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round
+some of the principal streets.--I suppose the town is not very
+large, said I.--The coachman begg'd pardon for setting me right,
+and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes
+and marquises and counts had hotels.--The Count de B-, of whom the
+bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely the night
+before, came instantly into my mind.--And why should I not go,
+thought I, to the Count de B-, who has so high an idea of English
+books and English men--and tell him my story? so I changed my mind
+a second time.--In truth it was the third; for I had intended that
+day for Madame de R-, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent
+her word by her fille de chambre that I would assuredly wait upon
+her;--but I am governed by circumstances;--I cannot govern them:
+so seeing a man standing with a basket on the other side of the
+street, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to
+him, and enquire for the Count's hotel.
+
+La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de
+St. Louis selling pates.--It is impossible, La Fleur, said I.--La
+Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but
+persisted in his story:  he had seen the croix set in gold, with
+its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole--and had looked
+into the basket and seen the pates which the Chevalier was selling;
+so could not be mistaken in that.
+
+Such a reverse in man's life awakens a better principle than
+curiosity:  I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat
+in the remise: --the more I look'd at him, his croix, and his
+basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain.--I got out
+of the remise, and went towards him.
+
+He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees,
+and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the
+top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix.  His
+basket of little pates was covered over with a white damask napkin;
+another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a
+look of proprete and neatness throughout, that one might have
+bought his pates of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.
+
+He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at
+the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without
+solicitation.
+
+He was about forty-eight;--of a sedate look, something approaching
+to gravity.  I did not wonder.--I went up rather to the basket than
+him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pates
+into my hand,--I begg'd he would explain the appearance which
+affected me.
+
+He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had
+passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony,
+he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but that, at the
+conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the
+whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any
+provision, he found himself in a wide world without friends,
+without a livre,--and indeed, said he, without anything but this,--
+(pointing, as he said it, to his croix).--The poor Chevalier won my
+pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem too.
+
+The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his
+generosity could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was
+only his misfortune to be amongst the number.  He had a little
+wife, he said, whom he loved, who did the patisserie; and added, he
+felt no dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this
+way--unless Providence had offer'd him a better.
+
+It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing
+over what happen'd to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine
+months after.
+
+It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead
+up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers,
+numbers had made the same enquiry which I had done.--He had told
+them the same story, and always with so much modesty and good
+sense, that it had reach'd at last the king's ears;--who, hearing
+the Chevalier had been a gallant officer, and respected by the
+whole regiment as a man of honour and integrity,--he broke up his
+little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred livres a year.
+
+As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to
+relate another, out of its order, to please myself: --the two
+stories reflect light upon each other,--and 'tis a pity they should
+be parted.
+
+
+THE SWORD.  RENNES.
+
+
+When states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel
+in their turns what distress and poverty is,--I stop not to tell
+the causes which gradually brought the house d'E-, in Brittany,
+into decay.  The Marquis d'E- had fought up against his condition
+with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still show to the
+world, some little fragments of what his ancestors had been;--their
+indiscretions had put it out of his power.  There was enough left
+for the little exigencies of OBSCURITY.--But he had two boys who
+looked up to him for LIGHT;--he thought they deserved it.  He had
+tried his sword--it could not open the way,--the MOUNTING was too
+expensive,--and simple economy was not a match for it: --there was
+no resource but commerce.
+
+In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting
+the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish'd
+to see re-blossom.--But in Brittany, there being a provision for
+this, he avail'd himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the
+states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two
+boys, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient
+law of the duchy, which, though seldom claim'd, he said, was no
+less in force, he took his sword from his side: --Here, said he,
+take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in
+condition to reclaim it.
+
+The president accepted the Marquis's sword:  he staid a few minutes
+to see it deposited in the archives of his house--and departed.
+
+The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for
+Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful
+application to business, with some unlook'd for bequests from
+distant branches of his house, return home to reclaim his nobility,
+and to support it.
+
+It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any
+traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the
+very time of this solemn requisition:  I call it solemn;--it was so
+to me.
+
+The Marquis entered the court with his whole family:  he supported
+his lady,--his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest
+was at the other extreme of the line next his mother;--he put his
+handkerchief to his face twice. -
+
+- There was a dead silence.  When the Marquis had approached within
+six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest
+son, and advancing three steps before his family,--he reclaim'd his
+sword.  His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his
+hand he drew it almost out of the scabbard: --'twas the shining
+face of a friend he had once given up--he look'd attentively along
+it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same,--
+when, observing a little rust which it had contracted near the
+point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over
+it,--I think--I saw a tear fall upon the place.  I could not be
+deceived by what followed.
+
+"I shall find," said he, "some OTHER WAY to get it off."
+
+When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its
+scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it,--and, with his wife
+and daughter, and his two sons following him, walk'd out.
+
+O, how I envied him his feelings!
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de
+B-.  The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was
+tumbling them over.  I walk'd up close to the table, and giving
+first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what
+they were,--I told him I had come without any one to present me,
+knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I
+trusted, would do it for me: --it is my countryman, the great
+Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works--et ayez la boute, mon
+cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet
+honneur-la. -
+
+The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing
+I look'd a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-
+chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so
+out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the
+bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him
+with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any
+other man in France.--And what is your embarrassment? let me hear
+it, said the Count.  So I told him the story just as I have told it
+the reader.
+
+- And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs
+have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile;--
+but I have no apprehensions, continued I;--for, in falling into the
+hands of the most polish'd people in the world, and being conscious
+I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I
+scarce thought I lay at their mercy.--It does not suit the
+gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it
+against invalids.
+
+An animated blush came into the Count de B-'s cheeks as I spoke
+this.--Ne craignez rien--Don't fear, said he.--Indeed, I don't,
+replied I again.--Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have
+come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not think
+Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me
+back crying for my pains.
+
+- My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B- (making him a low
+bow), is to desire he will not.
+
+The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half
+as much,--and once or twice said,--C'est bien dit.  So I rested my
+cause there--and determined to say no more about it.
+
+The Count led the discourse:  we talk'd of indifferent things,--of
+books, and politics, and men;--and then of women.--God bless them
+all! said I, after much discourse about them--there is not a man
+upon earth who loves them so much as I do:  after all the foibles I
+have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I
+love them; being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of
+affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single
+one as he ought.
+
+Eh bien!  Monsieur l'Anglois, said the Count, gaily;--you are not
+come to spy the nakedness of the land;--I believe you;--ni encore,
+I dare say, THAT of our women!--But permit me to conjecture,--if,
+par hazard, they fell into your way, that the prospect would not
+affect you.
+
+I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
+indecent insinuation:  in the sportability of chit-chat I have
+often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have
+hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,--the
+least of which I could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.
+
+Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I;--as for the nakedness of your
+land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in
+them;--and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had
+excited in me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-
+feeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with
+a garment if I knew how to throw it on: --But I could wish,
+continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the
+different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out
+what is good in them to fashion my own by: --and therefore am I
+come.
+
+It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have
+not seen the Palais Royal,--nor the Luxembourg,--nor the Facade of
+the Louvre,--nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of
+pictures, statues, and churches.--I conceive every fair being as a
+temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings
+and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of
+Raphael itself.
+
+The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which
+inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home
+into France,--and from France will lead me through Italy;--'tis a
+quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those
+affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other,--
+and the world, better than we do.
+
+The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion;
+and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare
+for making me known to him.--But a propos, said he;--Shakespeare is
+full of great things;--he forgot a small punctilio of announcing
+your name: --it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set
+about telling any one who I am,--for there is scarce any body I
+cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often
+wished I could do it in a single word,--and have an end of it.  It
+was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this
+to any purpose;--for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
+recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
+immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my
+finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
+finger all the way over the name,--Me voici! said I.
+
+Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
+Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
+drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
+this account;--'tis certain the French conceive better than they
+combine;--I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
+inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
+and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into
+the same mistake in the very same case: --"He could not bear," he
+said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's
+jester."  Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.  The
+Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight
+hundred years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus's court;--the
+other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.-
+-He shook his head.  Good God! said I, you might as well confound
+Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord!--
+"'Twas all one," he replied. -
+
+- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your
+Lordship, said I, I'm sure your Lordship would not have said so.
+
+The poor Count de B- fell but into the same ERROR.
+
+- Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick? cried the Count.--Je le suis, said
+I.--Vous?--Moi,--moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le
+Comte.--Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me,--Vous etes Yorick!
+
+The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left
+me alone in his room.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I could not conceive why the Count de B- had gone so abruptly out
+of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the
+Shakespeare into his pocket. -
+
+Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of
+time which a conjecture about them takes up:  'twas better to read
+Shakespeare; so taking up "Much Ado About Nothing," I transported
+myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and
+got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I
+thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.
+
+Sweet pliability of man's spirit, that can at once surrender itself
+to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary
+moments!--Long,--long since had ye number'd out my days, had I not
+trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground.  When my
+way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get
+off it, to some smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over
+with rosebuds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come
+back strengthened and refresh'd.--When evils press sore upon me,
+and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a new
+course;--I leave it,--and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian
+fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like AEneas, into
+them.--I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and
+wish to recognise it;--I see the injured spirit wave her head, and
+turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;--I
+lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which
+were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school.
+
+SURELY THIS IS NOT WALKING IN A VAIN SHADOW--NOR DOES MAN DISQUIET
+HIMSELF in vain BY IT: --he oftener does so in trusting the issue
+of his commotions to reason only.--I can safely say for myself, I
+was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart
+so decisively, as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and
+gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground
+
+When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B- entered,
+with my passport in his hand.  Monsieur le Duc de C-, said the
+Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman.  Un
+homme qui rit, said the Duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.--Had it
+been for any one but the king's jester, added the Count, I could
+not have got it these two hours.--Pardonnez moi, Monsieur le Count,
+said I--I am not the king's jester.--But you are Yorick?--Yes.--Et
+vous plaisantez?--I answered, Indeed I did jest,--but was not paid
+for it;--'twas entirely at my own expense.
+
+We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we
+had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.;--since which time
+our manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at
+present is so full of patriots, who wish for NOTHING but the
+honours and wealth of their country;--and our ladies are all so
+chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout,--there is nothing for a
+jester to make a jest of. -
+
+Voila un persiflage! cried the Count.
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+As the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors,
+governors, and commandants of cities, generals of armies,
+justiciaries, and all officers of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the
+king's jester, and his baggage, travel quietly along, I own the
+triumph of obtaining the passport was not a little tarnish'd by the
+figure I cut in it.--But there is nothing unmix'd in this world;
+and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to
+affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh,--and
+that the greatest THEY KNEW OF terminated, IN A GENERAL WAY, in
+little better than a convulsion.
+
+I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary
+upon the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the
+middle of a note to give an account to the world of a couple of
+sparrows upon the out-edge of his window, which had incommoded him
+all the time he wrote, and at last had entirely taken him off from
+his genealogy.
+
+- 'Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain, for
+I have had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen;-
+-but the cock sparrow, during the little time that I could have
+finished the other half of this note, has actually interrupted me
+with the reiteration of his caresses three-and-twenty times and a
+half.
+
+How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!
+
+Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able
+to write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to
+copy, even in thy study.
+
+But this is nothing to my travels.--So I twice,--twice beg pardon
+for it.
+
+
+CHARACTER.  VERSAILLES.
+
+
+And how do you find the French? said the Count de B-, after he had
+given me the passport.
+
+The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy,
+I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.
+
+- Mais passe, pour cela.--Speak frankly, said he:  do you find all
+the urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour of?--
+I had found every thing, I said, which confirmed it.--Vraiment,
+said the Count, les Francois sont polis.--To an excess, replied I.
+
+The Count took notice of the word exces; and would have it I meant
+more than I said.  I defended myself a long time as well as I could
+against it.--He insisted I had a reserve, and that I would speak my
+opinion frankly.
+
+I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain
+compass, as well as an instrument; and that the social and other
+calls have occasion by turns for every key in him; so that if you
+begin a note too high or too low, there must be a want either in
+the upper or under part, to fill up the system of harmony.--The
+Count de B- did not understand music, so desired me to explain it
+some other way.  A polish'd nation, my dear Count, said I, makes
+every one its debtor:  and besides, Urbanity itself, like the fair
+sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say it can do
+ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain line of perfection,
+that man, take him altogether, is empower'd to arrive at: --if he
+gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets them.  I must
+not presume to say how far this has affected the French in the
+subject we are speaking of;--but, should it ever be the case of the
+English, in the progress of their refinements, to arrive at the
+same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the
+politesse du coeur, which inclines men more to humane actions than
+courteous ones,--we should at least lose that distinct variety and
+originality of character, which distinguishes them, not only from
+each other, but from all the world besides.
+
+I had a few of King William's shillings, as smooth as glass, in my
+pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of
+my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so
+far:  -
+
+See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before
+him upon the table,--by jingling and rubbing one against another
+for seventy years together in one body's pocket or another's, they
+are become so much alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling
+from another.
+
+The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but
+few people's hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine
+hand of Nature has given them;--they are not so pleasant to feel,--
+but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look you
+see whose image and superscription they bear.--But the French,
+Monsieur le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said),
+have so many excellences, they can the better spare this;--they are
+a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good temper'd
+people as is under heaven;--if they have a fault--they are too
+SERIOUS.
+
+Mon Dieu! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.
+
+Mais vous plaisantez, said he, correcting his exclamation.--I laid
+my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him it was
+my most settled opinion.
+
+The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my
+reasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C-
+.
+
+But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup
+with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of
+knowing you retract your opinion,--or, in what manner you support
+it.--But, if you do support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must
+do it with all your powers, because you have the whole world
+against you.--I promised the Count I would do myself the honour of
+dining with him before I set out for Italy;--so took my leave.
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION.  PARIS.
+
+
+When I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with
+a bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me.--I do not know,
+said the porter, whether she is gone away or not.  I took the key
+of my chamber of him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within
+ten steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her
+coming easily down.
+
+It was the fair fille de chambre I had walked along the Quai de
+Conti with; Madame de R- had sent her upon some commission to a
+marchande des modes within a step or two of the Hotel de Modene;
+and as I had fail'd in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I
+had left Paris; and if so, whether I had not left a letter
+addressed to her.
+
+As the fair fille de chambre was so near my door, she returned
+back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I
+wrote a card.
+
+It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,-
+-the crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as
+those of the bed) were drawn close: --the sun was setting, and
+reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair fille de
+chambre's face,--I thought she blush'd;--the idea of it made me
+blush myself: --we were quite alone; and that superinduced a second
+blush before the first could get off.
+
+There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the blood is
+more in fault than the man: --'tis sent impetuous from the heart,
+and virtue flies after it,--not to call it back, but to make the
+sensation of it more delicious to the nerves: --'tis associated. -
+
+But I'll not describe it;--I felt something at first within me
+which was not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had
+given her the night before.--I sought five minutes for a card;--I
+knew I had not one.--I took up a pen.--I laid it down again;--my
+hand trembled: --the devil was in me.
+
+I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist,
+he will fly from us;--but I seldom resist him at all; from a
+terror, though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the
+combat;--so I give up the triumph for security; and, instead of
+thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.
+
+The fair fille de chambre came close up to the bureau where I was
+looking for a card--took up first the pen I cast down, then offer'd
+to hold me the ink; she offer'd it so sweetly, I was going to
+accept it;--but I durst not;--I have nothing, my dear, said I, to
+write upon.--Write it, said she, simply, upon anything. -
+
+I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon
+thy lips. -
+
+If I do, said I, I shall perish;--so I took her by the hand, and
+led her to the door, and begg'd she would not forget the lesson I
+had given her.--She said, indeed she would not;--and, as she
+uttered it with some earnestness, she turn'd about, and gave me
+both her hands, closed together, into mine;--it was impossible not
+to compress them in that situation;--I wish'd to let them go; and
+all the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it,-
+-and still I held them on.--In two minutes I found I had all the
+battle to fight over again;--and I felt my legs and every limb
+about me tremble at the idea.
+
+The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where
+we were standing.--I had still hold of her hands--and how it
+happened I can give no account; but I neither ask'd her--nor drew
+her--nor did I think of the bed;--but so it did happen, we both sat
+down.
+
+I'll just show you, said the fair fille de chambre, the little
+purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown.  So she put her
+hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some
+time--then into the left.--"She had lost it."--I never bore
+expectation more quietly;--it was in her right pocket at last;--she
+pull'd it out; it was of green taffeta, lined with a little bit of
+white quilted satin, and just big enough to hold the crown:  she
+put it into my hand;--it was pretty; and I held it ten minutes with
+the back of my hand resting upon her lap--looking sometimes at the
+purse, sometimes on one side of it.
+
+A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair
+fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out her little
+housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew'd it up.--I foresaw it
+would hazard the glory of the day; and, as she pass'd her hand in
+silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the
+laurels shake which fancy had wreath'd about my head.
+
+A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was
+just falling off.--See, said the fille de chambre, holding up her
+foot.--I could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return,
+and putting in the strap,--and lifting up the other foot with it,
+when I had done, to see both were right,--in doing it too suddenly,
+it unavoidably threw the fair fille de chambre off her centre,--and
+then -
+
+
+THE CONQUEST.
+
+
+Yes,--and then -.  Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts
+can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it
+that man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to
+the Father of spirits but for his conduct under them?
+
+If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of
+love and desire are entangled with the piece,--must the whole web
+be rent in drawing them out?--Whip me such stoics, great Governor
+of Nature! said I to myself: --wherever thy providence shall place
+me for the trials of my virtue;--whatever is my danger,--whatever
+is my situation,--let me feel the movements which rise out of it,
+and which belong to me as a man,--and, if I govern them as a good
+one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us,
+and not we ourselves.
+
+As I finished my address, I raised the fair fille de chambre up by
+the hand, and led her out of the room: --she stood by me till I
+locked the door and put the key in my pocket,--and then,--the
+victory being quite decisive--and not till then, I press'd my lips
+to her cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the
+gate of the hotel.
+
+
+THE MYSTERY.  PARIS.
+
+
+If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back
+instantly to my chamber;--it was touching a cold key with a flat
+third to it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call'd
+forth my affections: --therefore, when I let go the hand of the
+fille de chambre, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some
+time, looking at every one who pass'd by,--and forming conjectures
+upon them, till my attention got fix'd upon a single object which
+confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.
+
+It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which
+passed and repass'd sedately along the street, making a turn of
+about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel;--the man
+was about fifty-two--had a small cane under his arm--was dress'd in
+a dark drab-colour'd coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seem'd to
+have seen some years service: --they were still clean, and there
+was a little air of frugal proprete throughout him.  By his pulling
+off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way,
+I saw he was asking charity:  so I got a sous or two out of my
+pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn.--He pass'd by
+me without asking anything--and yet did not go five steps further
+before he ask'd charity of a little woman.--I was much more likely
+to have given of the two.--He had scarce done with the woman, when
+he pull'd off his hat to another who was coming the same way.--An
+ancient gentleman came slowly--and, after him, a young smart one.--
+He let them both pass, and ask'd nothing.  I stood observing him
+half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and
+forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.
+
+There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to
+work, and to no purpose: --the first was, why the man should ONLY
+tell his story to the sex;--and, secondly,--what kind of story it
+was, and what species of eloquence it could be, which soften'd the
+hearts of the women, which he knew 'twas to no purpose to practise
+upon the men.
+
+There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery;--
+the one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and
+in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition;--
+the other was, it was always successful.--He never stopp'd a woman,
+but she pull'd out her purse, and immediately gave him something.
+
+I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.
+
+I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I
+walk'd upstairs to my chamber.
+
+
+THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.  PARIS.
+
+
+I was immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came
+into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere.--How so,
+friend? said I.--He answered, I had had a young woman lock'd up
+with me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and 'twas against
+the rules of his house.--Very well, said I, we'll all part friends
+then,--for the girl is no worse,--and I am no worse,--and you will
+be just as I found you.--It was enough, he said, to overthrow the
+credit of his hotel.--Voyez vous, Monsieur, said he, pointing to
+the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon.--I own it had
+something of the appearance of an evidence; but my pride not
+suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted him
+to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that
+night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.
+
+I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
+girls--'Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever
+reckon'd upon--Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning.--
+And does the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a
+difference in the sin?--It made a difference, he said, in the
+scandal.--I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannot say I
+was intolerably out of temper with the man.--I own it is necessary,
+resumed the master of the hotel, that a stranger at Paris should
+have the opportunities presented to him of buying lace and silk
+stockings and ruffles, et tout cela;--and 'tis nothing if a woman
+comes with a band-box.--O, my conscience! said I, she had one but I
+never look'd into it.--Then Monsieur, said he, has bought nothing?-
+-Not one earthly thing, replied I.--Because, said he, I could
+recommend one to you who would use you en conscience.--But I must
+see her this night, said I.--He made me a low bow, and walk'd down.
+
+Now shall I triumph over this maitre d'hotel, cried I,--and what
+then?  Then I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.--And
+what then?  What then?--I was too near myself to say it was for the
+sake of others.--I had no good answer left;--there was more of
+spleen than principle in my project, and I was sick of it before
+the execution.
+
+In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace.--I'll
+buy nothing, however, said I, within myself.
+
+The grisette would show me everything.--I was hard to please:  she
+would not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid
+all her laces one after another before me;--unfolded and folded
+them up again one by one with the most patient sweetness.--I might
+buy,--or not;--she would let me have everything at my own price: --
+the poor creature seem'd anxious to get a penny; and laid herself
+out to win me, and not so much in a manner which seem'd artful, as
+in one I felt simple and caressing.
+
+If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
+worse;--my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as
+quietly as the first.--Why should I chastise one for the trespass
+of another?  If thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host,
+thought I, looking up in her face, so much harder is thy bread.
+
+If I had not had more than four louis d'ors in my purse, there was
+no such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had
+first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.
+
+- The master of the hotel will share the profit with her;--no
+matter,--then I have only paid as many a poor soul has PAID before
+me, for an act he COULD not do, or think of.
+
+
+THE RIDDLE.  PARIS.
+
+
+When La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how
+sorry the master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding
+me change my lodgings.
+
+A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down with enmity
+in his heart, if he can help it.--So I bid La Fleur tell the master
+of the hotel, that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I had
+given him;--and you may tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added I,
+that if the young woman should call again, I shall not see her.
+
+This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after
+so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if
+it was possible, with all the virtue I enter'd it.
+
+C'est deroger a noblesse, Monsieur, said La Fleur, making me a bow
+down to the ground as he said it.--Et encore, Monsieur, said he,
+may change his sentiments;--and if (par hazard) he should like to
+amuse himself,--I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting
+him. -
+
+Mon Dieu! said La Fleur,--and took away.
+
+In an hour's time he came to put me to bed, and was more than
+commonly officious: --something hung upon his lips to say to me, or
+ask me, which he could not get off:  I could not conceive what it
+was, and indeed gave myself little trouble to find it out, as I had
+another riddle so much more interesting upon my mind, which was
+that of the man's asking charity before the door of the hotel.--I
+would have given anything to have got to the bottom of it; and
+that, not out of curiosity,--'tis so low a principle of enquiry, in
+general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with a two-
+sous piece;--but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so
+certainly soften'd the heart of every woman you came near, was a
+secret at least equal to the philosopher's stone; had I both the
+Indies, I would have given up one to have been master of it.
+
+I toss'd and turn'd it almost all night long in my brains to no
+manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my
+spirits as much troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of
+Babylon had been with his; and I will not hesitate to affirm, it
+would have puzzled all the wise men of Paris as much as those of
+Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
+
+
+LE DIMANCHE.  PARIS.
+
+
+It was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my
+coffee and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly
+array'd, I scarce knew him.
+
+I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver
+button and loop, and four louis d'ors, pour s'adoniser, when we got
+to Paris; and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders
+with it.
+
+He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of
+breeches of the same.--They were not a crown worse, he said, for
+the wearing.--I wish'd him hang'd for telling me.--They look'd so
+fresh, that though I knew the thing could not be done, yet I would
+rather have imposed upon my fancy with thinking I had bought them
+new for the fellow, than that they had come out of the Rue de
+Friperie.
