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diff --git a/old/senjr10h.htm b/old/senjr10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0eabf44 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/senjr10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4050 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>A Sentimental Journey</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Sentimental Journey + +Author: Laurence Sterne + +Release Date: February, 1997 [EBook #804] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1997] +[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1892 George Bell and Son edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>They order, said I, this matter better in France. - You have been +in France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil +triumph in the world. - Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, +That one and twenty miles sailing, for ’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 <i>droits d’aubaine</i>; - my shirts, and black pair of silk +breeches, - portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France; +- even the little picture which I have so long worn, and so often have +told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been +torn from my neck! - Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary +passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their coast! - By heaven! +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! -</p> +<p>But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France’s +health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary, +high honour for the humanity of his temper, - I rose up an inch taller +for the accommodation.</p> +<p>- No - said I - the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may +be misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood. +As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek +- more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two +livres a bottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could have produced.</p> +<p>- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in +this world’s goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make +so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by +the way?</p> +<p>When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is +the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding +it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he sought for an +object to share it with. - In doing this, I felt every vessel in my +frame dilate, - the arteries beat all cheerily together, and every power +which sustained life, performed it with so little friction, that ’twould +have confounded the most <i>physical précieuse</i> in France; +with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine. +-</p> +<p>I’m confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her +creed.</p> +<p>The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high +as she could go; - I was at peace with the world before, and this finish’d +the treaty with myself. -</p> +<p>- Now, was I King of France, cried I - what a moment for an orphan +to have begg’d his father’s portmanteau of me!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE MONK. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of +St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent. +No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies - or one +man may be generous, as another is puissant; - <i>sed non quoad hanc</i> +- or be it as it may, - for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs +and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same causes, for +aught I know, which influence the tides themselves: ’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.</p> +<p>- But, be this as it may, - the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I +was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly, I +put my purse into my pocket - buttoned it - set myself a little more +upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was something, +I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this moment before +my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better.</p> +<p>The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered +white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might be +about seventy; - but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was +in them, which seemed more temper’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.</p> +<p>It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted, - mild, +pale - penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented +ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; - it look’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.</p> +<p>The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might +put it into the hands of any one to design, for ’twas neither +elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so: it +was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it lost +not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, - but it was the +attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my imagination, +it gained more than it lost by it.</p> +<p>When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying +his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journey’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.</p> +<p>- A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single +sous.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE MONK. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- ’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 <i>great claims</i> which are hourly made upon it.</p> +<p>As I pronounced the words <i>great claims</i>, he gave a slight glance +with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic: - I felt the full +force of the appeal - I acknowledge it, said I: - a coarse habit, and +that but once in three years with meagre diet, - are no great matters; +and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn’d in the world +with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them +by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, +the aged and the infirm; - the captive who lies down counting over and +over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also for his share +of it; and had you been of the <i>order of mercy</i>, instead of the +order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, +full cheerfully should it have been open’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, <i>for the love +of God</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE MONK. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>My heart smote me the moment he shut the door - Psha! said I, with +an air of carelessness, three several times - but it would not do: every +ungracious syllable I had utter’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE DESOBLIGEANT. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however, +that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. +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 <i>désobligeant</i> in the furthest +corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got +into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered +the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel: - but +Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, +whom I saw on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady +just arrived at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and +being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and +wrote the preface to it in the <i>désobligeant.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>PREFACE. IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That +nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries +and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her +purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost +insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his sufferings +at home. 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 <i>her</i> 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.</p> +<p>It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental +commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what +he has little occasion for, at their own price; - his conversation will +seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount, - and +this, by the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable +brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great +spirit of divination to guess at his party -</p> +<p>This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw +of this <i>désobligeant</i> will but let me get on) into the +efficient as well as final causes of travelling -</p> +<p>Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for +some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general +causes:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Infirmity of body,<br />Imbecility of mind, or<br />Inevitable necessity.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The first two include all those who travel by land or by water, labouring +with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined <i>ad +infinitum</i>.</p> +<p>The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more +especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the +benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the direction +of governors recommended by the magistrate; - or young gentlemen transported +by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction +of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.</p> +<p>There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would +not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of this nature +to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of +character. And these men I speak of, are such as cross the seas +and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of saving money for +various reasons and upon various pretences: but as they might also save +themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving +their money at home, - and as their reasons for travelling are the least +complex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these +gentlemen by the name of</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Simple Travellers.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following +<i>heads</i>:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Idle Travellers,<br />Inquisitive Travellers,<br />Lying Travellers,<br />Proud +Travellers,<br />Vain Travellers,<br />Splenetic Travellers.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Then follow:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The Travellers of Necessity,<br />The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,<br />The +Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,<br />The Simple Traveller,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning +thereby myself) who have travell’d, and of which I am now sitting +down to give an account, - as much out of <i>Necessity</i>, and the +<i>besoin de Voyager</i>, as any one in the class.</p> +<p>I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations +will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that +I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely to myself; - but I +should break in upon the confines of the <i>Vain</i> Traveller, in wishing +to draw attention towards me, till I have some better grounds for it +than the mere <i>Novelty of my Vehicle.</i></p> +<p>It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself, +that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine +his own place and rank in the catalogue; - it will be one step towards +knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and +resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.</p> +<p>The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape +of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the +same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French +mountains, - he was too phlegmatic for that - but undoubtedly he expected +to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent, +- he knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon +his choice, but that what is generally called <i>choice</i>, was to +decide his success: however, he hoped for the best; and in these hopes, +by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude of his head, and the depth +of his discretion, <i>Mynheer</i> might possibly oversee both in his +new vineyard; and by discovering his nakedness, become a laughing stock +to his people.</p> +<p>Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting through +the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.</p> +<p>Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for +that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is +all a lottery; - and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired +stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit: +- but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the +acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as +wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign +knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country +that has no absolute want of either; - and indeed, much grief of heart +has it oft and many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a +foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look +into discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they +might have seen dry-shod at home. 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? -</p> +<p>We are only looking at this chaise, said they. - Your most obedient +servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat. - We were +wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an <i>Inquisitive Traveller</i>, +- what could occasion its motion. - ’Twas the agitation, said +I, coolly, of writing a preface. - I never heard, said the other, who +was a <i>Simple Traveller</i>, of a preface wrote in a <i>désobligeant</i>. +- It would have been better, said I, in a <i>vis-a-vis.</i></p> +<p><i>- As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen</i>, I retired +to my room.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I perceived that something darken’d the passage more than myself, +as I stepp’d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, +the master of the hôtel, who had just returned from vespers, and +with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to +put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out +of conceit with the <i>désobligeant</i>, and Mons. Dessein speaking +of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck +my fancy that it belong’d to some <i>Innocent Traveller</i>, 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.</p> +<p>- Now was I the master of this hôtel, said I, laying the point +of my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein’s breast, I would inevitably +make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate <i>désobligeant</i>; +- it stands swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.</p> +<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said Mons. Dessein, - I have no interest - Except +the interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons. +Dessein, in their own sensations, - I’m persuaded, to a man who +feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise +it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits: - You suffer, Mons. +Dessein, as much as the machine -</p> +<p>I have always observed, when there is as much <i>sour</i> as <i>sweet</i> +in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself, +whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein +made me a bow.</p> +<p><i>C’est bien vrai</i>, said he. - But in this case I should +only exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to +yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall +to pieces before you had got half-way to Paris, - figure to yourself +how much I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a +man of honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, <i>d’un homme +d’esprit</i>.</p> +<p>The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could +not help tasting it, - and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without +more casuistry we walk’d together towards his Remise, to take +a view of his magazine of chaises.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>IN THE STREET. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it +be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof +into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly +falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with +the same sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park +corner to fight a duel. 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, <i>en face</i>; - thought like a Jew, - then +a Turk, - disliked his wig, - cursed him by my gods, - wished him at +the devil. -</p> +<p>- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account +of three or four louis d’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.</p> +<p>Monsieur Dessein had <i>diabled</i> the key above fifty times before +he had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as +impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle +that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing it: so that +Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in mine, and with our +faces turned towards the door of the Remise, and said he would be back +in five minutes.</p> +<p>Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one +of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the latter +case, ’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. -</p> +<p>- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for +the weaknesses of my heart in this tour, - but to give an account of +them) - shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt +them.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the <i>désobligeant</i>, +because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived +at the inn - 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.</p> +<p>When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment +a world of pains. - I was certain she was of a better order of beings; +- however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my preface.</p> +<p>The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; +a guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I thought, +her good education and her good sense; and as I led her on, I felt a +pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmness over all my +spirits -</p> +<p>- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the +world with him! -</p> +<p>I had not yet seen her face - ’twas not material: for the drawing +was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the +Remise, <i>Fancy</i> had finished the whole head, and pleased herself +as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber +for it; - but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou +cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with +so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in +the shapes of so many angels of light, ’tis a shame to break with +thee.