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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
+
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+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.
+
+
+
+
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