+
+This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
+
+He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat,
+fancifully enough embroidered: --this was indeed something the
+worse for the service it had done, but 'twas clean scour'd;--the
+gold had been touch'd up, and upon the whole was rather showy than
+otherwise;--and as the blue was not violent, it suited with the
+coat and breeches very well:  he had squeez'd out of the money,
+moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted with the
+fripier upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.--He had
+purchased muslin ruffles, bien brodees, with four livres of his own
+money;--and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;--and to
+top all, nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing
+him a sous.
+
+He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the
+first style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.--In a word,
+there was that look of festivity in everything about him, which at
+once put me in mind it was Sunday;--and, by combining both
+together, it instantly struck me, that the favour he wish'd to ask
+of me the night before, was to spend the day as every body in Paris
+spent it besides.  I had scarce made the conjecture, when La Fleur,
+with infinite humility, but with a look of trust, as if I should
+not refuse him, begg'd I would grant him the day, pour faire le
+galant vis-a-vis de sa maitresse.
+
+Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-a-vis Madame
+de R-.--I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would
+not have mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress'd
+as La Fleur was, to have got up behind it:  I never could have
+worse spared him.
+
+But we must FEEL, not argue in these embarrassments.--The sons and
+daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in
+their contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little
+vanities and wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well
+as their task-masters;--no doubt, they have set their self-denials
+at a price,--and their expectations are so unreasonable, that I
+would often disappoint them, but that their condition puts it so
+much in my power to do it.
+
+BEHOLD,--BEHOLD, I AM THY SERVANT--disarms me at once of the powers
+of a master. -
+
+Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
+
+- And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in
+so little a time at Paris?  La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast,
+and said 'twas a petite demoiselle, at Monsieur le Count de B-'s.--
+La Fleur had a heart made for society; and, to speak the truth of
+him, let as few occasions slip him as his master;--so that somehow
+or other,--but how,--heaven knows,--he had connected himself with
+the demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during the time I
+was taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough for me
+to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived to make it
+do to win the maid to his.  The family, it seems, was to be at
+Paris that day, and he had made a party with her, and two or three
+more of the Count's household, upon the boulevards.
+
+Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all
+your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights
+of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the
+earth.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.  PARIS.
+
+
+La Fleur had left me something to amuse myself with for the day
+more than I had bargain'd for, or could have enter'd either into
+his head or mine.
+
+He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf:  and
+as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had
+begg'd a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and
+his hand.--As that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon the
+table as it was; and as I resolved to stay within all day, I
+ordered him to call upon the traiteur, to bespeak my dinner, and
+leave me to breakfast by myself.
+
+When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
+window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper;--but
+stopping to read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second
+and third,--I thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and
+drawing a chair up to it, I sat down to read it.
+
+It was in the old French of Rabelais's time, and for aught I know
+might have been wrote by him: --it was moreover in a Gothic letter,
+and that so faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost
+me infinite trouble to make anything of it.--I threw it down; and
+then wrote a letter to Eugenius;--then I took it up again, and
+embroiled my patience with it afresh;--and then to cure that, I
+wrote a letter to Eliza.--Still it kept hold of me; and the
+difficulty of understanding it increased but the desire.
+
+I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle
+of Burgundy; I at it again,--and, after two or three hours poring
+upon it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon
+did upon a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it;
+but to make sure of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it
+into English, and see how it would look then;--so I went on
+leisurely, as a trifling man does, sometimes writing a sentence,--
+then taking a turn or two,--and then looking how the world went,
+out of the window; so that it was nine o'clock at night before I
+had done it.--I then began and read it as follows.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.  PARIS.
+
+
+- Now, as the notary's wife disputed the point with the notary with
+too much heat,--I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the
+parchment) that there was another notary here only to set down and
+attest all this. -
+
+- And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily
+up.--The notary's wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary
+thought it well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply.--I would go,
+answered he, to bed.--You may go to the devil, answer'd the
+notary's wife.
+
+Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two
+rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary
+not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that
+moment sent him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and
+cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walk'd out,
+ill at ease, towards the Pont Neuf.
+
+Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have
+pass'd over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest,--the
+finest,--the grandest,--the lightest,--the longest,--the broadest,
+that ever conjoin'd land and land together upon the face of the
+terraqueous globe.
+
+[By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a
+Frenchman.]
+
+The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can
+allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or
+about Paris, 'tis more blasphemously sacre Dieu'd there than in any
+other aperture of the whole city,--and with reason good and cogent,
+Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying garde d'eau, and
+with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with
+their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half,
+which is its full worth.
+
+The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry,
+instinctively clapp'd his cane to the side of it, but in raising it
+up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the
+sentinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear
+into the Seine. -
+
+- 'TIS AN ILL WIND, said a boatman, who catched it, WHICH BLOWS
+NOBODY ANY GOOD.
+
+The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers,
+and levell'd his arquebuss.
+
+Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman's
+paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out,
+she had borrow'd the sentry's match to light it: --it gave a
+moment's time for the Gascon's blood to run cool, and turn the
+accident better to his advantage.--'TIS AN ILL WIND, said he,
+catching off the notary's castor, and legitimating the capture with
+the boatman's adage.
+
+The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de
+Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he
+walked along in this manner:  -
+
+Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of
+hurricanes all my days: --to be born to have the storm of ill
+language levell'd against me and my profession wherever I go; to be
+forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a
+woman;--to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and
+despoil'd of my castor by pontific ones!--to be here, bareheaded,
+in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!-
+-Where am I to lay my head?--Miserable man! what wind in the two-
+and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it
+does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
+
+As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this
+sort, a voice call'd out to a girl, to bid her run for the next
+notary.--Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his
+situation, walk'd up the passage to the door, and passing through
+an old sort of a saloon, was usher'd into a large chamber,
+dismantled of everything but a long military pike,--a breastplate,-
+-a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four
+different places against the wall.
+
+An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless
+decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at
+that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a
+little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and
+close by the table was placed a chair: --the notary sat him down in
+it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which
+he had in his pocket, he placed them before him; and dipping his
+pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed
+everything to make the gentleman's last will and testament
+
+Alas!  Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up
+a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
+bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
+peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world:  the profits
+arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from
+me.--It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;--it
+will make the fortunes of your house.--The notary dipp'd his pen
+into his inkhorn.--Almighty Director of every event in my life!
+said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands
+towards heaven,--Thou, whose hand has led me on through such a
+labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation,
+assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted
+man;--direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that
+this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
+from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to
+be condemn'd or acquitted!--the notary held up the point of his pen
+betwixt the taper and his eye. -
+
+It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will
+rouse up every affection in nature;--it will kill the humane, and
+touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -
+
+- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a
+third time into his ink-horn--and the old gentleman, turning a
+little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these
+words:  -
+
+- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then
+enter'd the room.
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {1}  PARIS.
+
+
+When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to
+comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other
+sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to
+keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the
+boulevards.--Then prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to
+the Count de B-'s hotel, and see if thou canst get it.--There is no
+doubt of it, said La Fleur;--and away he flew.
+
+In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
+breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could
+arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment.  Juste Ciel!
+in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
+tender farewell of her--his faithless mistress had given his gage
+d'amour to one of the Count's footmen,--the footman to a young
+sempstress,--and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at
+the end of it.--Our misfortunes were involved together: --I gave a
+sigh,--and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.
+
+- How perfidious! cried La Fleur.--How unlucky! said I.
+
+- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if
+she had lost it.--Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
+
+Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
+
+
+THE ACT OF CHARITY.  PARIS.
+
+
+The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
+an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
+not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller.--I count little of the
+many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
+streets.--Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in
+such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of
+hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded
+together,--and yet they are absolutely fine;--and whenever I have a
+more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a
+preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of
+'em;--and for the text,--"Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
+Pamphylia,"--is as good as any one in the Bible.
+
+There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique
+into a narrow street; 'tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a
+fiacre, {2} or wish to get off quietly o'foot when the opera is
+done.  At the end of it, towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a
+small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get
+half-way down, but near the door--'tis more for ornament than use:
+you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns,--but
+does little good to the world, that we know of.
+
+In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached
+within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-
+arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for
+a fiacre;--as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior
+right; so edged myself up within a yard or little more of them, and
+quietly took my stand.--I was in black, and scarce seen.
+
+The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about
+thirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty:
+there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of
+them;--they seem'd to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by
+caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations.--I could have
+wish'd to have made them happy: --their happiness was destin'd that
+night, to come from another quarter.
+
+A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at
+the end of it, begg'd for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the
+love of heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the
+quota of an alms--and that the sum should be twelve times as much
+as what is usually given in the dark.--They both seemed astonished
+at it as much as myself.--Twelve sous! said one.--A twelve-sous
+piece! said the other,--and made no reply.
+
+The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their
+rank; and bow'd down his head to the ground.
+
+Poo! said they,--we have no money.
+
+The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew'd his
+supplication.
+
+- Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears
+against me.--Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no
+change.--Then God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those
+joys which you can give to others without change!--I observed the
+elder sister put her hand into her pocket.--I'll see, said she, if
+I have a sous.  A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature
+has been bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.
+
+- I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.
+
+My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder,--what
+is it but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes
+so sweet, that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage?
+and what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother
+say so much of you both as they just passed by?
+
+The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same
+time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out
+a twelve-sous piece.
+
+The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;--it
+was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the
+twelve-sous piece in charity;--and, to end the dispute, they both
+gave it together, and the man went away.
+
+
+THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.  PARIS.
+
+
+I stepped hastily after him:  it was the very man whose success in
+asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so
+puzzled me;--and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis
+of it: --'twas flattery.
+
+Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly
+are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly
+dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most
+difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!
+
+The poor man, as he was not straiten'd for time, had given it here
+in a larger dose:  'tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a
+less form, for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the
+streets:  but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and
+qualify it,--I vex not my spirit with the enquiry;--it is enough
+the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces--and they can best tell
+the rest, who have gained much greater matters by it.
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+We get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as
+receiving them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the
+ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.
+
+Monsieur le Count de B-, merely because he had done me one kindness
+in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the
+few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of
+rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.
+
+I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honours to
+some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should
+have dined or supp'd a single time or two round, and then, by
+TRANSLATING French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should
+presently have seen, that I had hold of the couvert {3} of some
+more entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned all my
+places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could
+not keep them.--As it was, things did not go much amiss.
+
+I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B-:  in
+days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of
+chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dress'd himself out to the
+idea of tilts and tournaments ever since.--The Marquis de B- wish'd
+to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain.
+"He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much of the
+English ladies.--Stay where you are, I beseech you, Monsieur le
+Marquis, said I.--Les Messieurs Anglois can scarce get a kind look
+from them as it is.--The Marquis invited me to supper.
+
+Monsieur P-, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our
+taxes.  They were very considerable, he heard.--If we knew but how
+to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.
+
+I could never have been invited to Mons. P-'s concerts upon any
+other terms.
+
+I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q- as an esprit.--Madame de
+Q- was an esprit herself:  she burnt with impatience to see me, and
+hear me talk.  I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not
+care a sous whether I had any wit or no;--I was let in, to be
+convinced she had.  I call heaven to witness I never once opened
+the door of my lips.
+
+Madame de V- vow'd to every creature she met--"She had never had a
+more improving conversation with a man in her life."
+
+There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.--She is
+coquette,--then deist,--then devote:  the empire during these is
+never lost,--she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years
+and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-
+peoples it with slaves of infidelity,--and then with the slaves of
+the church.
+
+Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas:  the
+colour of the rose was fading fast away;--she ought to have been a
+deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first
+visit.
+
+She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of
+disputing the point of religion more closely.--In short Madame de
+V- told me she believed nothing.--I told Madame de V- it might be
+her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level
+the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel
+as hers could be defended;--that there was not a more dangerous
+thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist;--that it was a
+debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her;--that I had not
+been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to
+form designs;--and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and
+the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have
+check'd them as they rose up?
+
+We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;--and there is
+need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
+them on us.--But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,--'tis too-
+-too soon.
+
+I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
+V-.--She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abbe M-, that in one half
+hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their
+Encyclopaedia had said against it.--I was listed directly into
+Madame de V-'s coterie;--and she put off the epocha of deism for
+two years.
+
+I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in
+which I was showing the necessity of a FIRST cause, when the young
+Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the
+room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn'd too straight about my
+neck.--It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down
+upon his own;--but a word, Monsieur Yorick, TO THE WISE -
+
+And FROM THE WISE, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,-
+-IS ENOUGH.
+
+The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
+embraced by mortal man.
+
+For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met.--
+Pardi! ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres.--Il
+raisonne bien, said another.--C'est un bon enfant, said a third.--
+And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all
+the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest RECKONING;--I
+grew ashamed of it.--It was the gain of a slave;--every sentiment
+of honour revolted against it;--the higher I got, the more was I
+forced upon my BEGGARLY SYSTEM;--the better the coterie,--the more
+children of Art;--I languish'd for those of Nature:  and one night,
+after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different
+people, I grew sick,--went to bed;--order'd La Fleur to get me
+horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
+
+
+MARIA.  MOULINES.
+
+
+I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
+now,--to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of
+France,--in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
+abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up,--a
+journey, through each step of which Music beats time to Labour, and
+all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters:  to
+pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at
+every group before me,--and every one of them was pregnant with
+adventures. -
+
+Just heaven!--it would fill up twenty volumes;--and alas! I have
+but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into,--and half of
+these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy,
+met with near Moulines.
+
+The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a
+little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood
+where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I could
+not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of
+the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to enquire after
+her.
+
+'Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in
+quest of melancholy adventures.  But I know not how it is, but I am
+never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me,
+as when I am entangled in them.
+
+The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before
+she open'd her mouth.--She had lost her husband; he had died, she
+said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month
+before.--She had feared at first, she added, that it would have
+plunder'd her poor girl of what little understanding was left;--
+but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: --still,
+she could not rest.--Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was
+wandering somewhere about the road.
+
+Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La
+Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back
+of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?
+I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.
+
+When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little
+opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria
+sitting under a poplar.  She was sitting with her elbow in her lap,
+and her head leaning on one side within her hand: --a small brook
+ran at the foot of the tree.
+
+I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines--and La Fleur
+to bespeak my supper;--and that I would walk after him.
+
+She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her,
+except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a
+silk net.--She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green
+riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of
+which hung her pipe.--Her goat had been as faithless as her lover;
+and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept
+tied by a string to her girdle:  as I looked at her dog, she drew
+him towards her with the string.--"Thou shalt not leave me,
+Sylvio," said she.  I look'd in Maria's eyes and saw she was
+thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
+for, as she utter'd them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they
+fell, with my handkerchief.--I then steep'd it in my own,--and then
+in hers,--and then in mine,--and then I wip'd hers again;--and as I
+did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure
+could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and
+motion.
+
+I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
+materialists have pester'd the world ever convince me to the
+contrary.
+
+
+MARIA.
+
+
+When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask'd her if she
+remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt
+her and her goat about two years before?  She said she was
+unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: -
+-that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that
+her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the
+theft;--she had wash'd it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever
+since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should ever
+see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her.  As she
+told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me
+see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves,
+tied round with a tendril;--on opening it, I saw an S. marked in
+one of the corners.
+
+She had since that, she told me, stray'd as far as Rome, and walk'd
+round St. Peter's once,--and return'd back;--that she found her way
+alone across the Apennines;--had travell'd over all Lombardy,
+without money,--and through the flinty roads of Savoy without
+shoes: --how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she
+could not tell;--but GOD TEMPERS THE WIND, said Maria, TO THE SHORN
+LAMB.
+
+Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I:  and wast thou in my own
+land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter
+thee:  thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup;--
+I would be kind to thy Sylvio;--in all thy weaknesses and
+wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back;--when the
+sun went down I would say my prayers:  and when I had done thou
+shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense
+of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with
+that of a broken heart!
+
+Nature melted within me, as I utter'd this; and Maria observing, as
+I took out my handkerchief, that it was steep'd too much already to
+be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream.--And where will
+you dry it, Maria? said I.--I'll dry it in my bosom, said she: --
+'twill do me good.
+
+And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.
+
+I touch'd upon the string on which hung all her sorrows: --she
+look'd with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then,
+without saying any thing, took her pipe and play'd her service to
+the Virgin.--The string I had touched ceased to vibrate;--in a
+moment or two Maria returned to herself,--let her pipe fall,--and
+rose up.
+
+And where are you going, Maria? said I.--She said, to Moulines.--
+Let us go, said I, together.--Maria put her arm within mine, and
+lengthening the string, to let the dog follow,--in that order we
+enter'd Moulines.
+
+
+MARIA.  MOULINES.
+
+
+Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet,
+when we got into the middle of this, I stopp'd to take my last look
+and last farewell of Maria.
+
+Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine
+forms: --affliction had touched her looks with something that was
+scarce earthly;--still she was feminine;--and so much was there
+about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in
+woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and
+those of Eliza out of mine, she should NOT ONLY EAT OF MY BREAD AND
+DRINK OF MY OWN CUP, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto
+me as a daughter.
+
+Adieu, poor luckless maiden!--Imbibe the oil and wine which the
+compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours
+into thy wounds;--the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only
+bind them up for ever.
+
+
+THE BOURBONNNOIS.
+
+
+There was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so
+joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage,
+through this part of France; but pressing through this gate, of
+sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me.  In every
+scene of festivity, I saw Maria in the background of the piece,
+sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons
+before I was able to cast a shade across her.
+
+- Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in
+our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down
+upon his bed of straw--and 'tis thou who lift'st him up to Heaven!-
+-Eternal Fountain of our feelings!--'tis here I trace thee--and
+this is thy "DIVINITY WHICH STIRS WITHIN ME;"--not that, in some
+sad and sickening moments, "MY SOUL SHRINKS BACK UPON HERSELF, AND
+STARTLES AT DESTRUCTION;"--mere pomp of words!--but that I feel
+some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself;--all comes
+from thee, great--great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if
+a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest
+desert of thy creation.--Touch'd with thee, Eugenius draws my
+curtain when I languish--hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the
+weather for the disorder of his nerves.  Thou giv'st a portion of
+it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest
+mountains;--he finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock.--This
+moment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with
+piteous inclination looking down upon it!--Oh! had I come one
+moment sooner! it bleeds to death!--his gentle heart bleeds with
+it. -
+
+Peace to thee, generous swain!--I see thou walkest off with
+anguish,--but thy joys shall balance it;--for, happy is thy
+cottage,--and happy is the sharer of it,--and happy are the lambs
+which sport about you!
+
+
+THE SUPPER.
+
+
+A shoe coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the
+beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
+twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was
+of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a
+point of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could;
+but the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the
+chaise box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go
+on.
+
+He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty
+piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his
+other fore foot.  I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and
+seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a
+great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.
+The look of the house, and of every thing about it, as we drew
+nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster.--It was a little farm-
+house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as
+much corn;--and close to the house, on one side, was a potagerie of
+an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a
+French peasant's house;--and, on the other side, was a little wood,
+which furnished wherewithal to dress it.  It was about eight in the
+evening when I got to the house--so I left the postilion to manage
+his point as he could;--and, for mine, I walked directly into the
+house.
+
+The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with
+five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a
+joyous genealogy out of them.
+
+They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large
+wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine
+at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: --
+'twas a feast of love.
+
+The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality
+would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the
+moment I enter'd the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the
+family; and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I
+could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the
+loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a
+testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a
+welcome mix'd with thanks that I had not seem'd to doubt it.
+
+Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this
+morsel so sweet,--and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I
+took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain
+upon my palate to this hour?
+
+If the supper was to my taste,--the grace which followed it was
+much more so.
+
+
+THE GRACE.
+
+
+When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with
+the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance:  the
+moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether
+into a back apartment to tie up their hair,--and the young men to
+the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and in three
+minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the
+house to begin.--The old man and his wife came out last, and
+placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.
+
+The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon
+the vielle,--and at the age he was then of, touch'd it well enough
+for the purpose.  His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,-
+-then intermitted,--and join'd her old man again, as their children
+and grand-children danced before them.
+
+It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some
+pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I
+fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from
+that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.  In a
+word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance: --but, as I
+had never seen her so engaged, I should have look'd upon it now as
+one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally
+misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended,
+said, that this was their constant way; and that all his life long
+he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his
+family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful
+and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
+illiterate peasant could pay, -
+
+Or a learned prelate either, said I.
+
+
+THE CASE OF DELICACY.
+
+
+When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently
+down to Lyons: --adieu, then, to all rapid movements!  'Tis a
+journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be
+in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his
+time with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to
+Turin, through Savoy.
+
+Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not:  your poverty, the
+treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the
+world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it.--Nature! in the
+midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness
+thou hast created:  with all thy great works about thee, little
+hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle;--but
+to that little thou grantest safety and protection; and sweet are
+the dwellings which stand so shelter'd.
+
+Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden
+turns and dangers of your roads,--your rocks,--your precipices;--
+the difficulties of getting up,--the horrors of getting down,--
+mountains impracticable,--and cataracts, which roll down great
+stones from their summits, and block his road up.--The peasants had
+been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between
+St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my voiturin got to the
+place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage
+could any how be gain'd:  there was nothing but to wait with
+patience;--'twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay,
+and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to put up
+five miles short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by
+the roadside.
+
+I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber--got a good fire--
+order'd supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a
+voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant maid.
+
+As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess,--
+without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she
+usher'd them in, that there was nobody in it but an English
+gentleman;--that there were two good beds in it, and a closet
+within the room which held another.  The accent in which she spoke
+of this third bed, did not say much for it;--however, she said
+there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say, the
+gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters.--I left not the
+lady a moment to make a conjecture about it--so instantly made a
+declaration that I would do anything in my power.
+
+As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber,
+I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to
+do the honours of it;--so I desired the lady to sit down,--pressed
+her into the warmest seat,--called for more wood,--desired the
+hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with
+the very best wine.
+
+The lady had scarce warm'd herself five minutes at the fire, before
+she began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and
+the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they return'd
+perplexd;--I felt for her--and for myself:  for in a few minutes,
+what by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much
+embarrassed as it was possible the lady could be herself.
+
+That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was
+enough simply by itself to have excited all this;--but the position
+of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other
+as only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt them,
+rendered the affair still more oppressive to us;--they were fixed
+up moreover near the fire; and the projection of the chimney on one
+side, and a large beam which cross'd the room on the other, formed
+a kind of recess for them that was no way favourable to the nicety
+of our sensations: --if anything could have added to it, it was
+that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us off
+from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which in
+either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them,
+though a thing not to be wish'd, yet there was nothing in it so
+terrible which the imagination might not have pass'd over without
+torment.
+
+As for the little room within, it offer'd little or no consolation
+to us:  'twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-
+shutter, and with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in
+it to keep out the tempest of the night.  I did not endeavour to
+stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced
+the case in course to this alternative--That the lady should
+sacrifice her health to her feelings, and take up with the closet
+herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her maid,--or that the
+girl should take the closet, &c., &c.
+
+The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health
+in her cheeks.  The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and
+lively a French girl as ever moved.--There were difficulties every
+way,--and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us
+into the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were
+removing it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now.--I have
+only to add, that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our
+spirits, that we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt
+to each other upon the occasion.
+
+We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it
+than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish'd, our tongues had
+been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at liberty;--but
+the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down
+her fille de chambre for a couple of them; so that by the time
+supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired
+with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without
+reserve upon our situation.  We turn'd it every way, and debated
+and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two
+hours' negotiation; at the end of which the articles were settled
+finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a
+treaty of peace,--and I believe with as much religion and good
+faith on both sides as in any treaty which has yet had the honour
+of being handed down to posterity.
+
+They were as follow:  -
+
+First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur,--and he
+thinking the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists
+upon the concession on the lady's side of taking up with it.