</p> +<p>When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand +from across her forehead, and let me see the original: - it was a face +of about six-and-twenty, - of a clear transparent brown, simply set +off without rouge or powder; - it was not critically handsome, but there +was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much +more to it, - it was interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of +a widow’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 <i>bon ton</i> of conversation +permitted, as in the days of Esdras) - “<i>What ailelh thee? and +why art thou disquieted? and why is thy understanding troubled</i>?” +- 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.</p> +<p>Such were my temptations; - and in this disposition to give way to +them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and with +our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remise than what was +absolutely necessary.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little lightly +as I began, must be one of Fortune’s whimsical doings; to take +two utter strangers by their hands, - of different sexes, and perhaps +from different corners of the globe, and in one moment place them together +in such a cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have +achieved for them, had she projected it for a month.</p> +<p>- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has embarrassed +you by the adventure -</p> +<p>When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed +as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, +continued she - you had reason - the heart knew it, and was satisfied; +and who but an English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the +brain to reverse the judgment?</p> +<p>In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought +a sufficient commentary upon the text.</p> +<p>It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness +of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier occasions +could not have inflicted. - I was mortified with the loss of her hand, +and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to +the wound: I never felt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably +in my life.</p> +<p>The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these discomfitures. +In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in +order to finish her reply; so, some way or other, God knows how, I regained +my situation.</p> +<p>- She had nothing to add.</p> +<p>I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady, +thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been mistaken +in her character; but upon turning her face towards me, the spirit which +had animated the reply was fled, - the muscles relaxed, and I beheld +the same unprotected look of distress which first won me to her interest: +- melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey of sorrow, - I pitied +her from my soul; and though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid +heart, - I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though +it was in the open street, without brushing.</p> +<p>The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers, +told her what was passing within me: she looked down - a silence of +some moments followed.</p> +<p>I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts towards +a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I felt in +the palm of my own, - not as if she was going to withdraw hers - but +as if she thought about it; - and I had infallibly lost it a second +time, had not instinct more than reason directed me to the last resource +in these dangers, - to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was +every moment going to release it, of myself; so she let it continue, +till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key; and in the mean time I +set myself to consider how I should undo the ill impressions which the +poor monk’s story, in case he had told it her, must have planted +in her breast against me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE SNUFF BOX. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him +crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, +as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. - He stopp’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.</p> +<p>The poor monk blush’d as red as scarlet. <i>Mon Dieu</i>! +said he, pressing his hands together - you never used me unkindly. - +I should think, said the lady, he is not likely. 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.</p> +<p>I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable +a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. - We remained silent, without +any sensation of that foolish pain which takes place, when, in such +a circle, you look for ten minutes in one another’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.</p> +<p>I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, +to help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go abroad +without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous +spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the justlings of the world: +they had found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story, +till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military +services ill requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment +in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, +and took sanctuary not so much in his convent as in himself.</p> +<p>I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my last +return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard +he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, +but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, +about two leagues off: I had a strong desire to see where they had laid +him, - when, upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, +and plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business +to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections, +that I burst into a flood of tears: - but I am as weak as a woman; and +I beg the world not to smile, but to pity me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard, happening +at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our communications, naturally +took it into their heads that we must be <i>man and wife</i> at least; +so, stopping as soon as they came up to the door of the Remise, the +one of them who was the Inquisitive Traveller, ask’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, <i>that Amiens was in</i> <i>the road to +Paris</i>, 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. -</p> +<p>- Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg +of this distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise? - and what mighty +mischief could ensue?</p> +<p>Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm, +as I stated the proposition. - It will oblige you to have a third horse, +said Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your pocket; - You +know not what she is, said Caution; - or what scrapes the affair may +draw you into, whisper’d Cowardice. -</p> +<p>Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, ’twill be said you +went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that +purpose; -</p> +<p>- You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the +world; - or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church; - or be any thing in +it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.</p> +<p>But ’tis a civil thing, said I; - and as I generally act from +the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which +serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant +- I turned instantly about to the lady. -</p> +<p>- But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading, +and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I had +made the determination; so I set off after her with a long stride, to +make her the proposal, with the best address I was master of: but observing +she walk’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>IN THE STREET. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something within +me called out for a more particular enquiry; - it brought on the idea +of a further separation: - I might possibly never see her more: - The +heart is for saving what it can; and I wanted the traces through which +my wishes might find their way to her, in case I should never rejoin +her myself; in a word, I wished to know her name, - her family’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.</p> +<p>A little French <i>débonnaire</i> captain, who came dancing +down the street, showed me it was the easiest thing in the world: for, +popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returning back to the door +of the Remise, he introduced himself to my acquaintance, and before +he had well got announced, begg’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. - <i>Vous +n’êtes pas de Londres</i>? - She was not, she replied. - +Then Madame must have come through Flanders. - <i>Apparemment vous êtes +Flammande</i>? said the French captain. - The lady answered, she was. +- <i>Peut être de Lisle</i>? added he. - She said, she was not +of Lisle. - Nor Arras? - nor Cambray? - nor Ghent? - nor Brussels? - +She answered, she was of Brussels.</p> +<p>He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last +war; - that it was finely situated, <i>pour cela</i>, - and full of +noblesse when the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the lady +made a slight courtesy) - so giving her an account of the affair, and +of the share he had had in it, - he begg’d the honour to know +her name, - so made his bow.</p> +<p>- <i>Et Madame a son Mari</i>? - said he, looking back when he had +made two steps, - and, without staying for an answer - danced down the +street.</p> +<p>Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could +not have done as much.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with +the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his magazine +of chaises.</p> +<p>The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open’d +the door of the Remise, was another old tatter’d <i>désobligeant</i>; +and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my +fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before, - 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.</p> +<p>I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so Mons. +Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast, telling +us, as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by my lord +A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had gone no further than Paris, +so were in all respects as good as new. - They were too good; - so I +pass’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p><i>C’est bien comique</i>, ’tis very droll, said the +lady, smiling, from the reflection that this was the second time we +a had been left together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies, - +<i>c’est bien comique</i>, said she. -</p> +<p>- There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use which +the gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to, - to make love the first +moment, and an offer of his person the second.</p> +<p>’Tis their <i>fort</i>, replied the lady.</p> +<p>It is supposed so at least; - and how it has come to pass, continued +I, I know not; but they have certainly got the credit of understanding +more of love, and making it better than any other nation upon earth; +but, for my own part, I think them arrant bunglers, and in truth the +worst set of marksmen that ever tried Cupid’s patience.</p> +<p>- To think of making love by <i>sentiments</i>!</p> +<p>I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of +remnants: - and to do it - pop - at first sight, by declaration - is +submitting the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with all +their <i>pours</i> and <i>contres</i>, by an unheated mind.</p> +<p>The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.</p> +<p>Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:-</p> +<p>That grave people hate love for the name’s sake; -</p> +<p>That selfish people hate it for their own; -</p> +<p>Hypocrites for heaven’s; -</p> +<p>And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse frightened +than hurt by the very <i>report</i>, - what a want of knowledge in this +branch of commence a man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of +his lips, till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence +upon it becomes tormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, +not so pointed as to alarm, - nor so vague as to be misunderstood - +with now and then a look of kindness, and little or nothing said upon +it, - leaves nature for your mistress, and she fashions it to her mind. +-</p> +<p>Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been making +love to me all this while.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE REMISE. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Monsieur Dessein came back to let us out of the chaise, and acquaint +the lady, the count de L-, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel. +Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that I rejoiced +in my heart at the event - and could not help telling her so; - for +it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said I, that I was going to make +to you -</p> +<p>- You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her +hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me. - A man my good Sir, has +seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment +of it some moments before. -</p> +<p>Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation. - But +I think, said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend, - +and, to deal frankly with you, had determined to accept it. - If I had +- (she stopped a moment) - I believe your good will would have drawn +a story from me, which would have made pity the only dangerous thing +in the journey.</p> +<p>In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with +a look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise, +- and bid adieu.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>IN THE STREET. CALAIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I never finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my life: +my time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing every moment +of it would be as two, till I put myself into motion, - I ordered post +horses directly, and walked towards the hotel.</p> +<p>Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting +that I had been little more than a single hour in Calais, -</p> +<p>- What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little +span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, +having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out +to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can <i>fairly</i> +lay his hands on!</p> +<p>- If this won’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, - from Paris +to Rome, - and so on; - but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, +and every object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted. - +He wrote an account of them, but ’twas nothing but the account +of his miserable feelings.</p> +<p>I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon: - he was just +coming out of it. - ’<i>Tis nothing but a huge cockpit</i>, said +he: - I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied +I; - for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul +upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common strumpet, without +the least provocation in nature.</p> +<p>I popp’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. -</p> +<p>- I’ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world. You had +better tell it, said I, to your physician.</p> +<p>Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on +from Rome to Naples, - 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.</p> +<p>Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it +possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give +it; every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to +hail their arrival. - Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus +hear of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh +congratulations of their common felicity. - I heartily pity them; they +have brought up no faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion +in heaven to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be +so far from being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus +would do penance there to all eternity!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got +out in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to help +the postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out what was +wanting. - Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord’s +asking me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that that +was the very thing.</p> +<p>A servant! That I do most sadly, quoth I. - 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, <i>qu’un milord Anglois présentoit un +écu à la fille de chambre. - Tant pis pour Mademoiselle +Janatone</i>, said I.</p> +<p>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 <i>tant pis</i> - but, <i>tant mieux</i>. <i>Tant +mieux, toujours, Monsieur</i>, said he, when there is any thing to be +got - <i>tant pis</i>, when there is nothing. It comes to the +same thing, said I. <i>Pardonnez-moi</i>, said the landlord.</p> +<p>I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that +<i>tant pis</i> and <i>tant mieux</i>, being two of the great hinges +in French conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right +in the use of them, before he gets to Paris.</p> +<p>A prompt French marquis at our ambassador’s table demanded +of Mr. H-, if he was H- the poet? No, said Mr. H-, mildly. - <i>Tant +pis</i>, replied the marquis.</p> +<p>It is H- the historian, said another, - <i>Tant mieux</i>, said the +marquis. And Mr. H-, who is a man of an excellent heart, return’d +thanks for both.</p> +<p>When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La +Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spoke of, - saying +only first, That as for his talents he would presume to say nothing, +- Monsieur was the best judge what would suit him; but for the fidelity +of La Fleur he would stand responsible in all he was worth.</p> +<p>The landlord deliver’d this in a manner which instantly set +my mind to the business I was upon; - and La Fleur, who stood waiting +without, in that breathless expectation which every son of nature of +us have felt in our turns, came in.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I am apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but +never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to so +poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always suffer +my judgment to draw back something on that very account, - and this +more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the case; - and I may +add, the gender too, of the person I am to govern.</p> +<p>When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make +for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter +at once in his favour; so I hired him first, - and then began to enquire +what he could do: But I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want +them, - besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.</p> +<p>Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, +and play a march or two upon the fife. 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.</p> +<p>La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen +do, with <i>serving</i> for a few years; at the end of which, having +satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of beating +a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open’d no further +track of glory to him, - he retired <i>à ses terres</i>, and +lived <i>comme il plaisoit à Dieu</i>; - that is to say, upon +nothing.</p> +<p>- And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in +this tour of yours through France and Italy! - Psha! said I, and do +not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum <i>compagnon du voyage</i> +the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? +When man can extricate himself with an <i>équivoque</i> in such +an unequal match, - he is not ill off. - But you can do something else, +La Fleur? said I. - <i>O qu’oui</i>! he could make spatterdashes, +and play a little upon the fiddle. - Bravo! said Wisdom. - Why, I play +a bass myself, said I; - we shall do very well. 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and +will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further +in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of +the impulses which generally do determine me, than in regard to this +fellow; - he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged +after the heels of a philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of +drum beating and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves, +happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed +by the festivity of his temper; - it supplied all defects: - I had a +constant resource in his looks in all difficulties and distresses of +my own - I was going to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out +of the reach of every thing; for, whether ’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered +to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen +shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the chaise, +- get the horses put to, - and desire the landlord to come in with his +bill.</p> +<p><i>C’est un garcon de bonne fortune</i>, said the landlord, +pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round +about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the +postilion was leading out the horses. La Fleur kissed all their +hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice +he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.</p> +<p>- 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.</p> +<p>- But in saying this, - sure I am commanding the passion, - not myself.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>A FRAGMENT.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying +all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and +most profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons, conspiracies, +and assassinations, - libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no +going there by day - ’twas worse by night.</p> +<p>Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda +of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted +with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated +more upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which +the poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, <i>O Cupid, +prince of gods and men</i>! &c. Every man almost spoke pure +iambics the next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic +address, - “<i>O Cupid! prince of gods and men</i>!” - 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.</p> +<p>No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore, - not a single +armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death; - Friendship +and Virtue met together, and kiss’d each other in the street; +the golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera - every Abderite +took his eaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, +and chastely sat her down and listened to the song.</p> +<p>’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose +empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the +sea, to have done this.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MONTREUIL.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in +the inn, unless you are a little sour’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.</p> +<p>For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, +that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public +act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.</p> +<p>A well-a-way! said I, - I have but eight sous in the world, showing +them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for +’em.</p> +<p>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 <i>parterre</i> cried out, <i>Place +aux dames</i>, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment +of a deference for the sex with half the effect.</p> +<p>Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary +and urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should +find a way to be at unity in this?</p> +<p>- I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his +<i>politesse.</i></p> +<p>A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in +the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been +a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer’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. - <i>Prenez en - prenez</i>, said he, looking another +way; so they each took a pinch. - Pity thy box should ever want one! +said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous into it - taking a small +pinch out of his box, to enhance their value, as I did it. 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.</p> +<p>- Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned +and worn out to death in the service - here’s a couple of sous +for thee. - <i>Vive le Roi</i>! said the old soldier.</p> +<p>I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, <i>pour l’amour +de Dieu</i>, 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.</p> +<p><i>Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur</i>. - There’s +no opposing this, said I.</p> +<p><i>Milord Anglois</i> - the very sound was worth the money; - so +I gave <i>my last sous for it</i>. But in the eagerness of giving, +I had overlooked a <i>pauvre honteux</i>, who had had no one to ask +a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could +have ask’d one for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without +the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better +days. - Good God! said I - and I have not one single sous left to give +him. - But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature, stirring +within me; - so I gave him - no matter what - I am ashamed to say <i>how +much</i> now, - and was ashamed to think how little, then: so, if the +reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two fixed +points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was the +precise sum.</p> +<p>I could afford nothing for the rest, but <i>Dieu vous bénisse</i>!</p> +<p>- <i>Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore</i>, said the old +soldier, the dwarf, &c. The <i>pauvre honteux</i> 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE BIDET.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise +with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La +Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little <i>bidet</i>, +and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs) - he canter’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.</p> +<p>La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more +nor less upon it, than <i>Diable</i>! So presently got up, and +came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as +he would have beat his drum.</p> +<p>The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back +again, - then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by +the dead ass: - La Fleur insisted upon the thing - and the bidet threw +him.</p> +<p>What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine? +Monsieur, said he, <i>c’est un cheval le plus opiniâtre +du monde</i>. - 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. - <i>Peste</i>! said La Fleur.</p> +<p>It is not <i>mal-à-propos</i> to take notice here, that though +La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in +this encounter, - namely, <i>Diable</i>! and <i>Peste</i>! that there +are, nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive, +comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for every +unexpected throw of the dice in life.</p> +<p><i>Le Diable</i>! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally +used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall +out contrary to your expectations; such as - the throwing once doublets +- La Fleur’s being kick’d off his horse, and so forth. - +Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always - <i>Le Diable</i>!</p> +<p>But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in +that of the bidet’s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground +in jack-boots, - ’tis the second degree.</p> +<p>’Tis then <i>Peste</i>!</p> +<p>And for the third -</p> +<p>- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I +reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so +refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use +of it. -</p> +<p>Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in distress! +- what ever is my <i>cast</i>, grant me but decent words to exclaim +in, and I will give my nature way.</p> +<p>- But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every +evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.</p> +<p>La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the +bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight, - and then, you may +imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.</p> +<p>As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there +remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise, +or into it. -</p> +<p>I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house +at Nampont.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>NAMPONT. THE DEAD ASS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- And this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet +- and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive +to have shared it with me. - I thought, by the accent, it had been an +apostrophe to his child; but ’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur +amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued +sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.</p> +<p>- He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the +furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, +when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know what business +could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own +home.</p> +<p>It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the +finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest +of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, +he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven +would not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago +in Spain.</p> +<p>When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’d to pay +Nature her tribute, - and wept bitterly.</p> +<p>He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set +out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient +partner of his journey; - that it had eaten the same bread with him +all the way, and was unto him as a friend.</p> +<p>Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern. - +La Fleur offered him money. - The mourner said he did not want it; - +it was not the value of the ass - but the loss of him. - The ass, he +said, he was assured, loved him; - and upon this told them a long story +of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which +had separated them from each other three days; during which time the +ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that they had +scarce either eaten or drank till they met.</p> +<p>Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy +poor beast; I’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. -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>NAMPONT. THE POSTILION.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>pavé</i> in a full gallop.</p> +<p>The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not +have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and +quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion +had he but stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace. - On +the contrary, as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave +an unfeeling lash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like +a thousand devils.</p> +<p>I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’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.</p> +<p>The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had +got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont, - +he had put me out of temper with him, - and then with myself, for being +so.</p> +<p>My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling +gallop would have been of real service to me. -</p> +<p>- Then, prithee, get on - get on, my good lad, said I.</p> +<p>The postilion pointed to the hill. - I then tried to return back +to the story of the poor German and his ass - but I had broke the clue, +- and could no more get into it again, than the postilion could into +a trot.</p> +<p>- The deuce go, said I, with it all! Here am I sitting as candidly +disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runs +counter.</p> +<p>There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds +out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the +first word which roused me was <i>Amiens.</i></p> +<p>- Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes, - this is the very town where +my poor lady is to come.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>AMIENS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L-’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 <i>penchant</i> she +had not considered, that she had been prevented telling me her story, +- that she still owed it to me; and if my route should ever lay through +Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name of Madame de L-, - that +Madame de L- would be glad to discharge her obligation.</p> +<p>Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels; - ’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?</p> +<p>There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached +my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.</p> +<p>It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings +of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some +one; and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy +on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure +taper of Eliza but about three months before, - swearing, as I did it, +that it should last me through the whole journey. - Why should I dissemble +the matter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity; - she had a right +to my whole heart: - to divide my affections was to lessen them; - to +expose them was to risk them: where there is risk there may be loss: +- and what wilt thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust +and confidence - so good, so gentle, and unreproaching!</p> +<p>- I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself. - But +my imagination went on, - I recalled her looks at that crisis of our +separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu! 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?</p> +<p>Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground, +- be thou my witness - and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my +witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went +along with me, did the road lead me towards heaven!</p> +<p>In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding, +will always say too much.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE LETTER. AMIENS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Fortune had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful +in his feats of chivalry, - and not one thing had offered to signalise +his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which +was almost four-and-twenty hours. 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 +<i>prevenancy</i> (for there was a passport in his very looks) soon +set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him; and as a Frenchman, +whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in showing them, La +Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his fife, and leading +off the dance himself with the first note, set the <i>fille de chambre</i>, +the <i>maître d’hôtel</i>, the cook, the scullion, +and all the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: +I suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.</p> +<p>Madame de L-, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her +own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her <i>fille de chambre</i> +to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, +who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.</p> +<p>As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded +himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de +L-, on the part of his master, - added a long apocrypha of inquiries +after Madame de L-’s health, - told her, that Monsieur his master +was <i>au désespoire</i> for her re-establishment from the fatigues +of her journey, - and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the +letter which Madame had done him the honour - And he has done me the +honour, said Madame de L-, interrupting La Fleur, to send a billet in +return.</p> +<p>Madame de L- had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the +fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations; - +he trembled for my honour, - and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned +for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could +be wanting <i>en égards vis à vis d’une femme</i>! +so that when Madame de L- asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, +- <i>O qu’oui</i>, said La Fleur: so laying down his hat upon +the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket with +his left hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; - then +contrariwise. - <i>Diable</i>! then sought every pocket - pocket by +pocket, round, not forgetting his fob: - <i>Peste</i>! - then La Fleur +emptied them upon the floor, - pulled out a dirty cravat, - a handkerchief, +- a comb, - a whip lash, - a nightcap, - then gave a peep into his hat, +- <i>Quelle étourderie</i>! He had left the letter upon +the table in the auberge; - he would run for it, and be back with it +in three minutes.