+
+Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the
+curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear
+likewise too scanty to draw close, that the fille de chambre shall
+fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and
+thread, in such manner as shall be deem'd a sufficient barrier on
+the side of Monsieur.
+
+2dly.  It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall
+lie the whole night through in his robe de chambre.
+
+Rejected:  inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a robe de chambre; he
+having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk
+pair of breeches.
+
+The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of
+the article,--for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for
+the robe de chambre; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that
+I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.
+
+3dly.  It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that
+after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire
+extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word the
+whole night.
+
+Granted; provided Monsieur's saying his prayers might not be deemed
+an infraction of the treaty.
+
+There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the
+manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress
+and get to bed;--there was but one way of doing it, and that I
+leave to the reader to devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is
+not the most delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of his own
+imagination,--against which this is not my first complaint.
+
+Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
+situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not
+shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn'd and turn'd
+again, till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience
+both wearing out,--O, my God! said I.
+
+- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no
+more slept than myself.--I begg'd a thousand pardons--but insisted
+it was no more than an ejaculation.  She maintained 'twas an entire
+infraction of the treaty--I maintained it was provided for in the
+clause of the third article.
+
+The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken'd
+her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear
+two or three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.
+
+Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,--stretching my arm out of
+bed by way of asseveration. -
+
+(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed
+against the remotest idea of decorum for the world); -
+
+But the fille de chambre hearing there were words between us, and
+fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently
+out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close
+to our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which
+separated them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line
+betwixt her mistress and me:  -
+
+So that when I stretch'd out my hand I caught hold of the fille de
+chambre's -
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Nosegay.
+
+{2}  Hackney coach.
+
+{3}  Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY ***
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>A Sentimental Journey</title>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h2>
+<a href="#startoftext">A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: A Sentimental Journey
+
+Author: Laurence Sterne
+
+Release Date: February, 1997  [EBook #804]
+[This file was first posted on February 12, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+</pre>
+<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1892 George Bell and Son edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h1>A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY</h1>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>They order, said I, this matter better in France. - You have been
+in France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil
+triumph in the world. - Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,
+That one and twenty miles sailing, for &rsquo;tis absolutely no further
+from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: - I&rsquo;ll look
+into them: so, giving up the argument, - I went straight to my lodgings,
+put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches, - &ldquo;the
+coat I have on,&rdquo; said I, looking at the sleeve, &ldquo;will do;&rdquo;
+- took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the
+next morning, - by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed
+chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an
+indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of
+the <i>droits d&rsquo;aubaine</i>; - my shirts, and black pair of silk
+breeches, - portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France;
+- even the little picture which I have so long worn, and so often have
+told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been
+torn from my neck! - Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary
+passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their coast! - By heaven!&nbsp;
+Sire, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me, &rsquo;tis the
+monarch of a people so civilized and courteous, and so renowned for
+sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with! -</p>
+<p>But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France&rsquo;s
+health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary,
+high honour for the humanity of his temper, - I rose up an inch taller
+for the accommodation.</p>
+<p>- No - said I - the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may
+be misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.&nbsp;
+As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek
+- more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two
+livres a bottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could have produced.</p>
+<p>- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
+this world&rsquo;s goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make
+so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
+the way?</p>
+<p>When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
+the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding
+it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he sought for an
+object to share it with. - In doing this, I felt every vessel in my
+frame dilate, - the arteries beat all cheerily together, and every power
+which sustained life, performed it with so little friction, that &rsquo;twould
+have confounded the most <i>physical pr&eacute;cieuse</i> in France;
+with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine.
+-</p>
+<p>I&rsquo;m confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her
+creed.</p>
+<p>The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high
+as she could go; - I was at peace with the world before, and this finish&rsquo;d
+the treaty with myself. -</p>
+<p>- Now, was I King of France, cried I - what a moment for an orphan
+to have begg&rsquo;d his father&rsquo;s portmanteau of me!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE MONK.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of
+St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent.&nbsp;
+No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies - or one
+man may be generous, as another is puissant; - <i>sed non quoad hanc</i>
+- or be it as it may, - for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs
+and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same causes, for
+aught I know, which influence the tides themselves: &rsquo;twould oft
+be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I&rsquo;m sure at least
+for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly satisfied, to
+have it said by the world, &ldquo;I had had an affair with the moon,
+in which there was neither sin nor shame,&rdquo; than have it pass altogether
+as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much of both.</p>
+<p>- But, be this as it may, - the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I
+was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly, I
+put my purse into my pocket - buttoned it - set myself a little more
+upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was something,
+I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this moment before
+my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better.</p>
+<p>The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
+white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might be
+about seventy; - but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was
+in them, which seemed more temper&rsquo;d by courtesy than years, could
+be no more than sixty: - Truth might lie between - He was certainly
+sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding
+something seem&rsquo;d to have been planting-wrinkles in it before their
+time, agreed to the account.</p>
+<p>It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted, - mild,
+pale - penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
+ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; - it look&rsquo;d forwards;
+but look&rsquo;d as if it look&rsquo;d at something beyond this world.
+- How one of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon
+a monk&rsquo;s shoulders best knows: but it would have suited a Bramin,
+and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.</p>
+<p>The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
+put it into the hands of any one to design, for &rsquo;twas neither
+elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so: it
+was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it lost
+not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, - but it was the
+attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my imagination,
+it gained more than it lost by it.</p>
+<p>When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying
+his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journey&rsquo;d
+being in his right) - when I had got close up to him, he introduced
+himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty
+of his order; - and did it with so simple a grace, - and such an air
+of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure, -
+I was bewitch&rsquo;d not to have been struck with it.</p>
+<p>- A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single
+sous.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE MONK.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>- &rsquo;Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his
+eyes, with which he had concluded his address; - &rsquo;tis very true,
+- and heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of
+the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the
+many <i>great claims</i> which are hourly made upon it.</p>
+<p>As I pronounced the words <i>great claims</i>, he gave a slight glance
+with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic: - I felt the full
+force of the appeal - I acknowledge it, said I: - a coarse habit, and
+that but once in three years with meagre diet, - are no great matters;
+and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn&rsquo;d in the world
+with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them
+by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind,
+the aged and the infirm; - the captive who lies down counting over and
+over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also for his share
+of it; and had you been of the <i>order of mercy</i>, instead of the
+order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau,
+full cheerfully should it have been open&rsquo;d to you, for the ransom
+of the unfortunate. - The monk made me a bow. - But of all others, resumed
+I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have the first rights;
+and I have left thousands in distress upon our own shore. - The monk
+gave a cordial wave with his head, - as much as to say, No doubt there
+is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our
+convent - But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve
+of his tunic, in return for his appeal - we distinguish, my good father!
+betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour - and
+those who eat the bread of other people&rsquo;s, and have no other plan
+in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, <i>for the love
+of God</i>.</p>
+<p>The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass&rsquo;d
+across his cheek, but could not tarry - Nature seemed to have done with
+her resentments in him; - he showed none: - but letting his staff fall
+within his arms, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his
+breast, and retired.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE MONK.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>My heart smote me the moment he shut the door - Psha! said I, with
+an air of carelessness, three several times - but it would not do: every
+ungracious syllable I had utter&rsquo;d crowded back into my imagination:
+I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him;
+and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without
+the addition of unkind language. - I consider&rsquo;d his gray hairs
+- his courteous figure seem&rsquo;d to re-enter and gently ask me what
+injury he had done me? - and why I could use him thus? - I would have
+given twenty livres for an advocate. - I have behaved very ill, said
+I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels; and shall
+learn better manners as I get along.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE DESOBLIGEANT.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however,
+that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.&nbsp;
+Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise,
+- and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for,
+I walk&rsquo;d out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that
+kind to my purpose: an old <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i> in the furthest
+corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got
+into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered
+the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel: - but
+Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan,
+whom I saw on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady
+just arrived at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and
+being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and
+wrote the preface to it in the <i>d&eacute;sobligeant.</i></p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>PREFACE.&nbsp; IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
+nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries
+and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her
+purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost
+insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his sufferings
+at home.&nbsp; It is there only that she has provided him with the most
+suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of that
+burden which in all countries and ages has ever been too heavy for one
+pair of shoulders.&nbsp; &rsquo;Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect
+power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond <i>her</i> limits,
+but &rsquo;tis so ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections,
+and dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs, and
+habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations
+out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility.</p>
+<p>It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
+commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what
+he has little occasion for, at their own price; - his conversation will
+seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount, - and
+this, by the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable
+brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great
+spirit of divination to guess at his party -</p>
+<p>This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw
+of this <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i> will but let me get on) into the
+efficient as well as final causes of travelling -</p>
+<p>Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for
+some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general
+causes:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Infirmity of body,<br />Imbecility of mind, or<br />Inevitable necessity.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The first two include all those who travel by land or by water, labouring
+with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined <i>ad
+infinitum</i>.</p>
+<p>The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
+especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
+benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the direction
+of governors recommended by the magistrate; - or young gentlemen transported
+by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction
+of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.</p>
+<p>There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would
+not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of this nature
+to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of
+character.&nbsp; And these men I speak of, are such as cross the seas
+and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of saving money for
+various reasons and upon various pretences: but as they might also save
+themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving
+their money at home, - and as their reasons for travelling are the least
+complex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these
+gentlemen by the name of</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Simple Travellers.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
+<i>heads</i>:-</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Idle Travellers,<br />Inquisitive Travellers,<br />Lying Travellers,<br />Proud
+Travellers,<br />Vain Travellers,<br />Splenetic Travellers.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Then follow:</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The Travellers of Necessity,<br />The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,<br />The
+Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,<br />The Simple Traveller,</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
+thereby myself) who have travell&rsquo;d, and of which I am now sitting
+down to give an account, - as much out of <i>Necessity</i>, and the
+<i>besoin de Voyager</i>, as any one in the class.</p>
+<p>I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations
+will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that
+I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely to myself; - but I
+should break in upon the confines of the <i>Vain</i> Traveller, in wishing
+to draw attention towards me, till I have some better grounds for it
+than the mere <i>Novelty of my Vehicle.</i></p>
+<p>It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself,
+that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine
+his own place and rank in the catalogue; - it will be one step towards
+knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and
+resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.</p>
+<p>The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape
+of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the
+same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French
+mountains, - he was too phlegmatic for that - but undoubtedly he expected
+to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent,
+- he knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon
+his choice, but that what is generally called <i>choice</i>, was to
+decide his success: however, he hoped for the best; and in these hopes,
+by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude of his head, and the depth
+of his discretion, <i>Mynheer</i> might possibly oversee both in his
+new vineyard; and by discovering his nakedness, become a laughing stock
+to his people.</p>
+<p>Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting through
+the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.</p>
+<p>Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for
+that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is
+all a lottery; - and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired
+stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit:
+- but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the
+acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as
+wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign
+knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country
+that has no absolute want of either; - and indeed, much grief of heart
+has it oft and many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a
+foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look
+into discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they
+might have seen dry-shod at home.&nbsp; It is an age so full of light,
+that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not
+crossed and interchanged with others. - Knowledge in most of its branches,
+and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those
+may partake who pay nothing. - But there is no nation under heaven -
+and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day come and
+give an account of this work) - that I do not speak it vauntingly, -
+but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning,
+- where the sciences may be more fitly woo&rsquo;d, or more surely won,
+than here, - where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high, -
+where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to answer for, - and,
+to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed
+the mind with: - Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going? -</p>
+<p>We are only looking at this chaise, said they. - Your most obedient
+servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat. - We were
+wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an <i>Inquisitive Traveller</i>,
+- what could occasion its motion. - &rsquo;Twas the agitation, said
+I, coolly, of writing a preface. - I never heard, said the other, who
+was a <i>Simple Traveller</i>, of a preface wrote in a <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i>.
+- It would have been better, said I, in a <i>vis-a-vis.</i></p>
+<p><i>- As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen</i>, I retired
+to my room.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I perceived that something darken&rsquo;d the passage more than myself,
+as I stepp&rsquo;d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein,
+the master of the h&ocirc;tel, who had just returned from vespers, and
+with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to
+put me in mind of my wants.&nbsp; I had wrote myself pretty well out
+of conceit with the <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i>, and Mons. Dessein speaking
+of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck
+my fancy that it belong&rsquo;d to some <i>Innocent Traveller</i>, who,
+on his return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s honour to make
+the most of.&nbsp; Four months had elapsed since it had finished its
+career of Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s coach-yard;
+and having sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,
+though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not
+profited much by its adventures, - but by none so little as the standing
+so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s coach-yard.&nbsp;
+Much indeed was not to be said for it, - but something might; - and
+when a few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the
+man who can be a churl of them.</p>
+<p>- Now was I the master of this h&ocirc;tel, said I, laying the point
+of my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s breast, I would inevitably
+make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i>;
+- it stands swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.</p>
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said Mons. Dessein, - I have no interest - Except
+the interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons.
+Dessein, in their own sensations, - I&rsquo;m persuaded, to a man who
+feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise
+it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits: - You suffer, Mons.
+Dessein, as much as the machine -</p>
+<p>I have always observed, when there is as much <i>sour</i> as <i>sweet</i>
+in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself,
+whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein
+made me a bow.</p>
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est bien vrai</i>, said he. - But in this case I should
+only exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to
+yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall
+to pieces before you had got half-way to Paris, - figure to yourself
+how much I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a
+man of honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, <i>d&rsquo;un homme
+d&rsquo;esprit</i>.</p>
+<p>The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
+not help tasting it, - and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without
+more casuistry we walk&rsquo;d together towards his Remise, to take
+a view of his magazine of chaises.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>IN THE STREET.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it
+be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof
+into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly
+falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with
+the same sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park
+corner to fight a duel.&nbsp; For my own part, being but a poor swordsman,
+and no way a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all
+the movements within me, to which the situation is incident; - I looked
+at Monsieur Dessein through and through - eyed him as he walk&rsquo;d
+along in profile, - then, <i>en face</i>; - thought like a Jew, - then
+a Turk, - disliked his wig, - cursed him by my gods, - wished him at
+the devil. -</p>
+<p>- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account
+of three or four louis d&rsquo;ors, which is the most I can be overreached
+in? - Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally
+does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment, - base, ungentle passion! thy
+hand is against every man, and every man&rsquo;s hand against thee.
+- Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for
+I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference
+with the monk: - she had followed us unperceived. - Heaven forbid, indeed!
+said I, offering her my own; - she had a black pair of silk gloves,
+open only at the thumb and two fore-fingers, so accepted it without
+reserve, - and I led her up to the door of the Remise.</p>
+<p>Monsieur Dessein had <i>diabled</i> the key above fifty times before
+he had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as
+impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle
+that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing it: so that
+Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in mine, and with our
+faces turned towards the door of the Remise, and said he would be back
+in five minutes.</p>
+<p>Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one
+of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the latter
+case, &rsquo;tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without; - when
+your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank, - you draw purely from yourselves.&nbsp;
+A silence of a single moment upon Mons. Dessein&rsquo;s leaving us,
+had been fatal to the situation - she had infallibly turned about; -
+so I begun the conversation instantly. -</p>
+<p>- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for
+the weaknesses of my heart in this tour, - but to give an account of
+them) - shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt
+them.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i>,
+because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived
+at the inn - I told him the truth, - but I did not tell him the whole
+truth; for I was as full as much restrained by the appearance and figure
+of the lady he was talking to.&nbsp; Suspicion crossed my brain and
+said, he was telling her what had passed: something jarred upon it within
+me, - I wished him at his convent.</p>
+<p>When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment
+a world of pains. - I was certain she was of a better order of beings;
+- however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my preface.</p>
+<p>The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street;
+a guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I thought,
+her good education and her good sense; and as I led her on, I felt a
+pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmness over all my
+spirits -</p>
+<p>- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
+world with him! -</p>
+<p>I had not yet seen her face - &rsquo;twas not material: for the drawing
+was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the
+Remise, <i>Fancy</i> had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
+as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber
+for it; - but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou
+cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with
+so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in
+the shapes of so many angels of light, &rsquo;tis a shame to break with
+thee.</p>
+<p>When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
+from across her forehead, and let me see the original: - it was a face
+of about six-and-twenty, - of a clear transparent brown, simply set
+off without rouge or powder; - it was not critically handsome, but there
+was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much
+more to it, - it was interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of
+a widow&rsquo;d look, and in that state of its declension, which had
+passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning
+to reconcile itself to its loss; - but a thousand other distresses might
+have traced the same lines; I wish&rsquo;d to know what they had been
+- and was ready to inquire, (had the same <i>bon ton</i> of conversation
+permitted, as in the days of Esdras) - &ldquo;<i>What ailelh thee? and
+why art thou disquieted? and why is thy understanding troubled</i>?&rdquo;
+- In a word, I felt benevolence for her; and resolv&rsquo;d some way
+or other to throw in my mite of courtesy, - if not of service.</p>
+<p>Such were my temptations; - and in this disposition to give way to
+them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and with
+our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remise than what was
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>This certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little lightly
+as I began, must be one of Fortune&rsquo;s whimsical doings; to take
+two utter strangers by their hands, - of different sexes, and perhaps
+from different corners of the globe, and in one moment place them together
+in such a cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have
+achieved for them, had she projected it for a month.</p>
+<p>- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has embarrassed
+you by the adventure -</p>
+<p>When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed
+as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune,
+continued she - you had reason - the heart knew it, and was satisfied;
+and who but an English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the
+brain to reverse the judgment?</p>
+<p>In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
+a sufficient commentary upon the text.</p>
+<p>It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness
+of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier occasions
+could not have inflicted. - I was mortified with the loss of her hand,
+and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to
+the wound: I never felt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably
+in my life.</p>
+<p>The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these discomfitures.&nbsp;
+In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in
+order to finish her reply; so, some way or other, God knows how, I regained
+my situation.</p>
+<p>- She had nothing to add.</p>
+<p>I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady,
+thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been mistaken
+in her character; but upon turning her face towards me, the spirit which
+had animated the reply was fled, - the muscles relaxed, and I beheld
+the same unprotected look of distress which first won me to her interest:
+- melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey of sorrow, - I pitied
+her from my soul; and though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid
+heart, - I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though
+it was in the open street, without brushing.</p>
+<p>The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers,
+told her what was passing within me: she looked down - a silence of
+some moments followed.</p>
+<p>I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts towards
+a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I felt in
+the palm of my own, - not as if she was going to withdraw hers - but
+as if she thought about it; - and I had infallibly lost it a second
+time, had not instinct more than reason directed me to the last resource
+in these dangers, - to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was
+every moment going to release it, of myself; so she let it continue,
+till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key; and in the mean time I
+set myself to consider how I should undo the ill impressions which the
+poor monk&rsquo;s story, in case he had told it her, must have planted
+in her breast against me.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE SNUFF BOX.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him
+crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line,
+as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. - He stopp&rsquo;d,
+however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness: and
+having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to me. - You
+shall taste mine - said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise
+one) and putting it into his hand. - &rsquo;Tis most excellent, said
+the monk.&nbsp; Then do me the favour, I replied, to accept of the box
+and all, and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it
+was the peace offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not
+from his heart.</p>
+<p>The poor monk blush&rsquo;d as red as scarlet.&nbsp; <i>Mon Dieu</i>!
+said he, pressing his hands together - you never used me unkindly. -
+I should think, said the lady, he is not likely.&nbsp; I blush&rsquo;d
+in my turn; but from what movements, I leave to the few who feel, to
+analyze. - Excuse me, Madame, replied I, - I treated him most unkindly;
+and from no provocations. - &rsquo;Tis impossible, said the lady. -
+My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seem&rsquo;d
+not to belong to him - the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion
+of my zeal. - The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in maintaining
+it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his, could give offence
+to any.</p>
+<p>I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable
+a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. - We remained silent, without
+any sensation of that foolish pain which takes place, when, in such
+a circle, you look for ten minutes in one another&rsquo;s faces without
+saying a word.&nbsp; Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box
+upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little
+air of brightness by the friction - he made me a low bow, and said,
+&rsquo;twas too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness
+of our tempers which had involved us in this contest - but be it as
+it would, - he begg&rsquo;d we might exchange boxes. - In saying this,
+he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from me in the
+other, and having kissed it, - with a stream of good nature in his eyes,
+he put it into his bosom, - and took his leave.</p>
+<p>I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion,
+to help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go abroad
+without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous
+spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the justlings of the world:
+they had found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story,
+till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military
+services ill requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment
+in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together,
+and took sanctuary not so much in his convent as in himself.</p>
+<p>I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my last
+return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard
+he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent,
+but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it,
+about two leagues off: I had a strong desire to see where they had laid
+him, - when, upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave,
+and plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business
+to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections,
+that I burst into a flood of tears: - but I am as weak as a woman; and
+I beg the world not to smile, but to pity me.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE DOOR.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I had never quitted the lady&rsquo;s hand all this time, and had
+held it so long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go,
+without first pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had
+suffered a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.</p>
+<p>Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard, happening
+at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our communications, naturally
+took it into their heads that we must be <i>man and wife</i> at least;
+so, stopping as soon as they came up to the door of the Remise, the
+one of them who was the Inquisitive Traveller, ask&rsquo;d us, if we
+set out for Paris the next morning? - I could only answer for myself,
+I said; and the lady added, she was for Amiens. - We dined there yesterday,
+said the Simple Traveller. - You go directly through the town, added
+the other, in your road to Paris.&nbsp; I was going to return a thousand
+thanks for the intelligence, <i>that Amiens was in</i> <i>the road to
+Paris</i>, but, upon pulling out my poor monk&rsquo;s little horn box
+to take a pinch of snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them
+a good passage to Dover. - They left us alone. -</p>
+<p>- Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg
+of this distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise? - and what mighty
+mischief could ensue?</p>
+<p>Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm,
+as I stated the proposition. - It will oblige you to have a third horse,
+said Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your pocket; - You
+know not what she is, said Caution; - or what scrapes the affair may
+draw you into, whisper&rsquo;d Cowardice. -</p>
+<p>Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, &rsquo;twill be said you
+went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that
+purpose; -</p>
+<p>- You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the
+world; - or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church; - or be any thing in
+it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.</p>
+<p>But &rsquo;tis a civil thing, said I; - and as I generally act from
+the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which
+serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant
+- I turned instantly about to the lady. -</p>
+<p>- But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading,
+and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I had
+made the determination; so I set off after her with a long stride, to
+make her the proposal, with the best address I was master of: but observing
+she walk&rsquo;d with her cheek half resting upon the palm of her hand,
+- with the slow short-measur&rsquo;d step of thoughtfulness, - and with
+her eyes, as she went step by step, fixed upon the ground, it struck
+me she was trying the same cause herself. - God help her! said I, she
+has some mother-in-law, or tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman,
+to consult upon the occasion, as well as myself: so not caring to interrupt
+the process, and deeming it more gallant to take her at discretion than
+by surprise, I faced about and took a short turn or two before the door
+of the Remise, whilst she walk&rsquo;d musing on one side.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>IN THE STREET.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Having, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my
+fancy &ldquo;that she was of the better order of beings;&rdquo; - and
+then laid it down as a second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that
+she was a widow, and wore a character of distress, - I went no further;
+I got ground enough for the situation which pleased me; - and had she
+remained close beside my elbow till midnight, I should have held true
+to my system, and considered her only under that general idea.</p>
+<p>She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something within
+me called out for a more particular enquiry; - it brought on the idea
+of a further separation: - I might possibly never see her more: - The
+heart is for saving what it can; and I wanted the traces through which
+my wishes might find their way to her, in case I should never rejoin
+her myself; in a word, I wished to know her name, - her family&rsquo;s
+- her condition; and as I knew the place to which she was going, I wanted
+to know from whence she came: but there was no coming at all this intelligence;
+a hundred little delicacies stood in the way.&nbsp; I form&rsquo;d a
+score different plans. - There was no such thing as a man&rsquo;s asking
+her directly; - the thing was impossible.</p>
+<p>A little French <i>d&eacute;bonnaire</i> captain, who came dancing
+down the street, showed me it was the easiest thing in the world: for,
+popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returning back to the door
+of the Remise, he introduced himself to my acquaintance, and before
+he had well got announced, begg&rsquo;d I would do him the honour to
+present him to the lady. - I had not been presented myself; - so turning
+about to her, he did it just as well, by asking her if she had come
+from Paris?&nbsp; No: she was going that route, she said. - <i>Vous
+n&rsquo;&ecirc;tes pas de Londres</i>? - She was not, she replied. -
+Then Madame must have come through Flanders. - <i>Apparemment vous &ecirc;tes
+Flammande</i>? said the French captain. - The lady answered, she was.