</p> +<p>I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an +account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was: +and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (<i>par hazard</i>) to answer +Madame’s letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover +the <i>faux pas</i>; - and if not, that things were only as they were.</p> +<p>Now I was not altogether sure of my <i>étiquette</i>, 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.</p> +<p>- ’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.</p> +<p>I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that +nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made half +a dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.</p> +<p>In short, I was in no mood to write.</p> +<p>La Fleur stepp’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. +- <i>Le diable l’emporte</i>! said I, half to myself, - I cannot +write this self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I +said it.</p> +<p>As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most +respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand apologies +for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his +pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal’s wife, +which he durst say would suit the occasion.</p> +<p>I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour. - Then prithee, +said I, let me see it.</p> +<p>La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm’d +full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying +it upon the table, and then untying the string which held them all together, +run them over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question, - +<i>La voila</i>! said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, +he laid it open before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst +I read it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE LETTER.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Madame,</p> +<p>Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plus vive, +et réduit en même temps au désespoir par ce retour +imprévù du Caporal qui rend notre entrevûe de ce +soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.</p> +<p>Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous.</p> +<p>L’amour n’est <i>rien</i> sans sentiment.</p> +<p>Et le sentiment est encore <i>moins</i> sans amour.</p> +<p>On dit qu’on ne doit jamais se désesperér.</p> +<p>On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors +ce cera mon tour.</p> +<p><i>Chacun à son tour</i>.</p> +<p>En attendant - Vive l’amour! et vive la bagatelle!</p> +<p>Je suis, Madame,</p> +<p>Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux et les plus tendres,</p> +<p>tout à vous,</p> +<p>JAQUES ROQUE.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It was but changing the Corporal into the Count, - and saying nothing +about mounting guard on Wednesday, - and the letter was neither right +nor wrong: - so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for +my honour, his own, and the honour of his letter, - I took the cream +gently off it, and whipping it up in my own way, I seal’d it up +and sent him with it to Madame de L-; - and the next morning we pursued +our journey to Paris.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all +on floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple +of cooks - ’tis very well in such a place as Paris, - he may drive +in at which end of a street he will.</p> +<p>A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does +not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself +in the cabinet, if he can get up into it; - I say <i>up into it</i> +- for there is no descending perpendicular amongst ’em with a +“<i>Me voici</i>! <i>mes enfans</i>” - here I am - whatever +many may think.</p> +<p>I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone +in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as +I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my +dusty black coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world in +yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure. - The old +with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their vizards; - the +young in armour bright which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay +feather of the east, - all, - all, tilting at it like fascinated knights +in tournaments of yore for fame and love. -</p> +<p>Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? 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! -</p> +<p>- 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE WIG. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>- But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won’t stand. - You +may emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. -</p> +<p>What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I. - +The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker’s ideas could have +gone no further than to have “dipped it into a pail of water.” +- What difference! ’tis like Time to Eternity!</p> +<p>I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas +which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works +of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make +a comparison less than a mountain at least. All that can be said +against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is this: - That +the grandeur is <i>more</i> in the <i>word</i>, and <i>less</i> in the +<i>thing</i>. No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; +but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a +hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment; - the Parisian barber +meant nothing. -</p> +<p>The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly, +but a sorry figure in speech; - but, ’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.</p> +<p>In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, <i>The +French expression professes more than it performs.</i></p> +<p>I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national +characters more in these nonsensical <i>minutiae</i> than in the most +important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and +stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst +them.</p> +<p>I was so long in getting from under my barber’s hands, that +it was too late to think of going with my letter to Madame R- that night: +but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections +turn to little account; so taking down the name of the Hôtel de +Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where +to go; - I shall consider of that, said I, as I walk along.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PULSE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the +road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love +at first sight: ’tis ye who open this door and let the stranger +in.</p> +<p>- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I +must turn to go to the Opéra Comique? - Most willingly, Monsieur, +said she, laying aside her work. -</p> +<p>I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came +along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption: +till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.</p> +<p>She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on +the far side of the shop, facing the door.</p> +<p>- <i>Tres volontiers</i>, most willingly, said she, laying her work +down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was +sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that +had I been laying out fifty louis d’ors with her, I should have +said - “This woman is grateful.”</p> +<p>You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the +shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take, - you must +turn first to your left hand, - <i>mais prenez garde</i> - there are +two turns; and be so good as to take the second - then go down a little +way and you’ll see a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself +the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to +the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross - and there any one +will do himself the pleasure to show you. -</p> +<p>She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same +goodnatur’d patience the third time as the first; - and if <i>tones +and</i> <i>manners</i> have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless +to hearts which shut them out, - she seemed really interested that I +should not lose myself.</p> +<p>I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty, notwithstanding +she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much +to do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I +told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her +eyes, - and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.</p> +<p>I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot +every tittle of what she had said; - so looking back, and seeing her +still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went +right or not, - I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was +to my right or left, - for that I had absolutely forgot. - Is it possible! +said she, half laughing. ’Tis very possible, replied I, +when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.</p> +<p>As this was the real truth - she took it, as every woman takes a +matter of right, with a slight curtsey.</p> +<p>- <i>Attendez</i>! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain +me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel +of gloves. 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.</p> +<p>- He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment. - And in that +moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to +you for all these courtesies. 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. -</p> +<p>- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld +me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting +the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had +been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever. - How wouldst thou +have laugh’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 +<i>than feeling a woman’s pulse</i>.” - But a grisette’s! +thou wouldst have said, - and in an open shop! Yorick -</p> +<p>- So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care +not if all the world saw me feel it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE HUSBAND. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the +fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into +the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. - ’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.</p> +<p>Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, - and can this man be +the husband of this woman!</p> +<p>Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds +of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.</p> +<p>In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper’s wife seem to be one +bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes +the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a +par, and totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.</p> +<p>In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for +the legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the +husband, he seldom comes there: - in some dark and dismal room behind, +he sits commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of +Nature that Nature left him.</p> +<p>The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is <i>salique</i>, +having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women, +- by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from +morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in +a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and +sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, +some of them, a polish like a brilliant: - Monsieur <i>le Mari</i> is +little better than the stone under your foot.</p> +<p>- Surely, - surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: - +thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this +improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.</p> +<p>- And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she. - With all the benignity, +said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected. - She was going +to say something civil in return - but the lad came into the shop with +the gloves. - <i>Á propos</i>, said I, I want a couple of pairs +myself.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE GLOVES. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety, - where whim, +and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the +languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them; - they +are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce +say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men of words +to swell pages about it - it is enough in the present to say again, +the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both +lolled upon the counter - it was narrow, and there was just room for +the parcel to lay between us.</p> +<p>The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways +to the window, then at the gloves, - and then at me. I was not +disposed to break silence: - I followed her example: so, I looked at +the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her, +- and so on alternately.</p> +<p>I found I lost considerably in every attack: - she had a quick black +eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, +that she look’d into my very heart and reins. - It may seem strange, +but I could actually feel she did. -</p> +<p>It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, +and putting them into my pocket.</p> +<p>I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single +livre above the price. - I wish’d she had asked a livre more, +and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about. - Do you think, +my dear Sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask +a sous too much of a stranger - and of a stranger whose politeness, +more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself +at my mercy? - <i>M’en croyez capable</i>? - 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE TRANSLATION. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might +be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles. As +soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into +a shagreen case, return’d them and the book into his pocket together. +I half rose up, and made him a bow.</p> +<p>Translate this into any civilized language in the world - the sense +is this:</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he +had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, +and told him, “I was sensible of his attention, and return’d +him a thousand thanks for it.”</p> +<p>There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as +to get master of this <i>short hand</i>, and to be quick in rendering +the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and +delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, +I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I +go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in +the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off +twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote +down and sworn to.</p> +<p>I was going one evening to Martini’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 <i>cicisbeo</i> +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.</p> +<p>I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation +gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE DWARF. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by +one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that +being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what +struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre, - and that was, +the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs. +- No doubt she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the +world; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements. - The goddess +seems almost as merry as she is wise.</p> +<p>As I carried my idea out of the Opéra Comique with me, I measured +every body I saw walking in the streets by it. - Melancholy application! +especially where the size was extremely little, - the face extremely +dark, - the eyes quick, - the nose long, - the teeth white, - the jaw +prominent, - to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven +out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which +it gives me pain to write down: - every third man a pigmy! - some by +rickety heads and hump backs; - others by bandy legs; - a third set +arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their +growth; - a fourth, in their perfect and natural state like dwarf apple +trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never +meant to grow higher.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found +it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified +in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I was walking down that which +leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little +boy in some distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle +of it, I took hold of his hand and help’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.</p> +<p>I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be merciful +towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size +nor strength to get on in the world. - I cannot bear to see one of them +trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere +the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the +box we sat in.</p> +<p>At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side +box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, +numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>bear and forbear</i>! - how sweetly would it +have lent an ear to this poor soul’s complaint!</p> +<p>The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion, +as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the matter? +- I told him the story in three words; and added, how inhuman it was.</p> +<p>By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first transports, +which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he would cut off +his long queue with his knife. - The German look’d back coolly, +and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>- In England, dear Sir, said I, <i>we sit all at our ease</i>.</p> +<p>The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in +case I had been at variance, - by saying it was a <i>bon mot</i>; - +and, as a <i>bon mot</i> is always worth something at Paris, he offered +me a pinch of snuff.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE ROSE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It was now my turn to ask the old French officer “What was +the matter?” for a cry of “<i>Haussez les mains, Monsieur +l’Abbé</i>!” re-echoed from a dozen different parts +of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the +monk had been to him.</p> +<p>He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper loges, +who, he supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes +in order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting +upon his holding up both his hands during the representation. - 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.</p> +<p>Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment - is it possible, +that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, +and so unlike themselves, - <i>Quelle grossièrté</i>! +added I.</p> +<p>The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church, +which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given +in it by Molière: but like other remains of Gothic manners, was +declining. - Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and +<i>grossièrtés</i>, in which they take the lead, and lose +it of one another by turns: - that he had been in most countries, but +never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others seemed +to want. <i>Le</i> POUR <i>et le</i> CONTRE <i>se trouvent en +chaque nation</i>; there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere; +and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one half of the +world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: - that +the advantage of travel, as it regarded the <i>sçavoir vivre</i>, +was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual +toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught +us mutual love.</p> +<p>The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour +and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of +his character: - 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.</p> +<p>It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, - if the +latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every +object which he never saw before. - I have as little torment of this +kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a +thing gave me pain, and that I blush’d at many a word the first +month, - which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.</p> +<p>Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with +her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues +out of town. - Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct; +and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart. - In +our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord. - +I asked her if she wanted anything - <i>Rien que pour pisser</i>, said +Madame de Rambouliet.</p> +<p>Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p-ss on. +- And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one <i>pluck your rose</i>, and +scatter them in your path, - for Madame de Rambouliet did no more. - +I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest +of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with +a more respectful decorum.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. <i>Comment</i>! +said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt +us. - He said they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be +sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B-.</p> +<p>- And does the Count de B-, said I, read Shakespeare? <i>C’est +un esprit fort</i>, replied the bookseller. - He loves English books! +and what is more to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too. +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 <i>fille de chambre</i> +to some devout woman of fashion, come into the shop and asked for <i>Les +Egarements du Coeur et de l’Esprit</i>: the bookseller gave her +the book directly; she pulled out a little green satin purse run round +with a riband of the same colour, and putting her finger and thumb into +it, she took out the money and paid for it. As I had nothing more +to stay me in the shop, we both walk’d out at the door together.</p> +<p>- And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with <i>The Wanderings +of the Heart</i>, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has +first told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst +thou ever be sure it is so. - <i>Le Dieu m’en garde</i>! 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said +I, if I had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the +crown, you’ll remember it; - so don’t, my dear, lay it out +in ribands.</p> +<p>Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable; - in +saying which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me +her hand: - <i>En vérité, Monsieur, je mettrai cet argent +àpart</i>, said she.</p> +<p>When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it sanctifies +their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was dusky, yet as both +our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple of walking along the +Quai de Conti together.</p> +<p>She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got twenty +yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before, she made +a sort of a little stop to tell me again - she thank’d me.</p> +<p>It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying +to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been rendering +it to for the world; - but I see innocence, my dear, in your face, - +and foul befall the man who ever lays a snare in its way!</p> +<p>The girl seem’d affected some way or other with what I said; +- she gave a low sigh: - I found I was not empowered to enquire at all +after it, - so said nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue +de Nevers, where, we were to part.</p> +<p>- But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene? +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 <i>fille de chambre</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Egarements +du Coeur</i> &c. more commodiously than carrying them in her hand +- they were two volumes: so I held the second for her whilst she put +the first into her pocket; and then she held her pocket, and I put in +the other after it.</p> +<p>’Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections +are drawn together.</p> +<p>We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her +hand within my arm. - I was just bidding her, - but she did it of herself, +with that undeliberating simplicity, which show’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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men, - I did, what +amounted to the same thing -</p> +<p>- I bid God bless her.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired +after by the Lieutenant de Police. - The deuce take it! said I, - I +know the reason. It is time the reader should know it, for in +the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it +was out of my head; but that had I told it then it might have been forgotten +now; - and now is the time I want it.</p> +<p>I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter’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.</p> +<p>When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring +after me, - the thing instantly recurred; - and by the time La Fleur +had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell +me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been +particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, +He hoped I had one. - Not I, faith! said I.</p> +<p>The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected +person, as I declared this; - and poor La Fleur advanced three steps +towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to +succour a distress’d one: - the fellow won my heart by it; and +from that single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could +rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven +years.</p> +<p><i>Mon seigneur</i>! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting +himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of +it. - If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (<i>apparemment</i>) +in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one. - +Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. - Then <i>certes</i>, +replied he, you’ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet <i>au +moins</i>. - Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natur’d +soul: - he’ll hurt nobody. - <i>Cela n’empêche pas</i>, +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.</p> +<p><i>Pardi</i>! said my host, <i>ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens +très extraordinaires</i>; - and, having both said and sworn it, +- he went out.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. THE HOTEL AT PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur’s with a serious +look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had +treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, +I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, +talk’d to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of +the Opéra Comique. - La Fleur had been there himself, and had +followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller’s shop; +but seeing me come out with the young <i>fille de chambre</i>, 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.</p> +<p>As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup +himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation. +-</p> +<p>- And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance +of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to +set out: - I must tell it here.</p> +<p>Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden’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.</p> +<p>Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.</p> +<p>Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity - or what +is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and +I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise +than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?</p> +<p>- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the most +of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for +a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you can’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated +twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little +cage. - “I can’t get out, - I can’t get out,” +said the starling.</p> +<p>I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through +the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’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.</p> +<p>The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, +and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against +it as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee +at liberty. - “No,” said the starling, - “I +can’t get out - I can’t get out,” said the starling.</p> +<p>I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I +remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which +my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call’d home. +Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they +chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings +upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word +I had said in going down them.</p> +<p>Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I, - 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 <i>tint</i> +of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre +into iron: - with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain +is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled! - Gracious +Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, +grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this +fair goddess as my companion, - and shower down thy mitres, if it seems +good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for +them!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE CAPTIVE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to +my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself +the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and +so I gave full scope to my imagination.</p> +<p>I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born +to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture +was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad +groups in it did but distract me. -</p> +<p>- I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, +I then look’d through the twilight of his grated door to take +his picture.</p> +<p>I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement, +and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from +hope deferr’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 -</p> +<p>But here my heart began to bleed - and I was forced to go on with +another part of the portrait.</p> +<p>He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest +corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little +calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch’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.</p> +<p>I’ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.</p> +<p>La Fleur would have put me to bed; but - not willing he should see +anything upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ache, +- I told him I would go to bed by myself, - and bid him go do the same.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE STARLING. ROAD TO VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I got into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind, +and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.</p> +<p>As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look +for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short +history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last +chapter.</p> +<p>Whilst the Honourable Mr. - was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had +been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an English +lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in +his breast into the packet; - and, by course of feeding it, and taking +it once under his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got +it safe along with him to Paris.</p> +<p>At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling, +and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there, +he taught it, in his mother’s tongue, the four simple words - +(and no more) - to which I own’d myself so much its debtor.</p> +<p>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 <i>unknown</i> language at Paris, the bird had little or no store +set by him: so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle +of Burgundy.</p> +<p>In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in whose +language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of him to Lord +A-, Lord A- begg’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 <i>get in</i>, and +my bird wanted to <i>get out</i>, he had almost as little store set +by him in London as in Paris.</p> +<p>It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and +if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform them, +that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to represent him.</p> +<p>I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to +this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. - Thus:</p> +<p>[Picture which cannot be reproduced]</p> +<p>- And let the herald’s officers twist his neck about if they +dare.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE ADDRESS. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I should not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I +am going to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally +endeavour to protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C- +was an act of compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have +done it, I suppose, like other people.</p> +<p>How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my servile +heart form! I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.</p> +<p>Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles, +but putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes and +tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C-’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.</p> +<p>Well! said I, I wish it well over. - Coward again! as if man to man +was not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the +field - why not face to face in the cabinet too? 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.</p> +<p>I believe so, said I. - Then I’ll go to the Duke, by heaven! +with all the gaiety and debonairness in the world. -</p> +<p>- And there you are wrong again, replied I. - A heart at ease, Yorick, +flies into no extremes - ’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.</p> +<p>As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who possibly +might be the <i>maître</i> <i>d’hôtel</i>, but had +more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de +C- was busy. - I am utterly ignorant, said I, of the forms of obtaining +an audience, being an absolute stranger, and what is worse in the present +conjuncture of affairs, being an Englishman too. - He replied, that +did not increase the difficulty. - I made him a slight bow, and told +him, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur le Duc. +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. - <i>C’est +une autre affaire</i>, replied he. - Not at all, said I, to a man of +gallantry. - But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger hope +to have access? - In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his +watch. The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify +the calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect; - and as walking +backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul to commune with, +was for the time as bad as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly +went back to my remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the <i>Cordon +Bleu</i>, which was the nearest hotel.</p> +<p>I think there is a fatality in it; - I seldom go to the place I set +out for.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>LE PATISSIER. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Before I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I +am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town; +so I pull’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 <i>fille de chambre</i> +that I would assuredly wait upon her; - but I am governed by circumstances; +- I cannot govern them: so seeing a man standing with a basket on the +other side of the street, as if he had something to sell, I bid La Fleur +go up to him, and enquire for the Count’s hotel.</p> +<p>La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de +St. Louis selling pâtés. - It is impossible, La Fleur, +said I. - La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; +but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with +its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole - and had looked into +the basket and seen the pâtés which the Chevalier was selling; +so could not be mistaken in that.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, +and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the +top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket +of little pâtés was covered over with a white damask napkin; +another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look +of <i>propreté</i> and neatness throughout, that one might have +bought his pâtés of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.</p> +<p>He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at +the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without solicitation.</p> +<p>He was about forty-eight; - of a sedate look, something approaching +to gravity. I did not wonder. - I went up rather to the basket +than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pâtés +into my hand, - I begg’d he would explain the appearance which +affected me.