+- <i>Peut &ecirc;tre de Lisle</i>? added he. - She said, she was not
+of Lisle. - Nor Arras? - nor Cambray? - nor Ghent? - nor Brussels? -
+She answered, she was of Brussels.</p>
+<p>He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last
+war; - that it was finely situated, <i>pour cela</i>, - and full of
+noblesse when the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the lady
+made a slight courtesy) - so giving her an account of the affair, and
+of the share he had had in it, - he begg&rsquo;d the honour to know
+her name, - so made his bow.</p>
+<p>- <i>Et Madame a son Mari</i>? - said he, looking back when he had
+made two steps, - and, without staying for an answer - danced down the
+street.</p>
+<p>Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could
+not have done as much.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with
+the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his magazine
+of chaises.</p>
+<p>The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open&rsquo;d
+the door of the Remise, was another old tatter&rsquo;d <i>d&eacute;sobligeant</i>;
+and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my
+fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before, - the very sight
+of it stirr&rsquo;d up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I
+thought &rsquo;twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could
+first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity
+for the man who could think of using it.</p>
+<p>I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so Mons.
+Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast, telling
+us, as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by my lord
+A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had gone no further than Paris,
+so were in all respects as good as new. - They were too good; - so I
+pass&rsquo;d on to a third, which stood behind, and forthwith begun
+to chaffer for the price. - But &rsquo;twill scarce hold two, said I,
+opening the door and getting in. - Have the goodness, Madame, said Mons.
+Dessein, offering his arm, to step in. - The lady hesitated half a second,
+and stepped in; and the waiter that moment beckoning to speak to Mon.
+Dessein, he shut the door of the chaise upon us, and left us.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est bien comique</i>, &rsquo;tis very droll, said the
+lady, smiling, from the reflection that this was the second time we
+a had been left together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies, -
+<i>c&rsquo;est bien comique</i>, said she. -</p>
+<p>- There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use which
+the gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to, - to make love the first
+moment, and an offer of his person the second.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Tis their <i>fort</i>, replied the lady.</p>
+<p>It is supposed so at least; - and how it has come to pass, continued
+I, I know not; but they have certainly got the credit of understanding
+more of love, and making it better than any other nation upon earth;
+but, for my own part, I think them arrant bunglers, and in truth the
+worst set of marksmen that ever tried Cupid&rsquo;s patience.</p>
+<p>- To think of making love by <i>sentiments</i>!</p>
+<p>I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of
+remnants: - and to do it - pop - at first sight, by declaration - is
+submitting the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with all
+their <i>pours</i> and <i>contres</i>, by an unheated mind.</p>
+<p>The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.</p>
+<p>Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:-</p>
+<p>That grave people hate love for the name&rsquo;s sake; -</p>
+<p>That selfish people hate it for their own; -</p>
+<p>Hypocrites for heaven&rsquo;s; -</p>
+<p>And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse frightened
+than hurt by the very <i>report</i>, - what a want of knowledge in this
+branch of commence a man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of
+his lips, till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence
+upon it becomes tormenting.&nbsp; A course of small, quiet attentions,
+not so pointed as to alarm, - nor so vague as to be misunderstood -
+with now and then a look of kindness, and little or nothing said upon
+it, - leaves nature for your mistress, and she fashions it to her mind.
+-</p>
+<p>Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been making
+love to me all this while.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE REMISE.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Monsieur Dessein came back to let us out of the chaise, and acquaint
+the lady, the count de L-, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel.&nbsp;
+Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that I rejoiced
+in my heart at the event - and could not help telling her so; - for
+it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said I, that I was going to make
+to you -</p>
+<p>- You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her
+hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me. - A man my good Sir, has
+seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment
+of it some moments before. -</p>
+<p>Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation. - But
+I think, said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend, -
+and, to deal frankly with you, had determined to accept it. - If I had
+- (she stopped a moment) - I believe your good will would have drawn
+a story from me, which would have made pity the only dangerous thing
+in the journey.</p>
+<p>In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with
+a look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise,
+- and bid adieu.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>IN THE STREET.&nbsp; CALAIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I never finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my life:
+my time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing every moment
+of it would be as two, till I put myself into motion, - I ordered post
+horses directly, and walked towards the hotel.</p>
+<p>Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting
+that I had been little more than a single hour in Calais, -</p>
+<p>- What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little
+span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who,
+having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out
+to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can <i>fairly</i>
+lay his hands on!</p>
+<p>- If this won&rsquo;t turn out something, - another will; - no matter,
+- &rsquo;tis an assay upon human nature - I get my labour for my pains,
+- &rsquo;tis enough; - the pleasure of the experiment has kept my senses
+and the best part of my blood awake, and laid the gross to sleep.</p>
+<p>I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, &rsquo;Tis
+all barren; - and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will
+not cultivate the fruits it offers.&nbsp; I declare, said I, clapping
+my hands cheerily together, that were I in a desert, I would find out
+wherewith in it to call forth my affections: - if I could not do better,
+I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy
+cypress to connect myself to; - I would court their shade, and greet
+them kindly for their protection. - I would cut my name upon them, and
+swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their
+leaves wither&rsquo;d, I would teach myself to mourn; and, when they
+rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them.</p>
+<p>The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, - from Paris
+to Rome, - and so on; - but he set out with the spleen and jaundice,
+and every object he pass&rsquo;d by was discoloured or distorted. -
+He wrote an account of them, but &rsquo;twas nothing but the account
+of his miserable feelings.</p>
+<p>I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon: - he was just
+coming out of it. - &rsquo;<i>Tis nothing but a huge cockpit</i>, said
+he: - I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied
+I; - for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul
+upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common strumpet, without
+the least provocation in nature.</p>
+<p>I popp&rsquo;d upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home;
+and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, &ldquo;wherein
+he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals
+that each other eat: the Anthropophagi:&rdquo; - he had been flayed
+alive, and bedevil&rsquo;d, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at
+every stage he had come at. -</p>
+<p>- I&rsquo;ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world.&nbsp; You had
+better tell it, said I, to your physician.</p>
+<p>Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on
+from Rome to Naples, - from Naples to Venice, - from Venice to Vienna,
+- to Dresden, to Berlin, without one generous connection or pleasurable
+anecdote to tell of; but he had travell&rsquo;d straight on, looking
+neither to his right hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce
+him out of his road.</p>
+<p>Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
+possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give
+it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to
+hail their arrival. - Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus
+hear of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh
+congratulations of their common felicity. - I heartily pity them; they
+have brought up no faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion
+in heaven to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be
+so far from being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus
+would do penance there to all eternity!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I had once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got
+out in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to help
+the postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out what was
+wanting. - Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord&rsquo;s
+asking me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that that
+was the very thing.</p>
+<p>A servant!&nbsp; That I do most sadly, quoth I. - Because, Monsieur,
+said the landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who would be very
+proud of the honour to serve an Englishman. - But why an English one,
+more than any other? - They are so generous, said the landlord. - I&rsquo;ll
+be shot if this is not a livre out of my pocket, quoth I to myself,
+this very night. - But they have wherewithal to be so, Monsieur, added
+he. - Set down one livre more for that, quoth I. - It was but last night,
+said the landlord, <i>qu&rsquo;un milord Anglois pr&eacute;sentoit un
+&eacute;cu &agrave; la fille de chambre. - Tant pis pour Mademoiselle
+Janatone</i>, said I.</p>
+<p>Now Janatone, being the landlord&rsquo;s daughter, and the landlord
+supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I should
+not have said <i>tant pis</i> - but, <i>tant mieux</i>.&nbsp; <i>Tant
+mieux, toujours, Monsieur</i>, said he, when there is any thing to be
+got - <i>tant pis</i>, when there is nothing.&nbsp; It comes to the
+same thing, said I.&nbsp; <i>Pardonnez-moi</i>, said the landlord.</p>
+<p>I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that
+<i>tant pis</i> and <i>tant mieux</i>, being two of the great hinges
+in French conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right
+in the use of them, before he gets to Paris.</p>
+<p>A prompt French marquis at our ambassador&rsquo;s table demanded
+of Mr. H-, if he was H- the poet?&nbsp; No, said Mr. H-, mildly. - <i>Tant
+pis</i>, replied the marquis.</p>
+<p>It is H- the historian, said another, - <i>Tant mieux</i>, said the
+marquis.&nbsp; And Mr. H-, who is a man of an excellent heart, return&rsquo;d
+thanks for both.</p>
+<p>When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La
+Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spoke of, - saying
+only first, That as for his talents he would presume to say nothing,
+- Monsieur was the best judge what would suit him; but for the fidelity
+of La Fleur he would stand responsible in all he was worth.</p>
+<p>The landlord deliver&rsquo;d this in a manner which instantly set
+my mind to the business I was upon; - and La Fleur, who stood waiting
+without, in that breathless expectation which every son of nature of
+us have felt in our turns, came in.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I am apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but
+never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to so
+poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always suffer
+my judgment to draw back something on that very account, - and this
+more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the case; - and I may
+add, the gender too, of the person I am to govern.</p>
+<p>When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make
+for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter
+at once in his favour; so I hired him first, - and then began to enquire
+what he could do: But I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want
+them, - besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.</p>
+<p>Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum,
+and play a march or two upon the fife.&nbsp; I was determined to make
+his talents do; and can&rsquo;t say my weakness was ever so insulted
+by my wisdom as in the attempt.</p>
+<p>La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen
+do, with <i>serving</i> for a few years; at the end of which, having
+satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of beating
+a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open&rsquo;d no further
+track of glory to him, - he retired <i>&agrave; ses terres</i>, and
+lived <i>comme il plaisoit &agrave; Dieu</i>; - that is to say, upon
+nothing.</p>
+<p>- And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in
+this tour of yours through France and Italy! - Psha! said I, and do
+not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum <i>compagnon du voyage</i>
+the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides?&nbsp;
+When man can extricate himself with an <i>&eacute;quivoque</i> in such
+an unequal match, - he is not ill off. - But you can do something else,
+La Fleur? said I. - <i>O qu&rsquo;oui</i>! he could make spatterdashes,
+and play a little upon the fiddle. - Bravo! said Wisdom. - Why, I play
+a bass myself, said I; - we shall do very well.&nbsp; You can shave,
+and dress a wig a little, La Fleur? - He had all the dispositions in
+the world. - It is enough for heaven! said I, interrupting him, - and
+ought to be enough for me. - So, supper coming in, and having a frisky
+English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet, with as
+much hilarity in his countenance as ever Nature painted in one, on the
+other, - I was satisfied to my heart&rsquo;s content with my empire;
+and if monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied
+as I was.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and
+will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further
+in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of
+the impulses which generally do determine me, than in regard to this
+fellow; - he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged
+after the heels of a philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of
+drum beating and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves,
+happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed
+by the festivity of his temper; - it supplied all defects: - I had a
+constant resource in his looks in all difficulties and distresses of
+my own - I was going to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out
+of the reach of every thing; for, whether &rsquo;twas hunger or thirst,
+or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck
+La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy
+to point them out by, - he was eternally the same; so that if I am a
+piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my head
+I am, - it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by reflecting
+how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this poor fellow, for
+shaming me into one of a better kind.&nbsp; With all this, La Fleur
+had a small cast of the coxcomb, - but he seemed at first sight to be
+more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before I had been three days
+in Paris with him, - he seemed to be no coxcomb at all.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered
+to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen
+shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the chaise,
+- get the horses put to, - and desire the landlord to come in with his
+bill.</p>
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est un garcon de bonne fortune</i>, said the landlord,
+pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round
+about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the
+postilion was leading out the horses.&nbsp; La Fleur kissed all their
+hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice
+he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.</p>
+<p>- The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town,
+and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him will
+not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, &ldquo;he
+is always in love.&rdquo; - I am heartily glad of it, said I, - &rsquo;twill
+save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head.&nbsp;
+In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur&rsquo;s eloge as my
+own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my
+life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly persuaded,
+that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt
+one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive
+my heart locked up, - I can scarce find in it to give Misery a sixpence;
+and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can - and the moment
+I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good-will again; and would do
+anything in the world, either for or with any one, if they will but
+satisfy me there is no sin in it.</p>
+<p>- But in saying this, - sure I am commanding the passion, - not myself.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>A FRAGMENT.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>- The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying
+all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and
+most profligate town in all Thrace.&nbsp; What for poisons, conspiracies,
+and assassinations, - libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no
+going there by day - &rsquo;twas worse by night.</p>
+<p>Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda
+of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted
+with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated
+more upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which
+the poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, <i>O Cupid,
+prince of gods and men</i>! &amp;c.&nbsp; Every man almost spoke pure
+iambics the next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic
+address, - &ldquo;<i>O Cupid! prince of gods and men</i>!&rdquo; - in
+every street of Abdera, in every house, &ldquo;O Cupid!&nbsp; Cupid!&rdquo;
+- in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet melody which
+drop from it, whether it will or no, - nothing but &ldquo;Cupid! Cupid!
+prince of gods and men!&rdquo; - The fire caught - and the whole city,
+like the heart of one man, open&rsquo;d itself to Love.</p>
+<p>No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore, - not a single
+armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death; - Friendship
+and Virtue met together, and kiss&rsquo;d each other in the street;
+the golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera - every Abderite
+took his eaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web,
+and chastely sat her down and listened to the song.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose
+empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the
+sea, to have done this.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in
+the inn, unless you are a little sour&rsquo;d by the adventure, there
+is always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into
+your chaise; and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty, who
+surround you.&nbsp; Let no man say, &ldquo;Let them go to the devil!&rdquo;
+- &rsquo;tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have
+had sufferings enow without it: I always think it better to take a few
+sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to do
+so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting down his motives for
+giving them; - They will be registered elsewhere.</p>
+<p>For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few,
+that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public
+act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.</p>
+<p>A well-a-way! said I, - I have but eight sous in the world, showing
+them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for
+&rsquo;em.</p>
+<p>A poor tatter&rsquo;d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew
+his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying
+bow on his part.&nbsp; Had the whole <i>parterre</i> cried out, <i>Place
+aux dames</i>, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment
+of a deference for the sex with half the effect.</p>
+<p>Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary
+and urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should
+find a way to be at unity in this?</p>
+<p>- I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
+<i>politesse.</i></p>
+<p>A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in
+the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been
+a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer&rsquo;d
+a pinch on both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly
+declined.&nbsp; - The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a
+nod of welcomeness. - <i>Prenez en - prenez</i>, said he, looking another
+way; so they each took a pinch. - Pity thy box should ever want one!
+said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous into it - taking a small
+pinch out of his box, to enhance their value, as I did it.&nbsp; He
+felt the weight of the second obligation more than of the first, - &rsquo;twas
+doing him an honour, - the other was only doing him a charity; - and
+he made me a bow down to the ground for it.</p>
+<p>- Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned
+and worn out to death in the service - here&rsquo;s a couple of sous
+for thee. - <i>Vive le Roi</i>! said the old soldier.</p>
+<p>I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, <i>pour l&rsquo;amour
+de Dieu</i>, which was the footing on which it was begg&rsquo;d. - The
+poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other
+motive.</p>
+<p><i>Mon cher et tr&egrave;s-charitable Monsieur</i>. - There&rsquo;s
+no opposing this, said I.</p>
+<p><i>Milord Anglois</i> - the very sound was worth the money; - so
+I gave <i>my last sous for it</i>.&nbsp; But in the eagerness of giving,
+I had overlooked a <i>pauvre honteux</i>, who had had no one to ask
+a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could
+have ask&rsquo;d one for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without
+the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better
+days. - Good God! said I - and I have not one single sous left to give
+him. - But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature, stirring
+within me; - so I gave him - no matter what - I am ashamed to say <i>how
+much</i> now, - and was ashamed to think how little, then: so, if the
+reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two fixed
+points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was the
+precise sum.</p>
+<p>I could afford nothing for the rest, but <i>Dieu vous b&eacute;nisse</i>!</p>
+<p>- <i>Et le bon Dieu vous b&eacute;nisse encore</i>, said the old
+soldier, the dwarf, &amp;c.&nbsp; The <i>pauvre honteux</i> could say
+nothing; - he pull&rsquo;d out a little handkerchief, and wiped his
+face as he turned away - and I thought he thanked me more than them
+all.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE BIDET.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise
+with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La
+Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little <i>bidet</i>,
+and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs) - he canter&rsquo;d
+away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince. - But what
+is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life!&nbsp;
+A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur&rsquo;s
+career; - his bidet would not pass by it, - a contention arose betwixt
+them, and the poor fellow was kick&rsquo;d out of his jack-boots the
+very first kick.</p>
+<p>La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more
+nor less upon it, than <i>Diable</i>!&nbsp; So presently got up, and
+came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as
+he would have beat his drum.</p>
+<p>The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back
+again, - then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by
+the dead ass: - La Fleur insisted upon the thing - and the bidet threw
+him.</p>
+<p>What&rsquo;s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine?&nbsp;
+Monsieur, said he, <i>c&rsquo;est un cheval le plus opini&acirc;tre
+du monde</i>. - Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own
+way, replied I.&nbsp; So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good
+sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back
+to Montreuil. - <i>Peste</i>! said La Fleur.</p>
+<p>It is not <i>mal-&agrave;-propos</i> to take notice here, that though
+La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in
+this encounter, - namely, <i>Diable</i>! and <i>Peste</i>! that there
+are, nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive,
+comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for every
+unexpected throw of the dice in life.</p>
+<p><i>Le Diable</i>! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally
+used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall
+out contrary to your expectations; such as - the throwing once doublets
+- La Fleur&rsquo;s being kick&rsquo;d off his horse, and so forth. -
+Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always - <i>Le Diable</i>!</p>
+<p>But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in
+that of the bidet&rsquo;s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground
+in jack-boots, - &rsquo;tis the second degree.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Tis then <i>Peste</i>!</p>
+<p>And for the third -</p>
+<p>- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I
+reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so
+refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use
+of it. -</p>
+<p>Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in distress!
+- what ever is my <i>cast</i>, grant me but decent words to exclaim
+in, and I will give my nature way.</p>
+<p>- But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every
+evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.</p>
+<p>La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the
+bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight, - and then, you may
+imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.</p>
+<p>As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there
+remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise,
+or into it. -</p>
+<p>I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house
+at Nampont.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>NAMPONT.&nbsp; THE DEAD ASS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>- And this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet
+- and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive
+to have shared it with me. - I thought, by the accent, it had been an
+apostrophe to his child; but &rsquo;twas to his ass, and to the very
+ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur&rsquo;s
+misadventure.&nbsp; The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly
+brought into my mind Sancho&rsquo;s lamentation for his; but he did
+it with more true touches of nature.</p>
+<p>The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the
+ass&rsquo;s pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from
+time to time, - then laid them down, - look&rsquo;d at them, and shook
+his head.&nbsp; He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again,
+as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand, - then laid it upon
+the bit of his ass&rsquo;s bridle, - looked wistfully at the little
+arrangement he had made - and then gave a sigh.</p>
+<p>The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur
+amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued
+sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.</p>
+<p>- He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the
+furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home,
+when his ass died.&nbsp; Every one seemed desirous to know what business
+could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own
+home.</p>
+<p>It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the
+finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest
+of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper,
+he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven
+would not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago
+in Spain.</p>
+<p>When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp&rsquo;d to pay
+Nature her tribute, - and wept bitterly.</p>
+<p>He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set
+out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient
+partner of his journey; - that it had eaten the same bread with him
+all the way, and was unto him as a friend.</p>
+<p>Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern. -
+La Fleur offered him money. - The mourner said he did not want it; -
+it was not the value of the ass - but the loss of him. - The ass, he
+said, he was assured, loved him; - and upon this told them a long story
+of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which
+had separated them from each other three days; during which time the
+ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that they had
+scarce either eaten or drank till they met.</p>
+<p>Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy
+poor beast; I&rsquo;m sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.
+- Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when he was alive; - but now
+that he is dead, I think otherwise. - I fear the weight of myself and
+my afflictions together have been too much for him, - they have shortened
+the poor creature&rsquo;s days, and I fear I have them to answer for.
+- Shame on the world! said I to myself. - Did we but love each other
+as this poor soul loved his ass - &rsquo;twould be something. -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>NAMPONT.&nbsp; THE POSTILION.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The concern which the poor fellow&rsquo;s story threw me into required
+some attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off
+upon the <i>pav&eacute;</i> in a full gallop.</p>
+<p>The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not
+have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and
+quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion
+had he but stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace. - On
+the contrary, as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave
+an unfeeling lash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like
+a thousand devils.</p>
+<p>I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven&rsquo;s sake to go
+slower: - and the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped.
+- The deuce take him and his galloping too - said I, - he&rsquo;ll go
+on tearing my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into a foolish
+passion, and then he&rsquo;ll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of
+it.</p>
+<p>The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had
+got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont, -
+he had put me out of temper with him, - and then with myself, for being
+so.</p>
+<p>My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling
+gallop would have been of real service to me. -</p>
+<p>- Then, prithee, get on - get on, my good lad, said I.</p>
+<p>The postilion pointed to the hill. - I then tried to return back
+to the story of the poor German and his ass - but I had broke the clue,
+- and could no more get into it again, than the postilion could into
+a trot.</p>
+<p>- The deuce go, said I, with it all!&nbsp; Here am I sitting as candidly
+disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runs
+counter.</p>
+<p>There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds
+out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the
+first word which roused me was <i>Amiens.</i></p>
+<p>- Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes, - this is the very town where
+my poor lady is to come.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>AMIENS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L-&rsquo;s
+post-chaise, with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time
+to make me a bow of recognition, - and of that particular kind of it,
+which told me she had not yet done with me.&nbsp; She was as good as
+her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, her brother&rsquo;s
+servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had
+taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to present
+myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do at Paris.&nbsp;
+There was only added, she was sorry, but from what <i>penchant</i> she
+had not considered, that she had been prevented telling me her story,
+- that she still owed it to me; and if my route should ever lay through
+Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name of Madame de L-, - that
+Madame de L- would be glad to discharge her obligation.</p>
+<p>Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels; - &rsquo;tis
+only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of
+Flanders, home; - &rsquo;twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but,
+were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey,
+in sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me
+by such a sufferer?&nbsp; To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry
+up the fountain of her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still
+left, in wiping them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest
+of women, as I&rsquo;m sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence
+the whole night beside her?</p>
+<p>There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached
+my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.</p>
+<p>It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings
+of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some
+one; and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy
+on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure
+taper of Eliza but about three months before, - swearing, as I did it,
+that it should last me through the whole journey. - Why should I dissemble
+the matter?&nbsp; I had sworn to her eternal fidelity; - she had a right
+to my whole heart: - to divide my affections was to lessen them; - to
+expose them was to risk them: where there is risk there may be loss:
+- and what wilt thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust
+and confidence - so good, so gentle, and unreproaching!</p>
+<p>- I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself. - But
+my imagination went on, - I recalled her looks at that crisis of our
+separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu!&nbsp; I look&rsquo;d
+at the picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck, - and blush&rsquo;d
+as I look&rsquo;d at it. - I would have given the world to have kiss&rsquo;d
+it, - but was ashamed. - And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing
+it between my hands, - shall it be smitten to its very root, - and smitten,
+Yorick! by thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?</p>
+<p>Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground,
+- be thou my witness - and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my
+witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went
+along with me, did the road lead me towards heaven!</p>
+<p>In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding,
+will always say too much.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE LETTER.&nbsp; AMIENS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Fortune had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful
+in his feats of chivalry, - and not one thing had offered to signalise
+his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which
+was almost four-and-twenty hours.&nbsp; The poor soul burn&rsquo;d with
+impatience; and the Count de L-&rsquo;s servant coming with the letter,
+being the first practicable occasion which offer&rsquo;d, La Fleur had
+laid hold of it; and, in order to do honour to his master, had taken
+him into a back parlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or
+two of the best wine in Picardy; and the Count de L-&rsquo;s servant,
+in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had
+taken him back with him to the Count&rsquo;s hotel.&nbsp; La Fleur&rsquo;s
+<i>prevenancy</i> (for there was a passport in his very looks) soon
+set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him; and as a Frenchman,
+whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in showing them, La
+Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his fife, and leading
+off the dance himself with the first note, set the <i>fille de chambre</i>,
+the <i>ma&icirc;tre d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>, the cook, the scullion,
+and all the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing:
+I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.</p>
+<p>Madame de L-, in passing from her brother&rsquo;s apartments to her
+own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her <i>fille de chambre</i>
+to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman&rsquo;s servant,
+who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.</p>
+<p>As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded
+himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de
+L-, on the part of his master, - added a long apocrypha of inquiries
+after Madame de L-&rsquo;s health, - told her, that Monsieur his master
+was <i>au d&eacute;sespoire</i> for her re-establishment from the fatigues
+of her journey, - and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the
+letter which Madame had done him the honour - And he has done me the
+honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur, to send a billet in
+return.</p>
+<p>Madame de L- had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the
+fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations; -
+he trembled for my honour, - and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned
+for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could
+be wanting <i>en &eacute;gards vis &agrave; vis d&rsquo;une femme</i>!
+so that when Madame de L- asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter,
+- <i>O qu&rsquo;oui</i>, said La Fleur: so laying down his hat upon
+the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with
+his left hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; - then
+contrariwise. - <i>Diable</i>! then sought every pocket - pocket by
+pocket, round, not forgetting his fob: - <i>Peste</i>! - then La Fleur
+emptied them upon the floor, - pulled out a dirty cravat, - a handkerchief,
+- a comb, - a whip lash, - a nightcap, - then gave a peep into his hat,
+- <i>Quelle &eacute;tourderie</i>!&nbsp; He had left the letter upon
+the table in the auberge; - he would run for it, and be back with it
+in three minutes.</p>
+<p>I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an
+account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was:
+and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (<i>par hazard</i>) to answer
+Madame&rsquo;s letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover
+the <i>faux pas</i>; - and if not, that things were only as they were.</p>
+<p>Now I was not altogether sure of my <i>&eacute;tiquette</i>, whether
+I ought to have wrote or no; - but if I had, - a devil himself could
+not have been angry: &rsquo;twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning
+creature for my honour; and, however he might have mistook the road,
+- or embarrassed me in so doing, - his heart was in no fault, - I was
+under no necessity to write; - and, what weighed more than all, - he
+did not look as if he had done amiss.</p>
+<p>- &rsquo;Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I. - &rsquo;Twas sufficient.&nbsp;
+La Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen,
+ink, and paper, in his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them
+close before me, with such a delight in his countenance, that I could
+not help taking up the pen.</p>
+<p>I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made half
+a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.</p>
+<p>In short, I was in no mood to write.</p>
+<p>La Fleur stepp&rsquo;d out and brought a little water in a glass
+to dilute my ink, - then fetch&rsquo;d sand and seal-wax. - It was all
+one; I wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.
+- <i>Le diable l&rsquo;emporte</i>! said I, half to myself, - I cannot
+write this self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I
+said it.</p>
+<p>As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
+respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand apologies
+for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his
+pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal&rsquo;s wife,
+which he durst say would suit the occasion.</p>
+<p>I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour. - Then prithee,
+said I, let me see it.</p>
+<p>La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm&rsquo;d
+full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying
+it upon the table, and then untying the string which held them all together,
+run them over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question, -
+<i>La voila</i>! said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first,
+he laid it open before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst
+I read it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE LETTER.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Madame,</p>
+<p>Je suis p&eacute;n&eacute;tr&eacute; de la douleur la plus vive,
+et r&eacute;duit en m&ecirc;me temps au d&eacute;sespoir par ce retour
+impr&eacute;v&ugrave; du Caporal qui rend notre entrev&ucirc;e de ce
+soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.</p>
+<p>Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser &agrave; vous.</p>
+<p>L&rsquo;amour n&rsquo;est <i>rien</i> sans sentiment.</p>
+<p>Et le sentiment est encore <i>moins</i> sans amour.</p>
+<p>On dit qu&rsquo;on ne doit jamais se d&eacute;sesper&eacute;r.</p>
+<p>On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors
+ce cera mon tour.</p>
+<p><i>Chacun &agrave; son tour</i>.</p>
+<p>En attendant - Vive l&rsquo;amour! et vive la bagatelle!</p>
+<p>Je suis, Madame,</p>
+<p>Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux et les plus tendres,</p>
+<p>tout &agrave; vous,</p>
+<p>JAQUES ROQUE.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It was but changing the Corporal into the Count, - and saying nothing
+about mounting guard on Wednesday, - and the letter was neither right
+nor wrong: - so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for
+my honour, his own, and the honour of his letter, - I took the cream
+gently off it, and whipping it up in my own way, I seal&rsquo;d it up
+and sent him with it to Madame de L-; - and the next morning we pursued
+our journey to Paris.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all
+on floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple
+of cooks - &rsquo;tis very well in such a place as Paris, - he may drive
+in at which end of a street he will.</p>
+<p>A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does
+not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself
+in the cabinet, if he can get up into it; - I say <i>up into it</i>
+- for there is no descending perpendicular amongst &rsquo;em with a
+&ldquo;<i>Me voici</i>! <i>mes enfans</i>&rdquo; - here I am - whatever
+many may think.</p>
+<p>I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone
+in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as
+I had prefigured them.&nbsp; I walked up gravely to the window in my
+dusty black coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world in
+yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure. - The old
+with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their vizards; - the
+young in armour bright which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay
+feather of the east, - all, - all, tilting at it like fascinated knights
+in tournaments of yore for fame and love. -</p>
+<p>Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here?&nbsp; On the
+very first onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to
+an atom; - seek, - seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the
+end of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays; - there
+thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette
+of a barber&rsquo;s wife, and get into such coteries! -</p>
+<p>- May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had
+to present to Madame de R-&nbsp; - I&rsquo;ll wait upon this lady, the
+very first thing I do.&nbsp; So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber
+directly, - and come back and brush my coat.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE WIG.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to
+do with my wig: &rsquo;twas either above or below his art: I had nothing
+to do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.</p>
+<p>- But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won&rsquo;t stand. - You
+may emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. -</p>
+<p>What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I. -
+The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker&rsquo;s ideas could have
+gone no further than to have &ldquo;dipped it into a pail of water.&rdquo;
+- What difference! &rsquo;tis like Time to Eternity!</p>
+<p>I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas
+which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works
+of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make
+a comparison less than a mountain at least.&nbsp; All that can be said
+against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is this: - That
+the grandeur is <i>more</i> in the <i>word</i>, and <i>less</i> in the
+<i>thing</i>.&nbsp; No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas;
+but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a
+hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment; - the Parisian barber
+meant nothing. -</p>
+<p>The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly,
+but a sorry figure in speech; - but, &rsquo;twill be said, - it has
+one advantage - &rsquo;tis in the next room, and the truth of the buckle
+may be tried in it, without more ado, in a single moment.</p>
+<p>In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, <i>The
+French expression professes more than it performs.</i></p>
+<p>I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national
+characters more in these nonsensical <i>minutiae</i> than in the most
+important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and
+stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst
+them.</p>
+<p>I was so long in getting from under my barber&rsquo;s hands, that
+it was too late to think of going with my letter to Madame R- that night:
+but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections
+turn to little account; so taking down the name of the H&ocirc;tel de
+Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where
+to go; - I shall consider of that, said I, as I walk along.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PULSE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the
+road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love
+at first sight: &rsquo;tis ye who open this door and let the stranger
+in.</p>
+<p>- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I
+must turn to go to the Op&eacute;ra Comique? - Most willingly, Monsieur,
+said she, laying aside her work. -</p>
+<p>I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came
+along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption:
+till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.</p>
+<p>She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on
+the far side of the shop, facing the door.</p>
+<p>- <i>Tres volontiers</i>, most willingly, said she, laying her work
+down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was
+sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that
+had I been laying out fifty louis d&rsquo;ors with her, I should have
+said - &ldquo;This woman is grateful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the
+shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take, - you must
+turn first to your left hand, - <i>mais prenez garde</i> - there are
+two turns; and be so good as to take the second - then go down a little
+way and you&rsquo;ll see a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself
+the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to
+the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross - and there any one
+will do himself the pleasure to show you. -</p>
+<p>She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
+goodnatur&rsquo;d patience the third time as the first; - and if <i>tones
+and</i> <i>manners</i> have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless
+to hearts which shut them out, - she seemed really interested that I
+should not lose myself.</p>
+<p>I will not suppose it was the woman&rsquo;s beauty, notwithstanding
+she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much
+to do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I
+told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her
+eyes, - and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.</p>
+<p>I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot
+every tittle of what she had said; - so looking back, and seeing her
+still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went
+right or not, - I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was
+to my right or left, - for that I had absolutely forgot. - Is it possible!
+said she, half laughing.&nbsp; &rsquo;Tis very possible, replied I,
+when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.</p>
+<p>As this was the real truth - she took it, as every woman takes a
+matter of right, with a slight curtsey.</p>
+<p>- <i>Attendez</i>! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain
+me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel
+of gloves.&nbsp; I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet
+into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in,
+it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place.
+- So I walk&rsquo;d in with her to the far side of the shop: and taking
+up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had
+a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly
+sat myself down beside her.</p>
+<p>- He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment. - And in that
+moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to
+you for all these courtesies.&nbsp; Any one may do a casual act of good
+nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature;
+and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the
+heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure
+you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world. - Feel
+it, said she, holding out her arm.&nbsp; So laying down my hat, I took
+hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of
+my other to the artery. -</p>
+<p>- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld
+me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting
+the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had
+been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever. - How wouldst thou
+have laugh&rsquo;d and moralized upon my new profession! - and thou
+shouldst have laugh&rsquo;d and moralized on. - Trust me, my dear Eugenius,
+I should have said, &ldquo;There are worse occupations in this world
+<i>than feeling a woman&rsquo;s pulse</i>.&rdquo; - But a grisette&rsquo;s!
+thou wouldst have said, - and in an open shop!&nbsp; Yorick -</p>
+<p>- So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care
+not if all the world saw me feel it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE HUSBAND.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the
+fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into
+the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. - &rsquo;Twas nobody
+but her husband, she said; - so I began a fresh score. - Monsieur is
+so good, quoth she, as he pass&rsquo;d by us, as to give himself the
+trouble of feeling my pulse. - The husband took off his hat, and making
+me a bow, said, I did him too much honour - and having said that, he
+put on his hat and walk&rsquo;d out.</p>
+<p>Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, - and can this man be
+the husband of this woman!</p>
+<p>Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds
+of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.</p>
+<p>In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper&rsquo;s wife seem to be one
+bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes
+the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a
+par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.</p>
+<p>In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for
+the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the
+husband, he seldom comes there: - in some dark and dismal room behind,
+he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of
+Nature that Nature left him.</p>
+<p>The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is <i>salique</i>,
+having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women,
+- by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from
+morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in
+a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and
+sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive,
+some of them, a polish like a brilliant: - Monsieur <i>le Mari</i> is
+little better than the stone under your foot.</p>
+<p>- Surely, - surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: -
+thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this
+improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.</p>
+<p>- And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she. - With all the benignity,
+said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected. - She was going
+to say something civil in return - but the lad came into the shop with
+the gloves. - <i>&Aacute; propos</i>, said I, I want a couple of pairs
+myself.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE GLOVES.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind
+the counter, reach&rsquo;d down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to
+the side over against her: they were all too large.&nbsp; The beautiful
+grisette measured them one by one across my hand. - It would not alter
+their dimensions. - She begg&rsquo;d I would try a single pair, which
+seemed to be the least. - She held it open; - my hand slipped into it
+at once. - It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little. - No, said
+she, doing the same thing.</p>
+<p>There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety, - where whim,
+and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the
+languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them; - they
+are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce
+say which party is the infector.&nbsp; I leave it to your men of words
+to swell pages about it - it is enough in the present to say again,
+the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both
+lolled upon the counter - it was narrow, and there was just room for
+the parcel to lay between us.</p>
+<p>The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways
+to the window, then at the gloves, - and then at me.&nbsp; I was not
+disposed to break silence: - I followed her example: so, I looked at
+the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her,
+- and so on alternately.</p>
+<p>I found I lost considerably in every attack: - she had a quick black
+eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration,
+that she look&rsquo;d into my very heart and reins. - It may seem strange,
+but I could actually feel she did. -</p>
+<p>It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me,
+and putting them into my pocket.</p>
+<p>I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single
+livre above the price. - I wish&rsquo;d she had asked a livre more,
+and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about. - Do you think,
+my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask
+a sous too much of a stranger - and of a stranger whose politeness,
+more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself
+at my mercy? - <i>M&rsquo;en croyez capable</i>? - Faith! not I, said
+I; and if you were, you are welcome.&nbsp; So counting the money into
+her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper&rsquo;s
+wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel followed me.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE TRANSLATION.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>There was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French
+officer.&nbsp; I love the character, not only because I honour the man
+whose manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men worse;
+but that I once knew one, - for he is no more, - and why should I not
+rescue one page from violation by writing his name in it, and telling
+the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and
+friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at this long distance from
+his death - but my eyes gush out with tears.&nbsp; For his sake I have
+a predilection for the whole corps of veterans; and so I strode over
+the two back rows of benches and placed myself beside him.</p>
+<p>The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might
+be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.&nbsp; As
+soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into
+a shagreen case, return&rsquo;d them and the book into his pocket together.&nbsp;
+I half rose up, and made him a bow.</p>
+<p>Translate this into any civilized language in the world - the sense
+is this:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a poor stranger come into the box - he seems
+as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years
+in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose:
+- &rsquo;tis shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face
+- and using him worse than a German.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he
+had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French too,
+and told him, &ldquo;I was sensible of his attention, and return&rsquo;d
+him a thousand thanks for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as
+to get master of this <i>short hand</i>, and to be quick in rendering
+the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and
+delineations, into plain words.&nbsp; For my own part, by long habitude,
+I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I
+go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in
+the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off
+twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote
+down and sworn to.</p>
+<p>I was going one evening to Martini&rsquo;s concert at Milan, and,
+was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F- was
+coming out in a sort of a hurry: - she was almost upon me before I saw
+her; so I gave a spring to once side to let her pass. - She had done
+the same, and on the same side too; so we ran our heads together: she
+instantly got to the other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate
+as she had been, for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage
+again. - We both flew together to the other side, and then back, - and
+so on: - it was ridiculous: we both blush&rsquo;d intolerably: so I
+did at last the thing I should have done at first; - I stood stock-still,
+and the Marquisina had no more difficulty.&nbsp; I had no power to go
+into the room, till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and
+follow her with my eye to the end of the passage.&nbsp; She look&rsquo;d
+back twice, and walk&rsquo;d along it rather sideways, as if she would
+make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her. - No, said I - that&rsquo;s
+a vile translation: the Marquisina has a right to the best apology I
+can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in; - so I ran
+and begg&rsquo;d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying
+it was my intention to have made her way.&nbsp; She answered, she was
+guided by the same intention towards me; - so we reciprocally thank&rsquo;d
+each other.&nbsp; She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no <i>cicisbeo</i>
+near her, I begg&rsquo;d to hand her to her coach; - so we went down
+the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and
+the adventure. - Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I had handed her
+in, I made six different efforts to let you go out. - And I made six
+efforts, replied she, to let you enter. - I wish to heaven you would
+make a seventh, said I. - With all my heart, said she, making room.
+- Life is too short to be long about the forms of it, - so I instantly
+stepp&rsquo;d in, and she carried me home with her. - And what became
+of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than
+I.</p>
+<p>I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation
+gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE DWARF.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by
+one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that
+being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what
+struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre, - and that was,
+the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs.
+- No doubt she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the
+world; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements. - The goddess
+seems almost as merry as she is wise.</p>
+<p>As I carried my idea out of the Op&eacute;ra Comique with me, I measured
+every body I saw walking in the streets by it. - Melancholy application!
+especially where the size was extremely little, - the face extremely
+dark, - the eyes quick, - the nose long, - the teeth white, - the jaw
+prominent, - to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven
+out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which
+it gives me pain to write down: - every third man a pigmy! - some by
+rickety heads and hump backs; - others by bandy legs; - a third set
+arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their
+growth; - a fourth, in their perfect and natural state like dwarf apple
+trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never
+meant to grow higher.</p>
+<p>A Medical Traveller might say, &rsquo;tis owing to undue bandages;
+- a Splenetic one, to want of air; - and an Inquisitive Traveller, to
+fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, - the narrowness
+of their streets, and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh
+stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but
+I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any
+body else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred that children,
+like other animals, might be increased almost to any size, provided
+they came right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of
+were Paris so coop&rsquo;d up, that they had not actually room enough
+to get them. - I do not call it getting anything, said he; - &rsquo;tis
+getting nothing. - Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, &rsquo;tis
+getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five
+and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed
+upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.&nbsp; Now, Mr. Shandy
+being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.</p>
+<p>As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found
+it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified
+in every lane and by-lane of Paris.&nbsp; I was walking down that which
+leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little
+boy in some distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle
+of it, I took hold of his hand and help&rsquo;d him over.&nbsp; Upon
+turning up his face to look at him after, I perceived he was about forty.
+- Never mind, said I, some good body will do as much for me when I am
+ninety.</p>
+<p>I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be merciful
+towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size
+nor strength to get on in the world. - I cannot bear to see one of them
+trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere
+the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the
+box we sat in.</p>
+<p>At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side
+box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full,
+numbers of all ranks take sanctuary.&nbsp; Though you stand, as in the
+parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra.&nbsp; A poor defenceless
+being of this order had got thrust somehow or other into this luckless
+place; - the night was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet
+and a half higher than himself.&nbsp; The dwarf suffered inexpressibly
+on all sides; but the thing which incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent
+German, near seven feet high, who stood directly betwixt him and all
+possibility of his seeing either the stage or the actors.&nbsp; The
+poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep at what was going forwards,
+by seeking for some little opening betwixt the German&rsquo;s arm and
+his body, trying first on one side, then the other; but the German stood
+square in the most unaccommodating posture that can be imagined: - the
+dwarf might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well
+in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German&rsquo;s sleeve,
+and told him his distress. - The German turn&rsquo;d his head back,
+looked down upon him as Goliah did upon David, - and unfeelingly resumed
+his posture.</p>
+<p>I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk&rsquo;s little
+horn box. - And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk!
+so temper&rsquo;d to <i>bear and forbear</i>! - how sweetly would it
+have lent an ear to this poor soul&rsquo;s complaint!</p>
+<p>The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion,
+as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the matter?
+- I told him the story in three words; and added, how inhuman it was.</p>
+<p>By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first transports,
+which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he would cut off
+his long queue with his knife. - The German look&rsquo;d back coolly,
+and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.</p>
+<p>An injury sharpen&rsquo;d by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes
+every man of sentiment a party: I could have leap&rsquo;d out of the
+box to have redressed it. - The old French officer did it with much
+less confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel,
+and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress, - the
+sentinel made his way to it. - There was no occasion to tell the grievance,
+- the thing told himself; so thrusting back the German instantly with
+his musket, - he took the poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before
+him. - This is noble! said I, clapping my hands together. - And yet
+you would not permit this, said the old officer, in England.</p>
+<p>- In England, dear Sir, said I, <i>we sit all at our ease</i>.</p>
+<p>The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in
+case I had been at variance, - by saying it was a <i>bon mot</i>; -
+and, as a <i>bon mot</i> is always worth something at Paris, he offered
+me a pinch of snuff.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE ROSE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It was now my turn to ask the old French officer &ldquo;What was
+the matter?&rdquo; for a cry of &ldquo;<i>Haussez les mains, Monsieur
+l&rsquo;Abb&eacute;</i>!&rdquo; re-echoed from a dozen different parts
+of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the
+monk had been to him.</p>
+<p>He told me it was some poor Abb&eacute; in one of the upper loges,
+who, he supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes
+in order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting
+upon his holding up both his hands during the representation. - And
+can it be supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes&rsquo;
+pockets?&nbsp; The old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear,
+opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.</p>
+<p>Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment - is it possible,
+that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean,
+and so unlike themselves, - <i>Quelle grossi&egrave;rt&eacute;</i>!
+added I.</p>
+<p>The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church,
+which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given
+in it by Moli&egrave;re: but like other remains of Gothic manners, was
+declining. - Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and
+<i>grossi&egrave;rt&eacute;s</i>, in which they take the lead, and lose
+it of one another by turns: - that he had been in most countries, but
+never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others seemed
+to want.&nbsp; <i>Le</i> POUR <i>et le</i> CONTRE <i>se trouvent en
+chaque nation</i>; there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere;
+and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one half of the
+world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: - that
+the advantage of travel, as it regarded the <i>s&ccedil;avoir vivre</i>,
+was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual
+toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught
+us mutual love.</p>
+<p>The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour
+and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of
+his character: - I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the
+object; - &rsquo;twas my own way of thinking - the difference was, I
+could not have expressed it half so well.</p>
+<p>It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, - if the
+latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every
+object which he never saw before. - I have as little torment of this
+kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a
+thing gave me pain, and that I blush&rsquo;d at many a word the first
+month, - which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.</p>
+<p>Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with
+her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues
+out of town. - Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct;
+and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart. - In
+our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord. -
+I asked her if she wanted anything - <i>Rien que pour pisser</i>, said
+Madame de Rambouliet.</p>
+<p>Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p-ss on.
+- And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one <i>pluck your rose</i>, and
+scatter them in your path, - for Madame de Rambouliet did no more. -
+I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest
+of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with
+a more respectful decorum.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>What the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
+Polonius&rsquo;s advice to his son upon the same subject into my head,
+- and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare&rsquo;s
+works, I stopp&rsquo;d at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to purchase
+the whole set.</p>
+<p>The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.&nbsp; <i>Comment</i>!
+said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt
+us. - He said they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be
+sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B-.</p>
+<p>- And does the Count de B-, said I, read Shakespeare?&nbsp; <i>C&rsquo;est
+un esprit fort</i>, replied the bookseller. - He loves English books!