</p> +<p>He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed +in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained +a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the +last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those +of some other regiments, left without any provision, he found himself +in a wide world without friends, without a livre, - and indeed, said +he, without anything but this, - (pointing, as he said it, to his croix). +- The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning +my esteem too.</p> +<p>The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his generosity +could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was only his misfortune +to be amongst the number. He had a little wife, he said, whom +he loved, who did the <i>pâtisserie</i>; and added, he felt no +dishonour in defending her and himself from want in this way - unless +Providence had offer’d him a better.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead +up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers +had made the same enquiry which I had done. - He had told them the same +story, and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reach’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.</p> +<p>As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me +to relate another, out of its order, to please myself: - the two stories +reflect light upon each other, - and ’tis a pity they should be +parted.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE SWORD. RENNES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel +in their turns what distress and poverty is, - I stop not to tell the +causes which gradually brought the house d’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 <i>obscurity</i>. - But he had two boys who looked up +to him for <i>light</i>; - he thought they deserved it. He had +tried his sword - it could not open the way, - the <i>mounting</i> was +too expensive, - and simple economy was not a match for it: - there +was no resource but commerce.</p> +<p>In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting +the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish’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.</p> +<p>The president accepted the Marquis’s sword: he staid a few +minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house - and departed.</p> +<p>The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for Martinico, +and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, +with some unlook’d for bequests from distant branches of his house, +return home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.</p> +<p>It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any +traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very +time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn; - it was so to me.</p> +<p>The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he supported +his lady, - his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was +at the other extreme of the line next his mother; - he put his handkerchief +to his face twice. -</p> +<p>- There was a dead silence. 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.</p> +<p>“I shall find,” said he, “some <i>other way</i> +to get it off.”</p> +<p>When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard, +made a bow to the guardians of it, - and, with his wife and daughter, +and his two sons following him, walk’d out.</p> +<p>O, how I envied him his feelings!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 - <i>et ayez la bouté, mon cher ami</i>, +apostrophizing his spirit, added I, <i>de me faire cet honneur-là</i>. +-</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>- And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs +have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile; - but +I have no apprehensions, continued I; - for, in falling into the hands +of the most polish’d people in the world, and being conscious +I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce +thought I lay at their mercy. - It does not suit the gallantry of the +French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it against invalids.</p> +<p>An animated blush came into the Count de B-’s cheeks as I spoke +this. - <i>Ne craignez rien</i> - 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.</p> +<p>- My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B- (making him a low +bow), is to desire he will not.</p> +<p>The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half +as much, - and once or twice said, - <i>C’est bien dit</i>. +So I rested my cause there - and determined to say no more about it.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Eh bien</i>! <i>Monsieur l’Anglois</i>, said the Count, +gaily; - you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land; - I believe +you; - <i>ni encore</i>, I dare say, <i>that</i> of our women! - But +permit me to conjecture, - if, <i>par hazard</i>, they fell into your +way, that the prospect would not affect you.</p> +<p>I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least +indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often +endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand +things to a dozen of the sex together, - the least of which I could +not venture to a single one to gain heaven.</p> +<p>Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I; - as for the nakedness of your +land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them; +- and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in +me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for +whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment if +I knew how to throw it on: - But I could wish, continued I, to spy the +nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, +climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my +own by: - and therefore am I come.</p> +<p>It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have +not seen the Palais Royal, - nor the Luxembourg, - nor the Façade +of the Louvre, - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have +of pictures, statues, and churches. - I conceive every fair being as +a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and +loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.</p> +<p>The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames +the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France, +- and from France will lead me through Italy; - ’tis a quiet journey +of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise +out of her, which make us love each other, - and the world, better than +we do.</p> +<p>The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; +and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for +making me known to him. - But <i>a propos</i>, said he; - Shakespeare +is full of great things; - he forgot a small punctilio of announcing +your name: - it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set +about telling any one who I am, - for there is scarce any body I cannot +give a better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could +do it in a single word, - and have an end of it. 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, - <i>Me +voici</i>! said I.</p> +<p>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. -</p> +<p>- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship, +said I, I’m sure your Lordship would not have said so.</p> +<p>The poor Count de B- fell but into the same <i>error</i>.</p> +<p>- <i>Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick</i>? cried the Count. - <i>Je le +suis</i>, said I. - <i>Vous? - Moi, - moi qui ai l’honneur de +vous parler, Monsieur le Comte</i>. - <i>Mon Dieu</i>! said he, embracing +me, - <i>Vous êtes Yorick</i>!</p> +<p>The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left +me alone in his room.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I could not conceive why the Count de B- had gone so abruptly out +of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare +into his pocket. -</p> +<p><i>Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss +of time which a conjecture about them takes up</i>: ’twas better +to read Shakespeare; so taking up “<i>Much Ado About</i> <i>Nothing</i>,” +I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in +Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, +that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.</p> +<p>Sweet pliability of man’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.</p> +<p><i>Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow - nor does man disquiet +himself</i> in vain<i> by it</i>: - he oftener does so in trusting the +issue of his commotions to reason only. - I can safely say for myself, +I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart +so decisively, as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and +gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground</p> +<p>When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B- entered, +with my passport in his hand. Monsieur le Duc de C-, said the +Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman. +<i>Un homme qui rit</i>, said the Duke, <i>ne sera jamais dangereux</i>. +- Had it been for any one but the king’s jester, added the Count, +I could not have got it these two hours. - <i>Pardonnez moi</i>, Monsieur +le Count, said I - I am not the king’s jester. - But you are Yorick? +- Yes. - <i>Et vous plaisantez</i>? - I answered, Indeed I did jest, +- but was not paid for it; - ’twas entirely at my own expense.</p> +<p>We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we +had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.; - since which time our +manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is +so full of patriots, who wish for <i>nothing</i> but the honours and +wealth of their country; - and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, +so good, so devout, - there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of. +-</p> +<p><i>Voila un persiflage</i>! cried the Count.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors, governors, +and commandants of cities, generals of armies, justiciaries, and all +officers of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the king’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 <i>they +knew of</i> terminated, <i>in a general way</i>, in little better than +a convulsion.</p> +<p>I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary upon +the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of +a note to give an account to the world of a couple of sparrows upon +the out-edge of his window, which had incommoded him all the time he +wrote, and at last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy.</p> +<p>- ’Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain, +for I have had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen; +- but the cock sparrow, during the little time that I could have finished +the other half of this note, has actually interrupted me with the reiteration +of his caresses three-and-twenty times and a half.</p> +<p>How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!</p> +<p>Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able +to write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to copy, +even in thy study.</p> +<p>But this is nothing to my travels. - So I twice, - twice beg pardon +for it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>CHARACTER. VERSAILLES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And how do you find the French? said the Count de B-, after he had +given me the passport.</p> +<p>The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy, +I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.</p> +<p><i>- Mais passe, pour cela</i>. - Speak frankly, said he: do you +find all the urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour +of? - I had found every thing, I said, which confirmed it. - <i>Vraiment</i>, +said the Count, <i>les François sont polis</i>. - To an excess, +replied I.</p> +<p>The Count took notice of the word <i>excès</i>; and would +have it I meant more than I said. I defended myself a long time +as well as I could against it. - He insisted I had a reserve, and that +I would speak my opinion frankly.</p> +<p>I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain compass, +as well as an instrument; and that the social and other calls have occasion +by turns for every key in him; so that if you begin a note too high +or too low, there must be a want either in the upper or under part, +to fill up the system of harmony. - The Count de B- did not understand +music, so desired me to explain it some other way. 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 <i>politesse du coeur</i>, which inclines men more to humane +actions than courteous ones, - we should at least lose that distinct +variety and originality of character, which distinguishes them, not +only from each other, but from all the world besides.</p> +<p>I had a few of King William’s shillings, as smooth as glass, +in my pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration +of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so +far: -</p> +<p>See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before +him upon the table, - by jingling and rubbing one against another for +seventy years together in one body’s pocket or another’s, +they are become so much alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling +from another.</p> +<p>The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but +few people’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 <i>serious.</i></p> +<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.</p> +<p><i>Mais vous plaisantez</i>, said he, correcting his exclamation. +- I laid my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him +it was my most settled opinion.</p> +<p>The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my reasons, +being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C-.</p> +<p>But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup with +me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing +you retract your opinion, - or, in what manner you support it. - But, +if you do support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must do it with +all your powers, because you have the whole world against you. - I promised +the Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set +out for Italy; - so took my leave.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE TEMPTATION. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with +a bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me. - I do not know, said +the porter, whether she is gone away or not. I took the key of +my chamber of him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten +steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easily +down.</p> +<p>It was the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> I had walked along the Quai +de Conti with; Madame de R- had sent her upon some commission to a <i>marchande +des modes</i> within a step or two of the Hôtel de Modene; and +as I had fail’d in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I +had left Paris; and if so, whether I had not left a letter addressed +to her.</p> +<p>As the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> was so near my door, she returned +back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I wrote +a card.</p> +<p>It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May, +- the crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as those +of the bed) were drawn close: - the sun was setting, and reflected through +them so warm a tint into the fair <i>fille de chambre’s</i> 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.</p> +<p>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. +-</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist, +he will fly from us; - but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, +though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat; - so I give +up the triumph for security; and, instead of thinking to make him fly, +I generally fly myself.</p> +<p>The fair <i>fille de chambre</i> came close up to the bureau where +I was looking for a card - took up first the pen I cast down, then offer’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. -</p> +<p>I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon +thy lips. -</p> +<p>If I do, said I, I shall perish; - so I took her by the hand, and +led her to the door, and begg’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.</p> +<p>The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where +we were standing. - I had still hold of her hands - and how it happened +I can give no account; but I neither ask’d her - nor drew her +- nor did I think of the bed; - but so it did happen, we both sat down.</p> +<p>I’ll just show you, said the fair <i>fille de chambre</i>, +the little purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown. +So she put her hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt +for it some time - 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.</p> +<p>A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair +<i>fille de chambre</i>, without saying a word, took out her little +housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew’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.</p> +<p>A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was +just falling off. - See, said the <i>fille de</i> <i>chambre</i>, holding +up her foot. - I could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return, +and putting in the strap, - and lifting up the other foot with it, when +I had done, to see both were right, - in doing it too suddenly, it unavoidably +threw the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> off her centre, - and then -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE CONQUEST.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Yes, - and then -. Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts +can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that +man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father +of spirits but for his conduct under them?</p> +<p>If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love +and desire are entangled with the piece, - must the whole web be rent +in drawing them out? - Whip me such stoics, great Governor of Nature! +said I to myself: - wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials +of my virtue; - whatever is my danger, - whatever is my situation, - +let me feel the movements which rise out of it, and which belong to +me as a man, - and, if I govern them as a good one, I will trust the +issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.</p> +<p>As I finished my address, I raised the fair <i>fille de chambre</i> +up by the hand, and led her out of the room: - she stood by me till +I locked the door and put the key in my pocket, - and then, - the victory +being quite decisive - and not till then, I press’d my lips to +her cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate +of the hotel.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE MYSTERY. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back +instantly to my chamber; - it was touching a cold key with a flat third +to it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call’d forth +my affections: - therefore, when I let go the hand of the <i>fille de +chambre</i>, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking +at every one who pass’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.</p> +<p>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 <i>propreté</i> throughout him. +By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many +in his way, I saw he was asking charity: so I got a sous or two out +of my pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn. - 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.</p> +<p>There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to +work, and to no purpose: - the first was, why the man should <i>only</i> +tell his story to the sex; - and, secondly, - what kind of story it +was, and what species of eloquence it could be, which soften’d +the hearts of the women, which he knew ’twas to no purpose to +practise upon the men.</p> +<p>There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery; +- the one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and +in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition; - +the other was, it was always successful. - He never stopp’d a +woman, but she pull’d out her purse, and immediately gave him +something.</p> +<p>I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.</p> +<p>I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I +walk’d upstairs to my chamber.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I was immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came +into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere. - How so, +friend? said I. - He answered, I had had a young woman lock’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. - <i>Voyez vous</i>, Monsieur, said +he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon. - I own +it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my pride not +suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted him to +let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that night, +and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.</p> +<p>I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty +girls - ’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, <i>et +tout cela</i>; - 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 <i>en conscience</i>. - But I must see her this night, +said I. - He made me a low bow, and walk’d down.</p> +<p>Now shall I triumph over this <i>maître d’hôtel</i>, +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.</p> +<p>In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace. - I’ll +buy nothing, however, said I, within myself.</p> +<p>The grisette would show me everything. - I was hard to please: she +would not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all +her laces one after another before me; - unfolded and folded them up +again one by one with the most patient sweetness. - I might buy, - or +not; - she would let me have everything at my own price: - the poor +creature seem’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.</p> +<p>If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the +worse; - my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as quietly +as the first. - Why should I chastise one for the trespass of another? +If thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking +up in her face, so much harder is thy bread.</p> +<p>If I had not had more than four louis d’ors in my purse, there +was no such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had +first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.</p> +<p>- The master of the hotel will share the profit with her; - no matter, +- then I have only paid as many a poor soul has <i>paid</i> before me, +for an act he <i>could</i> not do, or think of.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE RIDDLE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how sorry +the master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change +my lodgings.</p> +<p>A man who values a good night’s rest will not lie down with +enmity in his heart, if he can help it. - So I bid La Fleur tell the +master of the hotel, that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I +had given him; - and you may tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added +I, that if the young woman should call again, I shall not see her.</p> +<p>This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after +so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it +was possible, with all the virtue I enter’d it.</p> +<p><i>C’est déroger à noblesse</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>, +said La Fleur, making me a bow down to the ground as he said it. - <i>Et +encore</i>, <i>Monsieur</i>, said he, may change his sentiments; - and +if (<i>par hazard</i>) he should like to amuse himself, - I find no +amusement in it, said I, interrupting him. -</p> +<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! said La Fleur, - and took away.</p> +<p>In an hour’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>LE DIMANCHE. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my +coffee and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array’d, +I scarce knew him.</p> +<p>I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver +button and loop, and four louis d’ors, <i>pour s’adoniser</i>, +when we got to Paris; and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done +wonders with it.</p> +<p>He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breeches +of the same. - They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing. +- I wish’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.</p> +<p>This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.</p> +<p>He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully +enough embroidered: - this was indeed something the worse for the service +it had done, but ’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 <i>fripier</i> upon a gold +pair of garters to his breeches knees. - He had purchased muslin ruffles, +<i>bien brodées</i>, with four livres of his own money; - and +a pair of white silk stockings for five more; - and to top all, nature +had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.</p> +<p>He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the first +style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast. - In a word, there +was that look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put +me in mind it was Sunday; - and, by combining both together, it instantly +struck me, that the favour he wish’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, <i>pour faire le galant vis-à-vis +de sa maîtresse</i>.</p> +<p>Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-à-vis +Madame de R-. - I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it +would not have mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress’d +as La Fleur was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse +spared him.</p> +<p>But we must <i>feel</i>, not argue in these embarrassments. - The +sons and daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, +in their contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little +vanities and wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as +their task-masters; - no doubt, they have set their self-denials at +a price, - and their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would +often disappoint them, but that their condition puts it so much in my +power to do it.</p> +<p><i>Behold</i>, - <i>Behold</i>, <i>I am thy servant</i> - disarms +me at once of the powers of a master. -</p> +<p>Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.</p> +<p>- And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up +in so little a time at Paris? La Fleur laid his hand upon his +breast, and said ’twas a <i>petite demoiselle</i>, 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.</p> +<p>Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all +your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of +grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE FRAGMENT. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>La Fleur had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more +than I had bargain’d for, or could have enter’d either into +his head or mine.</p> +<p>He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and +as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had +begg’d a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf +and his hand. - As that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon +the table as it was; and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered +him to call upon the <i>traîteur</i>, to bespeak my dinner, and +leave me to breakfast by myself.</p> +<p>When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the +window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper; - but stopping +to read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third, +- I thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair +up to it, I sat down to read it.</p> +<p>It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and for aught +I know might have been wrote by him: - it was moreover in a Gothic letter, +and that so faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost +me infinite trouble to make anything of it. - I threw it down; and then +wrote a letter to Eugenius; - then I took it up again, and embroiled +my patience with it afresh; - and then to cure that, I wrote a letter +to Eliza. - Still it kept hold of me; and the difficulty of understanding +it increased but the desire.</p> +<p>I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle +of Burgundy; I at it again, - and, after two or three hours poring upon +it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon +a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make +sure of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and +see how it would look then; - so I went on leisurely, as a trifling +man does, sometimes writing a sentence, - then taking a turn or two, +- and then looking how the world went, out of the window; so that it +was nine o’clock at night before I had done it. - I then began +and read it as follows.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE FRAGMENT. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- 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. +-</p> +<p>- 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.</p> +<p>Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two +rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not +caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent +him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short +cloak, the night being very windy, and walk’d out, ill at ease, +towards the Pont Neuf.</p> +<p>Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have +pass’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.</p> +<p>[<i>By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been +a Frenchman</i>.]</p> +<p>The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can +allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about +Paris, ’tis more blasphemously <i>sacre Dieu’d</i> there +than in any other aperture of the whole city, - and with reason good +and cogent, Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying <i>garde +d’eau</i>, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few +who cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres +and a half, which is its full worth.</p> +<p>The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively +clapp’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. +-</p> +<p>- ’<i>Tis an ill wind</i>, said a boatman, who catched it, +<i>which blows nobody any good</i>.</p> +<p>The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, +and levell’d his arquebuss.</p> +<p>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. - ’<i>Tis an ill wind</i>, +said he, catching off the notary’s castor, and legitimating the +capture with the boatman’s adage.</p> +<p>The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de +Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he +walked along in this manner: -</p> +<p>Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes +all my days: - to be born to have the storm of ill language levell’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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless +decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at +that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little +table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and close by the +table was placed a chair: - the notary sat him down in it; and pulling +out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, +he placed them before him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning +his breast over the table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’s +last will and testament</p> +<p>Alas! <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman, raising +himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the +expense of bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could +not die in peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits +arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from +me. - 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. -</p> +<p>It is a story, <i>Monsieur le Notaire</i>, said the gentleman, which +will rouse up every affection in nature; - it will kill the humane, +and touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -</p> +<p>- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen +a third time into his ink-horn - and the old gentleman, turning a little +more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words: +-</p> +<p>- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then +enter’d the room.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend +what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which +he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which +he had presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards. - Then prithee, +La Fleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B-’s hotel, +and see if thou canst get it. - There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur; +- and away he flew.</p> +<p>In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, +with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from +the simple irreparability of the fragment. <i>Juste Ciel</i>! +in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender +farewell of her - his faithless mistress had given his <i>gage d’amour</i> +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.</p> +<p>- How perfidious! cried La Fleur. - How unlucky! said I.</p> +<p>- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if +she had lost it. - Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.</p> +<p>Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE ACT OF CHARITY. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may +be an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will +not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller. - I count little of the +many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets. +- Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an +unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth +all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together, - and +yet they are absolutely fine; - and whenever I have a more brilliant +affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well +as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of ’em; - and for the +text, - “Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,” +- is as good as any one in the Bible.</p> +<p>There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into +a narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a <i>fiacre</i>, +<a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> or wish to get +off quietly o’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.</p> +<p>In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within +five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their +backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a <i>fiacre</i>; +- as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged +myself up within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my +stand. - I was in black, and scarce seen.</p> +<p>The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six; +the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark +of wife or widow in any one part of either of them; - they seem’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Poo! said they, - we have no money.</p> +<p>The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew’d +his supplication.</p> +<p>- Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against +me. - Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change. +- Then God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which +you can give to others without change! - I observed the elder sister +put her hand into her pocket. - I’ll see, said she, if I have +a sous. A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been +bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.</p> +<p>- I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.</p> +<p>My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder, - what +is it but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so +sweet, that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and +what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so +much of you both as they just passed by?</p> +<p>The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same +time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out +a twelve-sous piece.</p> +<p>The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more; - it +was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the twelve-sous +piece in charity; - and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together, +and the man went away.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED. PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I stepped hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in +asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled +me; - and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it: - +’twas flattery.</p> +<p>Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly +are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost +thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and +tortuous passages to the heart!</p> +<p>The poor man, as he was not straiten’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>PARIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving +them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then +you water it, because you have planted it.</p> +<p>Monsieur le Count de B-, merely because he had done me one kindness +in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few +days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and +they were to present me to others, and so on.