+and what is more to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too.&nbsp;
+You speak this so civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an Englishman
+to lay out a louis d&rsquo;or or two at your shop. - The bookseller
+made a bow, and was going to say something, when a young decent girl
+about twenty, who by her air and dress seemed to be <i>fille de chambre</i>
+to some devout woman of fashion, come into the shop and asked for <i>Les
+Egarements du Coeur et de l&rsquo;Esprit</i>: the bookseller gave her
+the book directly; she pulled out a little green satin purse run round
+with a riband of the same colour, and putting her finger and thumb into
+it, she took out the money and paid for it.&nbsp; As I had nothing more
+to stay me in the shop, we both walk&rsquo;d out at the door together.</p>
+<p>- And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with <i>The Wanderings
+of the Heart</i>, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has
+first told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst
+thou ever be sure it is so. - <i>Le Dieu m&rsquo;en garde</i>! said
+the girl. - With reason, said I, for if it is a good one, &rsquo;tis
+pity it should be stolen; &rsquo;tis a little treasure to thee, and
+gives a better air to your face, than if it was dress&rsquo;d out with
+pearls.</p>
+<p>The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her
+satin purse by its riband in her hand all the time. - &rsquo;Tis a very
+small one, said I, taking hold of the bottom of it - she held it towards
+me - and there is very little in it, my dear, said I; but be but as
+good as thou art handsome, and heaven will fill it.&nbsp; I had a parcel
+of crowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let go
+the purse entirely, I put a single one in; and, tying up the riband
+in a bow-knot, returned it to her.</p>
+<p>The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one: - &rsquo;twas
+one of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows itself
+down, - the body does no more than tell it.&nbsp; I never gave a girl
+a crown in my life which gave me half the pleasure.</p>
+<p>My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said
+I, if I had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the
+crown, you&rsquo;ll remember it; - so don&rsquo;t, my dear, lay it out
+in ribands.</p>
+<p>Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable; - in
+saying which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me
+her hand: - <i>En v&eacute;rit&eacute;, Monsieur, je mettrai cet argent
+&agrave;part</i>, said she.</p>
+<p>When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it sanctifies
+their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was dusky, yet as both
+our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple of walking along the
+Quai de Conti together.</p>
+<p>She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got twenty
+yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before, she made
+a sort of a little stop to tell me again - she thank&rsquo;d me.</p>
+<p>It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying
+to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been rendering
+it to for the world; - but I see innocence, my dear, in your face, -
+and foul befall the man who ever lays a snare in its way!</p>
+<p>The girl seem&rsquo;d affected some way or other with what I said;
+- she gave a low sigh: - I found I was not empowered to enquire at all
+after it, - so said nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue
+de Nevers, where, we were to part.</p>
+<p>- But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene?&nbsp;
+She told me it was; - or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault,
+which was the next turn. - Then I&rsquo;ll go, my dear, by the Rue de
+Gueneguault, said I, for two reasons; first, I shall please myself,
+and next, I shall give you the protection of my company as far on your
+way as I can.&nbsp; The girl was sensible I was civil - and said, she
+wished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St. Pierre. - You live
+there? said I. - She told me she was <i>fille de chambre</i> to Madame
+R-. - Good God! said I, &rsquo;tis the very lady for whom I have brought
+a letter from Amiens. - The girl told me that Madame R-, she believed,
+expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to see him: - so
+I desired the girl to present my compliments to Madame R-, and say,
+I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.</p>
+<p>We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this pass&rsquo;d.
+- We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her <i>Egarements
+du Coeur</i> &amp;c. more commodiously than carrying them in her hand
+- they were two volumes: so I held the second for her whilst she put
+the first into her pocket; and then she held her pocket, and I put in
+the other after it.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections
+are drawn together.</p>
+<p>We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her
+hand within my arm. - I was just bidding her, - but she did it of herself,
+with that undeliberating simplicity, which show&rsquo;d it was out of
+her head that she had never seen me before.&nbsp; For my own part, I
+felt the conviction of consanguinity so strongly, that I could not help
+turning half round to look in her face, and see if I could trace out
+any thing in it of a family likeness. - Tut! said I, are we not all
+relations?</p>
+<p>When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I stopp&rsquo;d
+to bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would thank me again for
+my company and kindness. - She bid me adieu twice. - I repeated it as
+often; and so cordial was the parting between us, that had it happened
+any where else, I&rsquo;m not sure but I should have signed it with
+a kiss of charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.</p>
+<p>But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men, - I did, what
+amounted to the same thing -</p>
+<p>- I bid God bless her.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired
+after by the Lieutenant de Police. - The deuce take it! said I, - I
+know the reason.&nbsp; It is time the reader should know it, for in
+the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it
+was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have been forgotten
+now; - and now is the time I want it.</p>
+<p>I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter&rsquo;d
+my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and
+looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea
+presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting
+there without a passport.&nbsp; Go but to the end of a street, I have
+a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as
+this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge,
+I could less bear the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de - had
+hired the packet, I begg&rsquo;d he would take me in his suite.&nbsp;
+The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty,
+- only said, his inclination to serve me could reach no farther than
+Calais, as he was to return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when
+I had once pass&rsquo;d there, I might get to Paris without interruption;
+but that in Paris I must make friends and shift for myself. - Let me
+get to Paris, Monsieur le Count, said I, - and I shall do very well.&nbsp;
+So I embark&rsquo;d, and never thought more of the matter.</p>
+<p>When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring
+after me, - the thing instantly recurred; - and by the time La Fleur
+had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell
+me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been
+particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying,
+He hoped I had one. - Not I, faith! said I.</p>
+<p>The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected
+person, as I declared this; - and poor La Fleur advanced three steps
+towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to
+succour a distress&rsquo;d one: - the fellow won my heart by it; and
+from that single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could
+rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven
+years.</p>
+<p><i>Mon seigneur</i>! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting
+himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of
+it. - If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (<i>apparemment</i>)
+in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one. -
+Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then <i>certes</i>,
+replied he, you&rsquo;ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet <i>au
+moins</i>. - Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur&rsquo;d
+soul: - he&rsquo;ll hurt nobody. - <i>Cela n&rsquo;emp&ecirc;che pas</i>,
+said he - you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning.
+- But I&rsquo;ve taken your lodgings for a month, answer&rsquo;d I,
+and I&rsquo;ll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings
+of France in the world.&nbsp; La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody
+could oppose the king of France.</p>
+<p><i>Pardi</i>! said my host, <i>ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens
+tr&egrave;s extraordinaires</i>; - and, having both said and sworn it,
+- he went out.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; THE HOTEL AT PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur&rsquo;s with a serious
+look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had
+treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind,
+I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper,
+talk&rsquo;d to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of
+the Op&eacute;ra Comique. - La Fleur had been there himself, and had
+followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller&rsquo;s shop;
+but seeing me come out with the young <i>fille de chambre</i>, and that
+we walk&rsquo;d down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem&rsquo;d
+it unnecessary to follow me a step further; - so making his own reflections
+upon it, he took a shorter cut, - and got to the hotel in time to be
+inform&rsquo;d of the affair of the police against my arrival.</p>
+<p>As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup
+himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation.
+-</p>
+<p>- And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance
+of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to
+set out: - I must tell it here.</p>
+<p>Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden&rsquo;d
+with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much
+I had taken care for.&nbsp; Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius
+shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull&rsquo;d out his purse
+in order to empty it into mine. - I&rsquo;ve enough in conscience, Eugenius,
+said I. - Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France
+and Italy better than you. - But you don&rsquo;t consider, Eugenius,
+said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris,
+I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall
+get clapp&rsquo;d up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a
+couple of months entirely at the king of France&rsquo;s expense. - I
+beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot that resource.</p>
+<p>Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.</p>
+<p>Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or what
+is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and
+I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise
+than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?</p>
+<p>- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the most
+of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for
+a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you can&rsquo;t
+get out of. - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year. -
+But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience,
+albeit a man can&rsquo;t get out, he may do very well within, - at least
+for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow,
+his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than
+he went in.</p>
+<p>I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard,
+as I settled this account; and remember I walk&rsquo;d down stairs in
+no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. - Beshrew the sombre
+pencil! said I, vauntingly - for I envy not its powers, which paints
+the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring.&nbsp; The mind
+sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened:
+reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. - &rsquo;Tis
+true, said I, correcting the proposition, - the Bastile is not an evil
+to be despised; - but strip it of its towers - fill up the fosse, -
+unbarricade the doors - call it simply a confinement, and suppose &rsquo;tis
+some tyrant of a distemper - and not of a man, which holds you in it,
+- the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.</p>
+<p>I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which
+I took to be of a child, which complained &ldquo;it could not get out.&rdquo;
+- I look&rsquo;d up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman,
+nor child, I went out without farther attention.</p>
+<p>In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated
+twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little
+cage. - &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get out, - I can&rsquo;t get out,&rdquo;
+said the starling.</p>
+<p>I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through
+the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach&rsquo;d
+it, with the same lamentation of its captivity.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t
+get out,&rdquo; said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I&rsquo;ll
+let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to
+the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there
+was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. - I took
+both hands to it.</p>
+<p>The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance,
+and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against
+it as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee
+at liberty. - &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the starling, -&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+can&rsquo;t get out - I can&rsquo;t get out,&rdquo; said the starling.</p>
+<p>I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I
+remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which
+my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call&rsquo;d home.&nbsp;
+Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they
+chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings
+upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word
+I had said in going down them.</p>
+<p>Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I, - still thou
+art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made
+to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. - &rsquo;Tis
+thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty,
+whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and
+ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change. - No <i>tint</i>
+of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre
+into iron: - with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain
+is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled! - Gracious
+Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent,
+grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this
+fair goddess as my companion, - and shower down thy mitres, if it seems
+good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for
+them!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE CAPTIVE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to
+my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself
+the miseries of confinement.&nbsp; I was in a right frame for it, and
+so I gave full scope to my imagination.</p>
+<p>I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born
+to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture
+was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad
+groups in it did but distract me. -</p>
+<p>- I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon,
+I then look&rsquo;d through the twilight of his grated door to take
+his picture.</p>
+<p>I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement,
+and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from
+hope deferr&rsquo;d.&nbsp; Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish:
+in thirty years the western breeze had not once fann&rsquo;d his blood;
+- he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time - nor had the voice
+of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. - His children -</p>
+<p>But here my heart began to bleed - and I was forced to go on with
+another part of the portrait.</p>
+<p>He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
+corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little
+calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch&rsquo;d all over
+with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; - he had one of
+these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching
+another day of misery to add to the heap.&nbsp; As I darkened the little
+light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast
+it down, - shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction.&nbsp;
+I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little
+stick upon the bundle. - He gave a deep sigh. - I saw the iron enter
+into his soul! - I burst into tears. - I could not sustain the picture
+of confinement which my fancy had drawn. - I started up from my chair,
+and calling La Fleur: I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready
+at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.</p>
+<p>I&rsquo;ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.</p>
+<p>La Fleur would have put me to bed; but - not willing he should see
+anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ache,
+- I told him I would go to bed by myself, - and bid him go do the same.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE STARLING.&nbsp; ROAD TO VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I got into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind,
+and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.</p>
+<p>As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look
+for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short
+history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last
+chapter.</p>
+<p>Whilst the Honourable Mr. - was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had
+been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an English
+lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in
+his breast into the packet; - and, by course of feeding it, and taking
+it once under his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got
+it safe along with him to Paris.</p>
+<p>At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling,
+and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there,
+he taught it, in his mother&rsquo;s tongue, the four simple words -
+(and no more) - to which I own&rsquo;d myself so much its debtor.</p>
+<p>Upon his master&rsquo;s going on for Italy, the lad had given it
+to the master of the hotel.&nbsp; But his little song for liberty being
+in an <i>unknown</i> language at Paris, the bird had little or no store
+set by him: so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle
+of Burgundy.</p>
+<p>In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in whose
+language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of him to Lord
+A-, Lord A- begg&rsquo;d the bird of me; - in a week Lord A- gave him
+to Lord B-; Lord B- made a present of him to Lord C-; and Lord C-&rsquo;s
+gentleman sold him to Lord D-&rsquo;s for a shilling; Lord D- gave him
+to Lord E-; and so on - half round the alphabet.&nbsp; From that rank
+he pass&rsquo;d into the lower house, and pass&rsquo;d the hands of
+as many commoners.&nbsp; But as all these wanted to <i>get in</i>, and
+my bird wanted to <i>get out</i>, he had almost as little store set
+by him in London as in Paris.</p>
+<p>It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and
+if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform them,
+that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to represent him.</p>
+<p>I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to
+this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. - Thus:</p>
+<p>[Picture which cannot be reproduced]</p>
+<p>- And let the herald&rsquo;s officers twist his neck about if they
+dare.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE ADDRESS.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I should not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I
+am going to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally
+endeavour to protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C-
+was an act of compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have
+done it, I suppose, like other people.</p>
+<p>How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my servile
+heart form!&nbsp; I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.</p>
+<p>Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles,
+but putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes and
+tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C-&rsquo;s good graces.
+- This will do, said I. - Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat
+carried up to him by an adventurous tailor, without taking his measure.&nbsp;
+Fool! continued I, - see Monsieur le Duc&rsquo;s face first; - observe
+what character is written in it; - take notice in what posture he stands
+to hear you; - mark the turns and expressions of his body and limbs;
+- and for the tone, - the first sound which comes from his lips will
+give it you; and from all these together you&rsquo;ll compound an address
+at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust the Duke; - the ingredients
+are his own, and most likely to go down.</p>
+<p>Well! said I, I wish it well over. - Coward again! as if man to man
+was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the
+field - why not face to face in the cabinet too?&nbsp; And trust me,
+Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false to himself and betrays his
+own succours ten times where nature does it once.&nbsp; Go to the Duc
+de C- with the Bastile in thy looks; - my life for it, thou wilt be
+sent back to Paris in half an hour with an escort.</p>
+<p>I believe so, said I. - Then I&rsquo;ll go to the Duke, by heaven!
+with all the gaiety and debonairness in the world. -</p>
+<p>- And there you are wrong again, replied I. - A heart at ease, Yorick,
+flies into no extremes - &rsquo;tis ever on its centre. - Well! well!
+cried I, as the coachman turn&rsquo;d in at the gates, I find I shall
+do very well: and by the time he had wheel&rsquo;d round the court,
+and brought me up to the door, I found myself so much the better for
+my own lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim to justice,
+who was to part with life upon the top most, - nor did I mount them
+with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza! to
+thee to meet it.</p>
+<p>As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who possibly
+might be the <i>ma&icirc;tre</i> <i>d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>, but had
+more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de
+C- was busy. - I am utterly ignorant, said I, of the forms of obtaining
+an audience, being an absolute stranger, and what is worse in the present
+conjuncture of affairs, being an Englishman too. - He replied, that
+did not increase the difficulty. - I made him a slight bow, and told
+him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le Duc.&nbsp;
+The secretary look&rsquo;d towards the stairs, as if he was about to
+leave me to carry up this account to some one. - But I must not mislead
+you, said I, - for what I have to say is of no manner of importance
+to Monsieur le Duc de C- - but of great importance to myself. - <i>C&rsquo;est
+une autre affaire</i>, replied he. - Not at all, said I, to a man of
+gallantry. - But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger hope
+to have access? - In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his
+watch.&nbsp; The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify
+the calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect; - and as walking
+backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul to commune with,
+was for the time as bad as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly
+went back to my remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the <i>Cordon
+Bleu</i>, which was the nearest hotel.</p>
+<p>I think there is a fatality in it; - I seldom go to the place I set
+out for.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>LE PATISSIER.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Before I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I
+am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town;
+so I pull&rsquo;d the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round
+some of the principal streets. - I suppose the town is not very large,
+said I. - The coachman begg&rsquo;d pardon for setting me right, and
+told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes and
+marquises and counts had hotels. - The Count de B-, of whom the bookseller
+at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely the night before, came
+instantly into my mind. - And why should I not go, thought I, to the
+Count de B-, who has so high an idea of English books and English men
+- and tell him my story? so I changed my mind a second time. - In truth
+it was the third; for I had intended that day for Madame de R-, in the
+Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her word by her <i>fille de chambre</i>
+that I would assuredly wait upon her; - but I am governed by circumstances;
+- I cannot govern them: so seeing a man standing with a basket on the
+other side of the street, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur
+go up to him, and enquire for the Count&rsquo;s hotel.</p>
+<p>La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de
+St. Louis selling p&acirc;t&eacute;s. - It is impossible, La Fleur,
+said I. - La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself;
+but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with
+its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole - and had looked into
+the basket and seen the p&acirc;t&eacute;s which the Chevalier was selling;
+so could not be mistaken in that.</p>
+<p>Such a reverse in man&rsquo;s life awakens a better principle than
+curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in
+the remise: - the more I look&rsquo;d at him, his croix, and his basket,
+the stronger they wove themselves into my brain. - I got out of the
+remise, and went towards him.</p>
+<p>He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees,
+and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the
+top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix.&nbsp; His basket
+of little p&acirc;t&eacute;s was covered over with a white damask napkin;
+another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look
+of <i>propret&eacute;</i> and neatness throughout, that one might have
+bought his p&acirc;t&eacute;s of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.</p>
+<p>He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at
+the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without solicitation.</p>
+<p>He was about forty-eight; - of a sedate look, something approaching
+to gravity.&nbsp; I did not wonder. - I went up rather to the basket
+than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his p&acirc;t&eacute;s
+into my hand, - I begg&rsquo;d he would explain the appearance which
+affected me.</p>
+<p>He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed
+in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained
+a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the
+last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those
+of some other regiments, left without any provision, he found himself
+in a wide world without friends, without a livre, - and indeed, said
+he, without anything but this, - (pointing, as he said it, to his croix).
+- The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning
+my esteem too.</p>
+<p>The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his generosity
+could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was only his misfortune
+to be amongst the number.&nbsp; He had a little wife, he said, whom
+he loved, who did the <i>p&acirc;tisserie</i>; and added, he felt no
+dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this way - unless
+Providence had offer&rsquo;d him a better.</p>
+<p>It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing
+over what happen&rsquo;d to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine
+months after.</p>
+<p>It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead
+up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers
+had made the same enquiry which I had done. - He had told them the same
+story, and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reach&rsquo;d
+at last the king&rsquo;s ears; - who, hearing the Chevalier had been
+a gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man of honour
+and integrity, - he broke up his little trade by a pension of fifteen
+hundred livres a year.</p>
+<p>As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me
+to relate another, out of its order, to please myself: - the two stories
+reflect light upon each other, - and &rsquo;tis a pity they should be
+parted.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE SWORD.&nbsp; RENNES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel
+in their turns what distress and poverty is, - I stop not to tell the
+causes which gradually brought the house d&rsquo;E-, in Brittany, into
+decay.&nbsp; The Marquis d&rsquo;E- had fought up against his condition
+with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still show to the world,
+some little fragments of what his ancestors had been; - their indiscretions
+had put it out of his power.&nbsp; There was enough left for the little
+exigencies of <i>obscurity</i>. - But he had two boys who looked up
+to him for <i>light</i>; - he thought they deserved it.&nbsp; He had
+tried his sword - it could not open the way, - the <i>mounting</i> was
+too expensive, - and simple economy was not a match for it: - there
+was no resource but commerce.</p>
+<p>In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting
+the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish&rsquo;d
+to see re-blossom. - But in Brittany, there being a provision for this,
+he avail&rsquo;d himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the states
+were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered
+the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy,
+which, though seldom claim&rsquo;d, he said, was no less in force, he
+took his sword from his side: - Here, said he, take it; and be trusty
+guardians of it, till better times put me in condition to reclaim it.</p>
+<p>The president accepted the Marquis&rsquo;s sword: he staid a few
+minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house - and departed.</p>
+<p>The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for Martinico,
+and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business,
+with some unlook&rsquo;d for bequests from distant branches of his house,
+return home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.</p>
+<p>It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any
+traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very
+time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn; - it was so to me.</p>
+<p>The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he supported
+his lady, - his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was
+at the other extreme of the line next his mother; - he put his handkerchief
+to his face twice. -</p>
+<p>- There was a dead silence.&nbsp; When the Marquis had approached
+within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest
+son, and advancing three steps before his family, - he reclaim&rsquo;d
+his sword.&nbsp; His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into
+his hand he drew it almost out of the scabbard: - &rsquo;twas the shining
+face of a friend he had once given up - he look&rsquo;d attentively
+along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same,
+- when, observing a little rust which it had contracted near the point,
+he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over it, - I think
+- I saw a tear fall upon the place.&nbsp; I could not be deceived by
+what followed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall find,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;some <i>other way</i>
+to get it off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard,
+made a bow to the guardians of it, - and, with his wife and daughter,
+and his two sons following him, walk&rsquo;d out.</p>
+<p>O, how I envied him his feelings!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count
+de B-.&nbsp; The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he
+was tumbling them over.&nbsp; I walk&rsquo;d up close to the table,
+and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I
+knew what they were, - I told him I had come without any one to present
+me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted,
+would do it for me: - it is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said
+I, pointing to his works - <i>et ayez la bout&eacute;, mon cher ami</i>,
+apostrophizing his spirit, added I, <i>de me faire cet honneur-l&agrave;</i>.
+-</p>
+<p>The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing
+I look&rsquo;d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an
+arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so
+out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller&rsquo;s
+shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story
+of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France.
+- And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count.&nbsp;
+So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader.</p>
+<p>- And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs
+have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile; - but
+I have no apprehensions, continued I; - for, in falling into the hands
+of the most polish&rsquo;d people in the world, and being conscious
+I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce
+thought I lay at their mercy. - It does not suit the gallantry of the
+French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it against invalids.</p>
+<p>An animated blush came into the Count de B-&rsquo;s cheeks as I spoke
+this. - <i>Ne craignez rien</i> - Don&rsquo;t fear, said he. - Indeed,
+I don&rsquo;t, replied I again. - Besides, continued I, a little sportingly,
+I have come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not
+think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send
+me back crying for my pains.</p>
+<p>- My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B- (making him a low
+bow), is to desire he will not.</p>
+<p>The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half
+as much, - and once or twice said, - <i>C&rsquo;est bien dit</i>.&nbsp;
+So I rested my cause there - and determined to say no more about it.</p>
+<p>The Count led the discourse: we talk&rsquo;d of indifferent things,
+- of books, and politics, and men; - and then of women. - God bless
+them all! said I, after much discourse about them - there is not a man
+upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I have
+seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I love them;
+being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for
+the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.</p>
+<p><i>Eh bien</i>!&nbsp; <i>Monsieur l&rsquo;Anglois</i>, said the Count,
+gaily; - you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land; - I believe
+you; - <i>ni encore</i>, I dare say, <i>that</i> of our women! - But
+permit me to conjecture, - if, <i>par hazard</i>, they fell into your
+way, that the prospect would not affect you.</p>
+<p>I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
+indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often
+endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand
+things to a dozen of the sex together, - the least of which I could
+not venture to a single one to gain heaven.</p>
+<p>Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I; - as for the nakedness of your
+land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them;
+- and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in
+me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for
+whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment if
+I knew how to throw it on: - But I could wish, continued I, to spy the
+nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs,
+climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my
+own by: - and therefore am I come.</p>
+<p>It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have
+not seen the Palais Royal, - nor the Luxembourg, - nor the Fa&ccedil;ade
+of the Louvre, - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have
+of pictures, statues, and churches. - I conceive every fair being as
+a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and
+loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.</p>
+<p>The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames
+the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France,
+- and from France will lead me through Italy; - &rsquo;tis a quiet journey
+of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise
+out of her, which make us love each other, - and the world, better than
+we do.</p>
+<p>The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion;
+and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for
+making me known to him. - But <i>a propos</i>, said he; - Shakespeare
+is full of great things; - he forgot a small punctilio of announcing
+your name: - it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set
+about telling any one who I am, - for there is scarce any body I cannot
+give a better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could
+do it in a single word, - and have an end of it.&nbsp; It was the only
+time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to any purpose;
+- for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his
+books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers&rsquo;
+scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing
+the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name, - <i>Me
+voici</i>! said I.</p>
+<p>Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick&rsquo;s skull was put out of
+the Count&rsquo;s mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he
+could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
+this account; - &rsquo;tis certain the French conceive better than they
+combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
+inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour and
+paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same
+mistake in the very same case: - &ldquo;He could not bear,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark&rsquo;s
+jester.&rdquo;&nbsp; Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.&nbsp;
+The Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred
+years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus&rsquo;s court; - the other
+Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court. - He shook
+his head.&nbsp; Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander
+the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord! - &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas
+all one,&rdquo; he replied. -</p>
+<p>- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship,
+said I, I&rsquo;m sure your Lordship would not have said so.</p>
+<p>The poor Count de B- fell but into the same <i>error</i>.</p>
+<p>- <i>Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick</i>? cried the Count. - <i>Je le
+suis</i>, said I. - <i>Vous? - Moi, - moi qui ai l&rsquo;honneur de
+vous parler, Monsieur le Comte</i>. - <i>Mon Dieu</i>! said he, embracing
+me, - <i>Vous &ecirc;tes Yorick</i>!</p>
+<p>The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left
+me alone in his room.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I could not conceive why the Count de B- had gone so abruptly out
+of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare
+into his pocket. -</p>
+<p><i>Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss
+of time which a conjecture about them takes up</i>: &rsquo;twas better
+to read Shakespeare; so taking up &ldquo;<i>Much Ado About</i> <i>Nothing</i>,&rdquo;
+I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in
+Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice,
+that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.</p>
+<p>Sweet pliability of man&rsquo;s spirit, that can at once surrender
+itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary
+moments! - Long, - long since had ye number&rsquo;d out my days, had
+I not trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground.&nbsp;
+When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength,
+I get off it, to some smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered
+over with rosebuds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it,
+come back strengthened and refresh&rsquo;d. - When evils press sore
+upon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take
+a new course; - I leave it, - and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian
+fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like AEneas, into them.