</p> +<p>I had got master of my <i>secret</i> just in time to turn these honours +to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should +have dined or supp’d a single time or two round, and then, by +<i>translating</i> French looks and attitudes into plain English, I +should presently have seen, that I had hold of the <i>couvert</i> <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> +of some more entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned +all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could +not keep them. - As it was, things did not go much amiss.</p> +<p>I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B-: in +days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry +in the <i>Cour d’Amour</i>, 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. - <i>Les Messieurs</i> <i>Anglois</i> +can scarce get a kind look from them as it is. - The Marquis invited +me to supper.</p> +<p>Monsieur P-, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our +taxes. They were very considerable, he heard. - If we knew but +how to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.</p> +<p>I could never have been invited to Mons. P-’s concerts upon +any other terms.</p> +<p>I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q- as an <i>esprit</i>. - +Madame de Q- was an <i>esprit</i> herself: she burnt with impatience +to see me, and hear me talk. 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.</p> +<p>Madame de V- vow’d to every creature she met - “She had +never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life.”</p> +<p>There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman. - She is +coquette, - then deist, - then <i>dévote</i>: the empire during +these is never lost, - she only changes her subjects when thirty-five +years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she +re-peoples it with slaves of infidelity, - and then with the slaves +of the church.</p> +<p>Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the +colour of the rose was fading fast away; - she ought to have been a +deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.</p> +<p>She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing +the point of religion more closely. - In short Madame de V- told me +she believed nothing. - I told Madame de V- it might be her principle, +but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without +which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended; +- that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a +beauty to be a deist; - that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal +it from her; - that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside +her, but I had begun to form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments +of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which +could have check’d them as they rose up?</p> +<p>We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there +is need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays +them on us. - But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, - ’tis +too - too soon.</p> +<p>I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame +de V-. - She affirmed to Monsieur D- and the Abbé 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 <i>coterie</i>; - and she put off the epocha of deism +for two years.</p> +<p>I remember it was in this <i>coterie</i>, in the middle of a discourse, +in which I was showing the necessity of a <i>first</i> cause, when the +young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of +the room, to tell me my <i>solitaire</i> was pinn’d too straight +about my neck. - It should be <i>plus badinant</i>, said the Count, +looking down upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, <i>to the +wise</i> -</p> +<p>And <i>from the wise</i>, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him +a bow, - <i>is enough</i>.</p> +<p>The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was +embraced by mortal man.</p> +<p>For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion I met. +- <i>Pardi</i>! <i>ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous +autres. - Il raisonne bien</i>, said another. - <i>C’est un bon +enfant</i>, said a third. - And at this price I could have eaten and +drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but ’twas +a dishonest <i>reckoning</i>; - I grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain +of a slave; - every sentiment of honour revolted against it; - the higher +I got, the more was I forced upon my <i>beggarly system</i>; - the better +the <i>coterie</i>, - the more children of Art; - I languish’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MARIA. MOULINES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till +now, - to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France, +- in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance +into every one’s lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a journey, +through each step of which Music beats time to <i>Labour</i>, and all +her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass +through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group +before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with adventures. -</p> +<p>Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have +but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of these +must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with +near Moulines.</p> +<p>The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little +in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, +it returned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulse +which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village +where her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.</p> +<p>’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance +in quest of melancholy adventures. But I know not how it is, but +I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within +me, as when I am entangled in them.</p> +<p>The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before +she open’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening +in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under +a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head +leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook ran at the foot +of the tree.</p> +<p>I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La Fleur +to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.</p> +<p>She was dress’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MARIA.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask’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.</p> +<p>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 <i>God tempers the wind</i>, said Maria, <i>to +the shorn lamb</i>.</p> +<p>Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land, +where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou +shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; - I would be kind +to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after +thee and bring thee back; - when the sun went down I would say my prayers: +and when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, +nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering +heaven along with that of a broken heart!</p> +<p>Nature melted within me, as I utter’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.</p> +<p>And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>And where are you going, Maria? said I. - She said, to Moulines. +- Let us go, said I, together. - Maria put her arm within mine, and +lengthening the string, to let the dog follow, - in that order we enter’d +Moulines.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>MARIA. MOULINES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, +when we got into the middle of this, I stopp’d to take my last +look and last farewell of Maria.</p> +<p>Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine +forms: - affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce +earthly; - still she was feminine; - and so much was there about her +of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could +the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of +mine, she should <i>not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup</i>, +but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.</p> +<p>Adieu, poor luckless maiden! - Imbibe the oil and wine which the +compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into +thy wounds; - the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them +up for ever.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE BOURBONNNOIS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous +a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through +this part of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, +my sufferings have totally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity, +I saw Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her +poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade +across her.</p> +<p>- Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’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 “<i>divinity which stirs within me</i>;” +- not that, in some sad and sickening moments, “<i>my soul shrinks +back upon herself, and startles at destruction</i>;” - 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. -</p> +<p>Peace to thee, generous swain! - I see thou walkest off with anguish, +- but thy joys shall balance it; - for, happy is thy cottage, - and +happy is the sharer of it, - and happy are the lambs which sport about +you!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE SUPPER.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A shoe coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the +beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted, +twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of +five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point +of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion +had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of +no great use without them, I submitted to go on.</p> +<p>He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece +of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore +foot. 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 <i>potagerie</i> 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.</p> +<p>The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with +five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous +genealogy out of them.</p> +<p>They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large +wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at +each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast: - ’twas +a feast of love.</p> +<p>The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality +would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment +I enter’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.</p> +<p>Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this +morsel so sweet, - and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took +of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate +to this hour?</p> +<p>If the supper was to my taste, - the grace which followed it was +much more so.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE GRACE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with +the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment +the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back +apartment to tie up their hair, - and the young men to the door to wash +their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul +was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. - The old +man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down +upon a sofa of turf by the door.</p> +<p>The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon +the vielle, - and at the age he was then of, touch’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.</p> +<p>It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses +in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could +distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the +cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I +beheld <i>Religion</i> mixing in the dance: - 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, -</p> +<p>Or a learned prelate either, said I.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<h2>THE CASE OF DELICACY.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently +down to Lyons: - adieu, then, to all rapid movements! ’Tis +a journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be +in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his time +with a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe to Turin, +through Savoy.</p> +<p>Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the +treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, +nor will your valleys be invaded by it. - Nature! in the midst of thy +disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created: +with all thy great works about thee, little hast thou left to give, +either to the scythe or to the sickle; - but to that little thou grantest +safety and protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter’d.</p> +<p>Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns +and dangers of your roads, - your rocks, - your precipices; - the difficulties +of getting up, - the horrors of getting down, - mountains impracticable, +- and cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and +block his road up. - The peasants had been all day at work in removing +a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the +time my voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing +before a passage could any how be gain’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess, - without +much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she usher’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.</p> +<p>As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber, +I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do +the honours of it; - so I desired the lady to sit down, - pressed her +into the warmest seat, - called for more wood, - desired the hostess +to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best +wine.</p> +<p>The lady had scarce warm’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.</p> +<p>That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was +enough simply by itself to have excited all this; - but the position +of them, for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other as +only to allow space for a small wicker chair betwixt them, rendered +the affair still more oppressive to us; - they were fixed up moreover +near the fire; and the projection of the chimney on one side, and a +large beam which cross’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health +in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk +and lively a French girl as ever moved. - There were difficulties every +way, - and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into +the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing +it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now. - I have only to add, +that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that +we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each other +upon the occasion.</p> +<p>We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it +than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish’d, our tongues had +been tied up, till necessity herself had set them at liberty; - but +the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down +her <i>fille de chambre</i> for a couple of them; so that by the time +supper was over, and we were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired +with a strength of mind sufficient to talk, at least, without reserve +upon our situation. 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.</p> +<p>They were as follow: -</p> +<p>First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur, - and he thinking +the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists upon the concession +on the lady’s side of taking up with it.</p> +<p>Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the curtains +of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise +too scanty to draw close, that the <i>fille de chambre</i> shall fasten +up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such +manner as shall be deem’d a sufficient barrier on the side of +Monsieur.</p> +<p>2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall +lie the whole night through in his <i>robe de chambre</i>.</p> +<p>Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a <i>robe de chambre</i>; +he having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk +pair of breeches.</p> +<p>The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of +the article, - for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for the +<i>robe de chambre</i>; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that +I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.</p> +<p>3dly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, +that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire extinguished, +that Monsieur should not speak one single word the whole night.</p> +<p>Granted; provided Monsieur’s saying his prayers might not be +deemed an infraction of the treaty.</p> +<p>There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the manner +in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress and get to +bed; - there was but one way of doing it, and that I leave to the reader +to devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is not the most delicate +in nature, ’tis the fault of his own imagination, - against which +this is not my first complaint.</p> +<p>Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the situation, +or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not shut my eyes; +I tried this side, and that, and turn’d and turn’d again, +till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience both wearing +out, - O, my God! said I.</p> +<p>- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no +more slept than myself. - I begg’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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I, - stretching my arm out +of bed by way of asseveration. -</p> +<p>(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed against +the remotest idea of decorum for the world); -</p> +<p>But the <i>fille de chambre</i> hearing there were words between +us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently +out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close to +our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which separated +them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress +and me: -</p> +<p>So that when I stretch’d out my hand I caught hold of the <i>fille +de chambre’s</i> -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Nosegay.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> Hackney +coach.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> Plate, +napkin, knife, fork and spoon.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>End of the Project Gutenberg eBook A Sentimental Journey through +France and Italy</p> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named senjr10h.htm or senjr10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, senjr11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, senjr10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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