+- I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to
+recognise it; - I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off
+silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours; - I lose the
+feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were wont
+to make me mourn for her when I was at school.</p>
+<p><i>Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow - nor does man disquiet
+himself</i> in vain<i> by it</i>: - he oftener does so in trusting the
+issue of his commotions to reason only. - I can safely say for myself,
+I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart
+so decisively, as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and
+gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground</p>
+<p>When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B- entered,
+with my passport in his hand.&nbsp; Monsieur le Duc de C-, said the
+Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman.&nbsp;
+<i>Un homme qui rit</i>, said the Duke, <i>ne sera jamais dangereux</i>.
+- Had it been for any one but the king&rsquo;s jester, added the Count,
+I could not have got it these two hours. - <i>Pardonnez moi</i>, Monsieur
+le Count, said I - I am not the king&rsquo;s jester. - But you are Yorick?
+- Yes. - <i>Et vous plaisantez</i>? - I answered, Indeed I did jest,
+- but was not paid for it; - &rsquo;twas entirely at my own expense.</p>
+<p>We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we
+had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.; - since which time our
+manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is
+so full of patriots, who wish for <i>nothing</i> but the honours and
+wealth of their country; - and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless,
+so good, so devout, - there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of.
+-</p>
+<p><i>Voila un persiflage</i>! cried the Count.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE PASSPORT.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>As the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors, governors,
+and commandants of cities, generals of armies, justiciaries, and all
+officers of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the king&rsquo;s jester, and
+his baggage, travel quietly along, I own the triumph of obtaining the
+passport was not a little tarnish&rsquo;d by the figure I cut in it.
+- But there is nothing unmix&rsquo;d in this world; and some of the
+gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment
+itself was attended even with a sigh, - and that the greatest <i>they
+knew of</i> terminated, <i>in a general way</i>, in little better than
+a convulsion.</p>
+<p>I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary upon
+the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of
+a note to give an account to the world of a couple of sparrows upon
+the out-edge of his window, which had incommoded him all the time he
+wrote, and at last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy.</p>
+<p>- &rsquo;Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain,
+for I have had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen;
+- but the cock sparrow, during the little time that I could have finished
+the other half of this note, has actually interrupted me with the reiteration
+of his caresses three-and-twenty times and a half.</p>
+<p>How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!</p>
+<p>Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able
+to write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to copy,
+even in thy study.</p>
+<p>But this is nothing to my travels. - So I twice, - twice beg pardon
+for it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>CHARACTER.&nbsp; VERSAILLES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>And how do you find the French? said the Count de B-, after he had
+given me the passport.</p>
+<p>The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy,
+I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.</p>
+<p><i>- Mais passe, pour cela</i>. - Speak frankly, said he: do you
+find all the urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour
+of? - I had found every thing, I said, which confirmed it. - <i>Vraiment</i>,
+said the Count, <i>les Fran&ccedil;ois sont polis</i>. - To an excess,
+replied I.</p>
+<p>The Count took notice of the word <i>exc&egrave;s</i>; and would
+have it I meant more than I said.&nbsp; I defended myself a long time
+as well as I could against it. - He insisted I had a reserve, and that
+I would speak my opinion frankly.</p>
+<p>I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain compass,
+as well as an instrument; and that the social and other calls have occasion
+by turns for every key in him; so that if you begin a note too high
+or too low, there must be a want either in the upper or under part,
+to fill up the system of harmony. - The Count de B- did not understand
+music, so desired me to explain it some other way.&nbsp; A polish&rsquo;d
+nation, my dear Count, said I, makes every one its debtor: and besides,
+Urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many charms, it goes against
+the heart to say it can do ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain
+line of perfection, that man, take him altogether, is empower&rsquo;d
+to arrive at: - if he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than
+gets them.&nbsp; I must not presume to say how far this has affected
+the French in the subject we are speaking of; - but, should it ever
+be the case of the English, in the progress of their refinements, to
+arrive at the same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did
+not lose the <i>politesse du coeur</i>, which inclines men more to humane
+actions than courteous ones, - we should at least lose that distinct
+variety and originality of character, which distinguishes them, not
+only from each other, but from all the world besides.</p>
+<p>I had a few of King William&rsquo;s shillings, as smooth as glass,
+in my pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration
+of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so
+far: -</p>
+<p>See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before
+him upon the table, - by jingling and rubbing one against another for
+seventy years together in one body&rsquo;s pocket or another&rsquo;s,
+they are become so much alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling
+from another.</p>
+<p>The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but
+few people&rsquo;s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine
+hand of Nature has given them; - they are not so pleasant to feel, -
+but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see
+whose image and superscription they bear. - But the French, Monsieur
+le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said), have so many
+excellences, they can the better spare this; - they are a loyal, a gallant,
+a generous, an ingenious, and good temper&rsquo;d people as is under
+heaven; - if they have a fault - they are too <i>serious.</i></p>
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.</p>
+<p><i>Mais vous plaisantez</i>, said he, correcting his exclamation.
+- I laid my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him
+it was my most settled opinion.</p>
+<p>The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my reasons,
+being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C-.</p>
+<p>But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup with
+me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing
+you retract your opinion, - or, in what manner you support it. - But,
+if you do support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must do it with
+all your powers, because you have the whole world against you. - I promised
+the Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set
+out for Italy; - so took my leave.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE TEMPTATION.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with
+a bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me. - I do not know, said
+the porter, whether she is gone away or not.&nbsp; I took the key of
+my chamber of him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten
+steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easily
+down.</p>
+<p>It was the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> I had walked along the Quai
+de Conti with; Madame de R- had sent her upon some commission to a <i>marchande
+des modes</i> within a step or two of the H&ocirc;tel de Modene; and
+as I had fail&rsquo;d in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I
+had left Paris; and if so, whether I had not left a letter addressed
+to her.</p>
+<p>As the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> was so near my door, she returned
+back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I wrote
+a card.</p>
+<p>It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,
+- the crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as those
+of the bed) were drawn close: - the sun was setting, and reflected through
+them so warm a tint into the fair <i>fille de chambre&rsquo;s</i> face,
+- I thought she blush&rsquo;d; - the idea of it made me blush myself:
+- we were quite alone; and that superinduced a second blush before the
+first could get off.</p>
+<p>There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the blood
+is more in fault than the man: - &rsquo;tis sent impetuous from the
+heart, and virtue flies after it, - not to call it back, but to make
+the sensation of it more delicious to the nerves: - &rsquo;tis associated.
+-</p>
+<p>But I&rsquo;ll not describe it; - I felt something at first within
+me which was not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had given
+her the night before. - I sought five minutes for a card; - I knew I
+had not one. - I took up a pen. - I laid it down again; - my hand trembled:
+- the devil was in me.</p>
+<p>I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist,
+he will fly from us; - but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror,
+though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat; - so I give
+up the triumph for security; and, instead of thinking to make him fly,
+I generally fly myself.</p>
+<p>The fair <i>fille de chambre</i> came close up to the bureau where
+I was looking for a card - took up first the pen I cast down, then offer&rsquo;d
+to hold me the ink; she offer&rsquo;d it so sweetly, I was going to
+accept it; - but I durst not; - I have nothing, my dear, said I, to
+write upon. - Write it, said she, simply, upon anything. -</p>
+<p>I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon
+thy lips. -</p>
+<p>If I do, said I, I shall perish; - so I took her by the hand, and
+led her to the door, and begg&rsquo;d she would not forget the lesson
+I had given her. - She said, indeed she would not; - and, as she uttered
+it with some earnestness, she turn&rsquo;d about, and gave me both her
+hands, closed together, into mine; - it was impossible not to compress
+them in that situation; - I wish&rsquo;d to let them go; and all the
+time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it, - and still
+I held them on. - In two minutes I found I had all the battle to fight
+over again; - and I felt my legs and every limb about me tremble at
+the idea.</p>
+<p>The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where
+we were standing. - I had still hold of her hands - and how it happened
+I can give no account; but I neither ask&rsquo;d her - nor drew her
+- nor did I think of the bed; - but so it did happen, we both sat down.</p>
+<p>I&rsquo;ll just show you, said the fair <i>fille de chambre</i>,
+the little purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown.&nbsp;
+So she put her hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt
+for it some time - then into the left. - &ldquo;She had lost it.&rdquo;
+- I never bore expectation more quietly; - it was in her right pocket
+at last; - she pull&rsquo;d it out; it was of green taffeta, lined with
+a little bit of white quilted satin, and just big enough to hold the
+crown: she put it into my hand; - it was pretty; and I held it ten minutes
+with the back of my hand resting upon her lap - looking sometimes at
+the purse, sometimes on one side of it.</p>
+<p>A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair
+<i>fille de chambre</i>, without saying a word, took out her little
+housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew&rsquo;d it up. - I foresaw
+it would hazard the glory of the day; and, as she pass&rsquo;d her hand
+in silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the laurels
+shake which fancy had wreath&rsquo;d about my head.</p>
+<p>A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was
+just falling off. - See, said the <i>fille de</i> <i>chambre</i>, holding
+up her foot. - I could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return,
+and putting in the strap, - and lifting up the other foot with it, when
+I had done, to see both were right, - in doing it too suddenly, it unavoidably
+threw the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> off her centre, - and then -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE CONQUEST.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Yes, - and then -.&nbsp; Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts
+can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that
+man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father
+of spirits but for his conduct under them?</p>
+<p>If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love
+and desire are entangled with the piece, - must the whole web be rent
+in drawing them out? - Whip me such stoics, great Governor of Nature!
+said I to myself: - wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials
+of my virtue; - whatever is my danger, - whatever is my situation, -
+let me feel the movements which rise out of it, and which belong to
+me as a man, - and, if I govern them as a good one, I will trust the
+issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.</p>
+<p>As I finished my address, I raised the fair <i>fille de chambre</i>
+up by the hand, and led her out of the room: - she stood by me till
+I locked the door and put the key in my pocket, - and then, - the victory
+being quite decisive - and not till then, I press&rsquo;d my lips to
+her cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate
+of the hotel.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE MYSTERY.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back
+instantly to my chamber; - it was touching a cold key with a flat third
+to it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call&rsquo;d forth
+my affections: - therefore, when I let go the hand of the <i>fille de
+chambre</i>, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking
+at every one who pass&rsquo;d by, - and forming conjectures upon them,
+till my attention got fix&rsquo;d upon a single object which confounded
+all kind of reasoning upon him.</p>
+<p>It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which
+passed and repass&rsquo;d sedately along the street, making a turn of
+about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel; - the man was
+about fifty-two - had a small cane under his arm - was dress&rsquo;d
+in a dark drab-colour&rsquo;d coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seem&rsquo;d
+to have seen some years service: - they were still clean, and there
+was a little air of frugal <i>propret&eacute;</i> throughout him.&nbsp;
+By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many
+in his way, I saw he was asking charity: so I got a sous or two out
+of my pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn. - He pass&rsquo;d
+by me without asking anything - and yet did not go five steps further
+before he ask&rsquo;d charity of a little woman. - I was much more likely
+to have given of the two. - He had scarce done with the woman, when
+he pull&rsquo;d off his hat to another who was coming the same way.
+- An ancient gentleman came slowly - and, after him, a young smart one.
+- He let them both pass, and ask&rsquo;d nothing.&nbsp; I stood observing
+him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards
+and forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.</p>
+<p>There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to
+work, and to no purpose: - the first was, why the man should <i>only</i>
+tell his story to the sex; - and, secondly, - what kind of story it
+was, and what species of eloquence it could be, which soften&rsquo;d
+the hearts of the women, which he knew &rsquo;twas to no purpose to
+practise upon the men.</p>
+<p>There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery;
+- the one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and
+in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition; -
+the other was, it was always successful. - He never stopp&rsquo;d a
+woman, but she pull&rsquo;d out her purse, and immediately gave him
+something.</p>
+<p>I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.</p>
+<p>I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I
+walk&rsquo;d upstairs to my chamber.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I was immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came
+into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere. - How so,
+friend? said I. - He answered, I had had a young woman lock&rsquo;d
+up with me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and &rsquo;twas
+against the rules of his house. - Very well, said I, we&rsquo;ll all
+part friends then, - for the girl is no worse, - and I am no worse,
+- and you will be just as I found you. - It was enough, he said, to
+overthrow the credit of his hotel. - <i>Voyez vous</i>, Monsieur, said
+he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon. - I own
+it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my pride not
+suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted him to
+let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that night,
+and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.</p>
+<p>I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
+girls - &rsquo;Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I
+ever reckon&rsquo;d upon - Provided, added he, it had been but in a
+morning. - And does the difference of the time of the day at Paris make
+a difference in the sin? - It made a difference, he said, in the scandal.
+- I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannot say I was intolerably
+out of temper with the man. - I own it is necessary, resumed the master
+of the hotel, that a stranger at Paris should have the opportunities
+presented to him of buying lace and silk stockings and ruffles, <i>et
+tout cela</i>; - and &rsquo;tis nothing if a woman comes with a band-box.
+- O, my conscience! said I, she had one but I never look&rsquo;d into
+it. - Then Monsieur, said he, has bought nothing? - Not one earthly
+thing, replied I. - Because, said he, I could recommend one to you who
+would use you <i>en conscience</i>. - But I must see her this night,
+said I. - He made me a low bow, and walk&rsquo;d down.</p>
+<p>Now shall I triumph over this <i>ma&icirc;tre d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i>,
+cried I, - and what then?&nbsp; Then I shall let him see I know he is
+a dirty fellow. - And what then?&nbsp; What then? - I was too near myself
+to say it was for the sake of others. - I had no good answer left; -
+there was more of spleen than principle in my project, and I was sick
+of it before the execution.</p>
+<p>In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace. - I&rsquo;ll
+buy nothing, however, said I, within myself.</p>
+<p>The grisette would show me everything. - I was hard to please: she
+would not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all
+her laces one after another before me; - unfolded and folded them up
+again one by one with the most patient sweetness. - I might buy, - or
+not; - she would let me have everything at my own price: - the poor
+creature seem&rsquo;d anxious to get a penny; and laid herself out to
+win me, and not so much in a manner which seem&rsquo;d artful, as in
+one I felt simple and caressing.</p>
+<p>If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
+worse; - my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as quietly
+as the first. - Why should I chastise one for the trespass of another?&nbsp;
+If thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking
+up in her face, so much harder is thy bread.</p>
+<p>If I had not had more than four louis d&rsquo;ors in my purse, there
+was no such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had
+first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.</p>
+<p>- The master of the hotel will share the profit with her; - no matter,
+- then I have only paid as many a poor soul has <i>paid</i> before me,
+for an act he <i>could</i> not do, or think of.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE RIDDLE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how sorry
+the master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change
+my lodgings.</p>
+<p>A man who values a good night&rsquo;s rest will not lie down with
+enmity in his heart, if he can help it. - So I bid La Fleur tell the
+master of the hotel, that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I
+had given him; - and you may tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added
+I, that if the young woman should call again, I shall not see her.</p>
+<p>This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after
+so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it
+was possible, with all the virtue I enter&rsquo;d it.</p>
+<p><i>C&rsquo;est d&eacute;roger &agrave; noblesse</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>,
+said La Fleur, making me a bow down to the ground as he said it. - <i>Et
+encore</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>, said he, may change his sentiments; - and
+if (<i>par hazard</i>) he should like to amuse himself, - I find no
+amusement in it, said I, interrupting him. -</p>
+<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said La Fleur, - and took away.</p>
+<p>In an hour&rsquo;s time he came to put me to bed, and was more than
+commonly officious: - something hung upon his lips to say to me, or
+ask me, which he could not get off: I could not conceive what it was,
+and indeed gave myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another
+riddle so much more interesting upon my mind, which was that of the
+man&rsquo;s asking charity before the door of the hotel. - I would have
+given anything to have got to the bottom of it; and that, not out of
+curiosity, - &rsquo;tis so low a principle of enquiry, in general, I
+would not purchase the gratification of it with a two-sous piece; -
+but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainly soften&rsquo;d
+the heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at least equal
+to the philosopher&rsquo;s stone; had I both the Indies, I would have
+given up one to have been master of it.</p>
+<p>I toss&rsquo;d and turn&rsquo;d it almost all night long in my brains
+to no manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my
+spirits as much troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of Babylon
+had been with his; and I will not hesitate to affirm, it would have
+puzzled all the wise men of Paris as much as those of Chaldea to have
+given its interpretation.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>LE DIMANCHE.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my
+coffee and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array&rsquo;d,
+I scarce knew him.</p>
+<p>I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver
+button and loop, and four louis d&rsquo;ors, <i>pour s&rsquo;adoniser</i>,
+when we got to Paris; and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done
+wonders with it.</p>
+<p>He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breeches
+of the same. - They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing.
+- I wish&rsquo;d him hang&rsquo;d for telling me. - They look&rsquo;d
+so fresh, that though I knew the thing could not be done, yet I would
+rather have imposed upon my fancy with thinking I had bought them new
+for the fellow, than that they had come out of the Rue de Friperie.</p>
+<p>This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.</p>
+<p>He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully
+enough embroidered: - this was indeed something the worse for the service
+it had done, but &rsquo;twas clean scour&rsquo;d; - the gold had been
+touch&rsquo;d up, and upon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;
+- and as the blue was not violent, it suited with the coat and breeches
+very well: he had squeez&rsquo;d out of the money, moreover, a new bag
+and a solitaire; and had insisted with the <i>fripier</i> upon a gold
+pair of garters to his breeches knees. - He had purchased muslin ruffles,
+<i>bien brod&eacute;es</i>, with four livres of his own money; - and
+a pair of white silk stockings for five more; - and to top all, nature
+had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.</p>
+<p>He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the first
+style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast. - In a word, there
+was that look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put
+me in mind it was Sunday; - and, by combining both together, it instantly
+struck me, that the favour he wish&rsquo;d to ask of me the night before,
+was to spend the day as every body in Paris spent it besides.&nbsp;
+I had scarce made the conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility,
+but with a look of trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg&rsquo;d
+I would grant him the day, <i>pour faire le galant vis-&agrave;-vis
+de sa ma&icirc;tresse</i>.</p>
+<p>Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-&agrave;-vis
+Madame de R-. - I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it
+would not have mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress&rsquo;d
+as La Fleur was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse
+spared him.</p>
+<p>But we must <i>feel</i>, not argue in these embarrassments. - The
+sons and daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature,
+in their contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little
+vanities and wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as
+their task-masters; - no doubt, they have set their self-denials at
+a price, - and their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would
+often disappoint them, but that their condition puts it so much in my
+power to do it.</p>
+<p><i>Behold</i>, - <i>Behold</i>, <i>I am thy servant</i> - disarms
+me at once of the powers of a master. -</p>
+<p>Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.</p>
+<p>- And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up
+in so little a time at Paris?&nbsp; La Fleur laid his hand upon his
+breast, and said &rsquo;twas a <i>petite demoiselle</i>, at Monsieur
+le Count de B-&rsquo;s. - La Fleur had a heart made for society; and,
+to speak the truth of him, let as few occasions slip him as his master;
+- so that somehow or other, - but how, - heaven knows, - he had connected
+himself with the demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during
+the time I was taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough
+for me to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived to make
+it do to win the maid to his.&nbsp; The family, it seems, was to be
+at Paris that day, and he had made a party with her, and two or three
+more of the Count&rsquo;s household, upon the boulevards.</p>
+<p>Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all
+your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of
+grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>La Fleur had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more
+than I had bargain&rsquo;d for, or could have enter&rsquo;d either into
+his head or mine.</p>
+<p>He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and
+as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had
+begg&rsquo;d a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf
+and his hand. - As that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon
+the table as it was; and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered
+him to call upon the <i>tra&icirc;teur</i>, to bespeak my dinner, and
+leave me to breakfast by myself.</p>
+<p>When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
+window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper; - but stopping
+to read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third,
+- I thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair
+up to it, I sat down to read it.</p>
+<p>It was in the old French of Rabelais&rsquo;s time, and for aught
+I know might have been wrote by him: - it was moreover in a Gothic letter,
+and that so faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost
+me infinite trouble to make anything of it. - I threw it down; and then
+wrote a letter to Eugenius; - then I took it up again, and embroiled
+my patience with it afresh; - and then to cure that, I wrote a letter
+to Eliza. - Still it kept hold of me; and the difficulty of understanding
+it increased but the desire.</p>
+<p>I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle
+of Burgundy; I at it again, - and, after two or three hours poring upon
+it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon
+a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make
+sure of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and
+see how it would look then; - so I went on leisurely, as a trifling
+man does, sometimes writing a sentence, - then taking a turn or two,
+- and then looking how the world went, out of the window; so that it
+was nine o&rsquo;clock at night before I had done it. - I then began
+and read it as follows.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>- Now, as the notary&rsquo;s wife disputed the point with the notary
+with too much heat, - I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the parchment)
+that there was another notary here only to set down and attest all this.
+-</p>
+<p>- And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily
+up. - The notary&rsquo;s wife was a little fume of a woman, and the
+notary thought it well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply. - I would
+go, answered he, to bed. - You may go to the devil, answer&rsquo;d the
+notary&rsquo;s wife.</p>
+<p>Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two
+rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not
+caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent
+him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short
+cloak, the night being very windy, and walk&rsquo;d out, ill at ease,
+towards the Pont Neuf.</p>
+<p>Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have
+pass&rsquo;d over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest, -
+the finest, - the grandest, - the lightest, - the longest, - the broadest,
+that ever conjoin&rsquo;d land and land together upon the face of the
+terraqueous globe.</p>
+<p>[<i>By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been
+a Frenchman</i>.]</p>
+<p>The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can
+allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about
+Paris, &rsquo;tis more blasphemously <i>sacre Dieu&rsquo;d</i> there
+than in any other aperture of the whole city, - and with reason good
+and cogent, Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying <i>garde
+d&rsquo;eau</i>, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few
+who cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres
+and a half, which is its full worth.</p>
+<p>The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively
+clapp&rsquo;d his cane to the side of it, but in raising it up, the
+point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the sentinel&rsquo;s
+hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.
+-</p>
+<p>- &rsquo;<i>Tis an ill wind</i>, said a boatman, who catched it,
+<i>which blows nobody any good</i>.</p>
+<p>The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers,
+and levell&rsquo;d his arquebuss.</p>
+<p>Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman&rsquo;s
+paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she
+had borrow&rsquo;d the sentry&rsquo;s match to light it: - it gave a
+moment&rsquo;s time for the Gascon&rsquo;s blood to run cool, and turn
+the accident better to his advantage. - &rsquo;<i>Tis an ill wind</i>,
+said he, catching off the notary&rsquo;s castor, and legitimating the
+capture with the boatman&rsquo;s adage.</p>
+<p>The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de
+Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he
+walked along in this manner: -</p>
+<p>Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes
+all my days: - to be born to have the storm of ill language levell&rsquo;d
+against me and my profession wherever I go; to be forced into marriage
+by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman; - to be driven
+forth out of my house by domestic winds, and despoil&rsquo;d of my castor
+by pontific ones! - to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the
+mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents! - Where am I to lay my head?
+- Miserable man! what wind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole
+compass can blow unto thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures,
+good?</p>
+<p>As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this
+sort, a voice call&rsquo;d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next
+notary. - Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his
+situation, walk&rsquo;d up the passage to the door, and passing through
+an old sort of a saloon, was usher&rsquo;d into a large chamber, dismantled
+of everything but a long military pike, - a breastplate, - a rusty old
+sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four different places
+against the wall.</p>
+<p>An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless
+decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at
+that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little
+table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and close by the
+table was placed a chair: - the notary sat him down in it; and pulling
+out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket,
+he placed them before him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning
+his breast over the table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman&rsquo;s
+last will and testament</p>
+<p>Alas!&nbsp; <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman, raising
+himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the
+expense of bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could
+not die in peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits
+arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from
+me. - It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind; - it
+will make the fortunes of your house. - The notary dipp&rsquo;d his
+pen into his inkhorn. - Almighty Director of every event in my life!
+said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands
+towards heaven, - Thou, whose hand has led me on through such a labyrinth
+of strange passages down into this scene of desolation, assist the decaying
+memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted man; - direct my tongue
+by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that this stranger may set down
+nought but what is written in that BOOK, from whose records, said he,
+clasping his hands together, I am to be condemn&rsquo;d or acquitted!
+- the notary held up the point of his pen betwixt the taper and his
+eye. -</p>
+<p>It is a story, <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman, which
+will rouse up every affection in nature; - it will kill the humane,
+and touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -</p>
+<p>- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen
+a third time into his ink-horn - and the old gentleman, turning a little
+more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words:
+-</p>
+<p>- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then
+enter&rsquo;d the room.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a>&nbsp;
+PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend
+what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which
+he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which
+he had presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards. - Then prithee,
+La Fleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B-&rsquo;s hotel,
+and see if thou canst get it. - There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur;
+- and away he flew.</p>
+<p>In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath,
+with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from
+the simple irreparability of the fragment.&nbsp; <i>Juste Ciel</i>!
+in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender
+farewell of her - his faithless mistress had given his <i>gage d&rsquo;amour</i>
+to one of the Count&rsquo;s footmen, - the footman to a young sempstress,
+- and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.
+- Our misfortunes were involved together: - I gave a sigh, - and La
+Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.</p>
+<p>- How perfidious! cried La Fleur. - How unlucky! said I.</p>
+<p>- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if
+she had lost it. - Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.</p>
+<p>Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE ACT OF CHARITY.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may
+be an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
+not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller. - I count little of the
+many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.
+- Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an
+unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth
+all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together, - and
+yet they are absolutely fine; - and whenever I have a more brilliant
+affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well
+as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of &rsquo;em; - and for the
+text, - &ldquo;Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,&rdquo;
+- is as good as any one in the Bible.</p>
+<p>There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into
+a narrow street; &rsquo;tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a <i>fiacre</i>,
+<a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> or wish to get
+off quietly o&rsquo;foot when the opera is done.&nbsp; At the end of
+it, towards the theatre, &rsquo;tis lighted by a small candle, the light
+of which is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door
+- &rsquo;tis more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star
+of the least magnitude; it burns, - but does little good to the world,
+that we know of.</p>
+<p>In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within
+five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their
+backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a <i>fiacre</i>;
+- as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged
+myself up within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my
+stand. - I was in black, and scarce seen.</p>
+<p>The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six;
+the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark
+of wife or widow in any one part of either of them; - they seem&rsquo;d
+to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon
+by tender salutations. - I could have wish&rsquo;d to have made them
+happy: - their happiness was destin&rsquo;d that night, to come from
+another quarter.</p>
+<p>A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at
+the end of it, begg&rsquo;d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for
+the love of heaven.&nbsp; I thought it singular that a beggar should
+fix the quota of an alms - and that the sum should be twelve times as
+much as what is usually given in the dark. - They both seemed astonished
+at it as much as myself. - Twelve sous! said one. - A twelve-sous piece!
+said the other, - and made no reply.</p>
+<p>The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their
+rank; and bow&rsquo;d down his head to the ground.</p>
+<p>Poo! said they, - we have no money.</p>
+<p>The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew&rsquo;d
+his supplication.</p>
+<p>- Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against
+me. - Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.
+- Then God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which
+you can give to others without change! - I observed the elder sister
+put her hand into her pocket. - I&rsquo;ll see, said she, if I have
+a sous.&nbsp; A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been
+bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.</p>
+<p>- I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.</p>
+<p>My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder, - what
+is it but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so
+sweet, that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and
+what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so
+much of you both as they just passed by?</p>
+<p>The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same
+time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out
+a twelve-sous piece.</p>
+<p>The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more; - it
+was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the twelve-sous
+piece in charity; - and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together,
+and the man went away.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.&nbsp; PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I stepped hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in
+asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled
+me; - and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it: -
+&rsquo;twas flattery.</p>
+<p>Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly
+are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost
+thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and
+tortuous passages to the heart!</p>
+<p>The poor man, as he was not straiten&rsquo;d for time, had given
+it here in a larger dose: &rsquo;tis certain he had a way of bringing
+it into a less form, for the many sudden cases he had to do with in
+the streets: but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and
+qualify it, - I vex not my spirit with the enquiry; - it is enough the
+beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces - and they can best tell the rest,
+who have gained much greater matters by it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>PARIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>We get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving
+them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then
+you water it, because you have planted it.</p>
+<p>Monsieur le Count de B-, merely because he had done me one kindness
+in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few
+days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and
+they were to present me to others, and so on.</p>
+<p>I had got master of my <i>secret</i> just in time to turn these honours
+to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should
+have dined or supp&rsquo;d a single time or two round, and then, by
+<i>translating</i> French looks and attitudes into plain English, I
+should presently have seen, that I had hold of the <i>couvert</i> <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a>
+of some more entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned
+all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could
+not keep them. - As it was, things did not go much amiss.</p>
+<p>I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B-: in
+days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry
+in the <i>Cour d&rsquo;Amour</i>, and had dress&rsquo;d himself out
+to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. - The Marquis de B-
+wish&rsquo;d to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in
+his brain.&nbsp; &ldquo;He could like to take a trip to England,&rdquo;
+and asked much of the English ladies. - Stay where you are, I beseech
+you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I. - <i>Les Messieurs</i> <i>Anglois</i>
+can scarce get a kind look from them as it is. - The Marquis invited
+me to supper.</p>
+<p>Monsieur P-, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our
+taxes.&nbsp; They were very considerable, he heard. - If we knew but
+how to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.</p>
+<p>I could never have been invited to Mons. P-&rsquo;s concerts upon
+any other terms.</p>
+<p>I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q- as an <i>esprit</i>. -
+Madame de Q- was an <i>esprit</i> herself: she burnt with impatience
+to see me, and hear me talk.&nbsp; I had not taken my seat, before I
+saw she did not care a sous whether I had any wit or no; - I was let
+in, to be convinced she had.&nbsp; I call heaven to witness I never
+once opened the door of my lips.</p>
+<p>Madame de V- vow&rsquo;d to every creature she met - &ldquo;She had
+never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman. - She is
+coquette, - then deist, - then <i>d&eacute;vote</i>: the empire during
+these is never lost, - she only changes her subjects when thirty-five
+years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she
+re-peoples it with slaves of infidelity, - and then with the slaves
+of the church.</p>
+<p>Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the
+colour of the rose was fading fast away; - she ought to have been a
+deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.</p>
+<p>She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing
+the point of religion more closely. - In short Madame de V- told me
+she believed nothing. - I told Madame de V- it might be her principle,
+but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without
+which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended;
+- that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a
+beauty to be a deist; - that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal
+it from her; - that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside
+her, but I had begun to form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments
+of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which
+could have check&rsquo;d them as they rose up?</p>
+<p>We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there
+is need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
+them on us. - But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, - &rsquo;tis
+too - too soon.</p>
+<p>I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame
+de V-. - She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abb&eacute; M-, that in
+one half hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their
+Encyclopaedia had said against it. - I was listed directly into Madame
+de V-&rsquo;s <i>coterie</i>; - and she put off the epocha of deism
+for two years.</p>
+<p>I remember it was in this <i>coterie</i>, in the middle of a discourse,
+in which I was showing the necessity of a <i>first</i> cause, when the
+young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of
+the room, to tell me my <i>solitaire</i> was pinn&rsquo;d too straight
+about my neck. - It should be <i>plus badinant</i>, said the Count,
+looking down upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, <i>to the
+wise</i> -</p>
+<p>And <i>from the wise</i>, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him
+a bow, - <i>is enough</i>.</p>
+<p>The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
+embraced by mortal man.</p>
+<p>For three weeks together I was of every man&rsquo;s opinion I met.
+- <i>Pardi</i>! <i>ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d&rsquo;esprit que nous
+autres. - Il raisonne bien</i>, said another. - <i>C&rsquo;est un bon
+enfant</i>, said a third. - And at this price I could have eaten and
+drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but &rsquo;twas
+a dishonest <i>reckoning</i>; - I grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain
+of a slave; - every sentiment of honour revolted against it; - the higher
+I got, the more was I forced upon my <i>beggarly system</i>; - the better
+the <i>coterie</i>, - the more children of Art; - I languish&rsquo;d
+for those of Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of
+myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick, - went to bed;
+- order&rsquo;d La Fleur to get me horses in the morning to set out
+for Italy.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MARIA.&nbsp; MOULINES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
+now, - to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France,
+- in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance
+into every one&rsquo;s lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a journey,
+through each step of which Music beats time to <i>Labour</i>, and all
+her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass
+through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group
+before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with adventures. -</p>
+<p>Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have
+but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of these
+must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with
+near Moulines.</p>
+<p>The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little
+in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived,
+it returned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulse
+which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village
+where her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance
+in quest of melancholy adventures.&nbsp; But I know not how it is, but
+I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within
+me, as when I am entangled in them.</p>
+<p>The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before
+she open&rsquo;d her mouth. - She had lost her husband; he had died,
+she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria&rsquo;s senses, about a
+month before. - She had feared at first, she added, that it would have
+plunder&rsquo;d her poor girl of what little understanding was left;
+- but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: - still,
+she could not rest. - Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering
+somewhere about the road.</p>
+<p>Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La
+Fleur, whose heart seem&rsquo;d only to be tuned to joy, to pass the
+back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told
+it?&nbsp; I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.</p>
+<p>When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening
+in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under
+a poplar.&nbsp; She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head
+leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook ran at the foot
+of the tree.</p>
+<p>I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La Fleur
+to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.</p>
+<p>She was dress&rsquo;d in white, and much as my friend described her,
+except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk
+net. - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband,
+which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung
+her pipe. - Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had
+got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string
+to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with
+the string. - &ldquo;Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+I look&rsquo;d in Maria&rsquo;s eyes and saw she was thinking more of
+her father than of her lover, or her little goat; for, as she utter&rsquo;d
+them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.</p>
+<p>I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they
+fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep&rsquo;d it in my own, - and
+then in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip&rsquo;d hers again;
+- and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as
+I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter
+and motion.</p>
+<p>I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists
+have pester&rsquo;d the world ever convince me to the contrary.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MARIA.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask&rsquo;d her if she
+remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her
+and her goat about two years before?&nbsp; She said she was unsettled
+much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: - that ill as
+she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had
+stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the theft; - she had
+wash&rsquo;d it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her
+pocket to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which,
+she added, he had half promised her.&nbsp; As she told me this, she
+took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it; she had folded
+it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril;
+- on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.</p>
+<p>She had since that, she told me, stray&rsquo;d as far as Rome, and
+walk&rsquo;d round St. Peter&rsquo;s once, - and return&rsquo;d back;
+- that she found her way alone across the Apennines; - had travell&rsquo;d
+over all Lombardy, without money, - and through the flinty roads of
+Savoy without shoes: - how she had borne it, and how she had got supported,
+she could not tell; - but <i>God tempers the wind</i>, said Maria, <i>to
+the shorn lamb</i>.</p>
+<p>Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land,
+where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou
+shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; - I would be kind
+to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after
+thee and bring thee back; - when the sun went down I would say my prayers:
+and when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe,
+nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering
+heaven along with that of a broken heart!</p>
+<p>Nature melted within me, as I utter&rsquo;d this; and Maria observing,
+as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steep&rsquo;d too much already
+to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. - And where will
+you dry it, Maria? said I. - I&rsquo;ll dry it in my bosom, said she:
+- &rsquo;twill do me good.</p>
+<p>And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.</p>
+<p>I touch&rsquo;d upon the string on which hung all her sorrows: -
+she look&rsquo;d with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and
+then, without saying any thing, took her pipe and play&rsquo;d her service
+to the Virgin. - The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; - in a
+moment or two Maria returned to herself, - let her pipe fall, - and
+rose up.</p>
+<p>And where are you going, Maria? said I. - She said, to Moulines.
+- Let us go, said I, together. - Maria put her arm within mine, and
+lengthening the string, to let the dog follow, - in that order we enter&rsquo;d
+Moulines.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>MARIA.&nbsp; MOULINES.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet,
+when we got into the middle of this, I stopp&rsquo;d to take my last
+look and last farewell of Maria.</p>
+<p>Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine
+forms: - affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce
+earthly; - still she was feminine; - and so much was there about her
+of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could
+the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of
+mine, she should <i>not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup</i>,
+but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.</p>
+<p>Adieu, poor luckless maiden! - Imbibe the oil and wine which the
+compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into
+thy wounds; - the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them
+up for ever.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE BOURBONNNOIS.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>There was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous
+a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through
+this part of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it,
+my sufferings have totally unfitted me.&nbsp; In every scene of festivity,
+I saw Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her
+poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade
+across her.</p>
+<p>- Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that&rsquo;s precious
+in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down
+upon his bed of straw - and &rsquo;tis thou who lift&rsquo;st him up
+to Heaven! - Eternal Fountain of our feelings! - &rsquo;tis here I trace
+thee - and this is thy &ldquo;<i>divinity which stirs within me</i>;&rdquo;
+- not that, in some sad and sickening moments, &ldquo;<i>my soul shrinks
+back upon herself, and startles at destruction</i>;&rdquo; - mere pomp
+of words! - but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond
+myself; - all comes from thee, great - great SENSORIUM of the world!
+which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in
+the remotest desert of thy creation. - Touch&rsquo;d with thee, Eugenius
+draws my curtain when I languish - hears my tale of symptoms, and blames
+the weather for the disorder of his nerves.&nbsp; Thou giv&rsquo;st
+a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the
+bleakest mountains; - he finds the lacerated lamb of another&rsquo;s
+flock. - This moment I behold him leaning with his head against his
+crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it! - Oh! had I come
+one moment sooner! it bleeds to death! - his gentle heart bleeds with
+it. -</p>
+<p>Peace to thee, generous swain! - I see thou walkest off with anguish,
+- but thy joys shall balance it; - for, happy is thy cottage, - and
+happy is the sharer of it, - and happy are the lambs which sport about
+you!</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE SUPPER.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>A shoe coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the
+beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
+twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of
+five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point
+of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion
+had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of
+no great use without them, I submitted to go on.</p>
+<p>He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece
+of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore
+foot.&nbsp; I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing
+a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal
+to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.&nbsp; The look
+of the house, and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled
+me to the disaster. - It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about
+twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn; - and close to the house,
+on one side, was a <i>potagerie</i> of an acre and a half, full of everything
+which could make plenty in a French peasant&rsquo;s house; - and, on
+the other side, was a little wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress
+it.&nbsp; It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house
+- so I left the postilion to manage his point as he could; - and, for
+mine, I walked directly into the house.</p>
+<p>The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with
+five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous
+genealogy out of them.</p>
+<p>They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large
+wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at
+each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: - &rsquo;twas
+a feast of love.</p>
+<p>The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality
+would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment
+I enter&rsquo;d the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family;
+and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly
+borrowed the old man&rsquo;s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself
+a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye,
+not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mix&rsquo;d with thanks
+that I had not seem&rsquo;d to doubt it.</p>
+<p>Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this
+morsel so sweet, - and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took
+of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate
+to this hour?</p>
+<p>If the supper was to my taste, - the grace which followed it was
+much more so.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE GRACE.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with
+the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment
+the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back
+apartment to tie up their hair, - and the young men to the door to wash
+their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul
+was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. - The old
+man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down
+upon a sofa of turf by the door.</p>
+<p>The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon
+the vielle, - and at the age he was then of, touch&rsquo;d it well enough
+for the purpose.&nbsp; His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,
+- then intermitted, - and join&rsquo;d her old man again, as their children
+and grand-children danced before them.</p>
+<p>It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses
+in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could
+distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the
+cause or the effect of simple jollity.&nbsp; In a word, I thought I
+beheld <i>Religion</i> mixing in the dance: - but, as I had never seen
+her so engaged, I should have look&rsquo;d upon it now as one of the
+illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not
+the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said, that this was their constant
+way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper
+was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he
+said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks
+to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay, -</p>
+<p>Or a learned prelate either, said I.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<h2>THE CASE OF DELICACY.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently
+down to Lyons: - adieu, then, to all rapid movements!&nbsp; &rsquo;Tis
+a journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be
+in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his time
+with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to Turin,
+through Savoy.</p>
+<p>Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the
+treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world,
+nor will your valleys be invaded by it. - Nature! in the midst of thy
+disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created:
+with all thy great works about thee, little hast thou left to give,
+either to the scythe or to the sickle; - but to that little thou grantest
+safety and protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter&rsquo;d.</p>
+<p>Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns
+and dangers of your roads, - your rocks, - your precipices; - the difficulties
+of getting up, - the horrors of getting down, - mountains impracticable,
+- and cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and
+block his road up. - The peasants had been all day at work in removing
+a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the
+time my voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing
+before a passage could any how be gain&rsquo;d: there was nothing but
+to wait with patience; - &rsquo;twas a wet and tempestuous night; so
+that by the delay, and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged
+to put up five miles short of his stage at a little decent kind of an
+inn by the roadside.</p>
+<p>I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber - got a good fire -
+order&rsquo;d supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when
+a voiture arrived with a lady in it and her servant maid.</p>
+<p>As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess, - without
+much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she usher&rsquo;d
+them in, that there was nobody in it but an English gentleman; - that
+there were two good beds in it, and a closet within the room which held
+another.&nbsp; The accent in which she spoke of this third bed, did
+not say much for it; - however, she said there were three beds and but
+three people, and she durst say, the gentleman would do anything to
+accommodate matters. - I left not the lady a moment to make a conjecture
+about it - so instantly made a declaration that I would do anything
+in my power.</p>
+<p>As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber,
+I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do
+the honours of it; - so I desired the lady to sit down, - pressed her
+into the warmest seat, - called for more wood, - desired the hostess
+to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best
+wine.</p>
+<p>The lady had scarce warm&rsquo;d herself five minutes at the fire,
+before she began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds;
+and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they return&rsquo;d
+perplexd; - I felt for her - and for myself: for in a few minutes, what
+by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much embarrassed
+as it was possible the lady could be herself.</p>
+<p>That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was
+enough simply by itself to have excited all this; - but the position
+of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other as
+only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt them, rendered
+the affair still more oppressive to us; - they were fixed up moreover
+near the fire; and the projection of the chimney on one side, and a
+large beam which cross&rsquo;d the room on the other, formed a kind
+of recess for them that was no way favourable to the nicety of our sensations:
+- if anything could have added to it, it was that the two beds were
+both of them so very small, as to cut us off from every idea of the
+lady and the maid lying together; which in either of them, could it
+have been feasible, my lying beside them, though a thing not to be wish&rsquo;d,
+yet there was nothing in it so terrible which the imagination might
+not have pass&rsquo;d over without torment.</p>
+<p>As for the little room within, it offer&rsquo;d little or no consolation
+to us: &rsquo;twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-shutter,
+and with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in it to keep
+out the tempest of the night.&nbsp; I did not endeavour to stifle my
+cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course
+to this alternative - That the lady should sacrifice her health to her
+feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the bed next
+mine to her maid, - or that the girl should take the closet, &amp;c.,
+&amp;c.</p>
+<p>The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health
+in her cheeks.&nbsp; The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk
+and lively a French girl as ever moved. - There were difficulties every
+way, - and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into
+the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing
+it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now. - I have only to add,
+that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that
+we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each other
+upon the occasion.</p>
+<p>We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it
+than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish&rsquo;d, our tongues had
+been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at liberty; - but
+the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down
+her <i>fille de chambre</i> for a couple of them; so that by the time
+supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired
+with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without reserve
+upon our situation.&nbsp; We turn&rsquo;d it every way, and debated
+and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two hours&rsquo;
+negotiation; at the end of which the articles were settled finally betwixt
+us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a treaty of peace, - and
+I believe with as much religion and good faith on both sides as in any
+treaty which has yet had the honour of being handed down to posterity.</p>
+<p>They were as follow: -</p>
+<p>First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur, - and he thinking
+the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists upon the concession
+on the lady&rsquo;s side of taking up with it.</p>
+<p>Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the curtains
+of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise
+too scanty to draw close, that the <i>fille de chambre</i> shall fasten
+up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such
+manner as shall be deem&rsquo;d a sufficient barrier on the side of
+Monsieur.</p>
+<p>2dly.&nbsp; It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall
+lie the whole night through in his <i>robe de chambre</i>.</p>
+<p>Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a <i>robe de chambre</i>;
+he having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk
+pair of breeches.</p>
+<p>The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of
+the article, - for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for the
+<i>robe de chambre</i>; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that
+I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.</p>
+<p>3dly.&nbsp; It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady,
+that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire extinguished,
+that Monsieur should not speak one single word the whole night.</p>
+<p>Granted; provided Monsieur&rsquo;s saying his prayers might not be
+deemed an infraction of the treaty.</p>
+<p>There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the manner
+in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress and get to
+bed; - there was but one way of doing it, and that I leave to the reader
+to devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is not the most delicate
+in nature, &rsquo;tis the fault of his own imagination, - against which
+this is not my first complaint.</p>
+<p>Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the situation,
+or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not shut my eyes;
+I tried this side, and that, and turn&rsquo;d and turn&rsquo;d again,
+till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience both wearing
+out, - O, my God! said I.</p>
+<p>- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no
+more slept than myself. - I begg&rsquo;d a thousand pardons - but insisted
+it was no more than an ejaculation.&nbsp; She maintained &rsquo;twas
+an entire infraction of the treaty - I maintained it was provided for
+in the clause of the third article.</p>
+<p>The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken&rsquo;d
+her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear two
+or three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.</p>
+<p>Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I, - stretching my arm out
+of bed by way of asseveration. -</p>
+<p>(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed against
+the remotest idea of decorum for the world); -</p>
+<p>But the <i>fille de chambre</i> hearing there were words between
+us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently
+out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close to
+our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which separated
+them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress
+and me: -</p>
+<p>So that when I stretch&rsquo;d out my hand I caught hold of the <i>fille
+de chambre&rsquo;s</i> -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Footnotes:</p>
+<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a>&nbsp; Nosegay.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a>&nbsp; Hackney
+coach.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a>&nbsp; Plate,
+napkin, knife, fork and spoon.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>End of the Project Gutenberg eBook A Sentimental Journey through
+France and Italy</p>
+<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY ***</p>
+<pre>
+
+******This file should be named senjr10h.htm or senjr10h.zip******
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