Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda ofEuripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delightedwith it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operatedmore upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which thepoet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, _O Cupid_,_prince of gods and men_! &c. Every man almost spoke pure iambics thenext day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,—“_OCupid! prince of gods and men_!”—in every street of Abdera, in everyhouse, “O Cupid! Cupid!”—in every mouth, like the natural notes of somesweet melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,—nothing but“Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!”—The fire caught—and the wholecity, like the heart of one man, open’d itself to Love.
No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,—not a singlearmourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;—Friendship andVirtue met together, and kiss’d each other in the street; the golden agereturned, and hung over the town of Abdera—every Abderite took his eatenpipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sather down and listened to the song.
’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empireextendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, tohave done this.
MONTREUIL.
WHEN all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn,unless you are a little sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matterto compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that iswith the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you. Let no mansay, “Let them go to the devil!”—’tis a cruel journey to send a fewmiserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always thinkit better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel everygentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in settingdown his motives for giving them;—They will be registered elsewhere.
For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that Iknow, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of mycharity in France, I took the more notice of it.
A well-a-way! said I,—I have but eight sous in the world, showing them inmy hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for ’em.
A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim,by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bowon his part. Had the whole _parterre_ cried out, _Place aux dames_, withone voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference forthe sex with half the effect.
Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary andurbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find away to be at unity in this?
—I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his_politesse_.
A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in thecircle, 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 onboth sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestlydeclined.—The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a nod ofwelcomeness.—_Prenez en—prenez_, said he, looking another way; so theyeach 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, toenhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of the secondobligation more than of the first,—’twas doing him an honour,—the otherwas only doing him a charity;—and he made me a bow down to the ground forit.
—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaignedand worn out to death in the service—here’s a couple of sous forthee.—_Vive le Roi_! said the old soldier.
I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, _pour l’amour deDieu_, which was the footing on which it was begg’d.—The poor woman had adislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.
_Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur_.—There’s no opposing this, said I.
_Milord Anglois_—the very sound was worth the money;—so I gave _my lastsous for it_. But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a _pauvrehonteux_, 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 bythe chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a facewhich I thought had seen better days.—Good God! said I—and I have not onesingle sous left to give him.—But you have a thousand! cried all thepowers of nature, stirring within me;—so I gave him—no matter what—I amashamed to say _how much_ now,—and was ashamed to think how little, then:so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these twofixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what wasthe precise sum.
I could afford nothing for the rest, but _Dieu vous bénisse_!
—_Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore_, said the old soldier, the dwarf,&c. The _pauvre honteux_ could say nothing;—he pull’d out a littlehandkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away—and I thought hethanked me more than them all.
THE BIDET.
HAVING settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise withmore ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleurhaving got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little _bidet_, {588}and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)—he canter’d awaybefore me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.—But what ishappiness! 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;—hisbidet would not pass by it,—a contention arose betwixt them, and the poorfellow was kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.
La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more norless upon it, than _Diable_! So presently got up, and came to the chargeagain astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat hisdrum.
The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then backagain,—then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by thedead ass:—La Fleur insisted upon the thing—and the bidet threw him.
What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine? Monsieur,said he, _c’est un cheval le plus opiniâtre du monde_.—Nay, if he is aconceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I. So La Fleur got offhim, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, andaway he scampered back to Montreuil.—_Peste_! said La Fleur.
It is not _mal-à-propos_ to take notice here, that though La Fleuravailed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in thisencounter,—namely, _Diable_! and _Peste_! that there are, nevertheless,three in the French language: like the positive, comparative, andsuperlative, one or the other of which serves for every unexpected throwof the dice in life.
_Le Diable_! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally usedupon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall outcontrary to your expectations; such as—the throwing once doublets—LaFleur’s being kick’d off his horse, and so forth.—Cuckoldom, for the samereason, is always—_Le Diable_!
But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that ofthe bidet’s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground injack-boots,—’tis the second degree.
’Tis then _Peste_!
And for the third—
—But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I reflectwhat miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so refined apeople must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it.—
Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence indistress!—what ever is my _cast_, grant me but decent words to exclaimin, and I will give my nature way.
—But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every eviljust as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the bidetwith his eyes till it was got out of sight,—and then, you may imagine, ifyou please, with what word he closed the whole affai
r.
As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, thereremained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise, orinto it.—
I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house atNampont.
NAMPONT.THE DEAD ASS.
—AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet—andthis should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to haveshared it with me.—I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe tohis child; but ’twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead inthe road, which had occasioned La Fleur’s misadventure. The man seemedto lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’slamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass’spannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time totime,—then laid them down,—look’d at them, and shook his head. He thentook his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held itsome time in his hand,—then laid it upon the bit of his ass’sbridle,—looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made—and thengave a sigh.
The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongstthe rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting inthe post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.
—He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthestborders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, when his assdied. Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have takenso old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.
It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finestlads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest of them bythe small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he wasafraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven would nottake him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’d to pay Nature hertribute,—and wept bitterly.
He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out fromhis cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner ofhis journey;—that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, andwas unto him as a friend.
Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern.—La Fleuroffered him money.—The mourner said he did not want it;—it was not thevalue 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 theirpassage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from eachother three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as hehad sought the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank tillthey met.
Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy poorbeast; I’m sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.—Alas! said themourner, I thought so when he was alive;—but now that he is dead, I thinkotherwise.—I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together havebeen too much for him,—they have shortened the poor creature’s days, andI fear I have them to answer for.—Shame on the world! said I tomyself.—Did we but love each other as this poor soul loved hisass—’twould be something.—
NAMPONT.THE POSTILION.
THE concern which the poor fellow’s story threw me into required someattention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon the_pavé_ in a full gallop.
The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not havewished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and quietmovements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion had hebut stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace.—On the contrary,as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeelinglash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like a thousanddevils.
I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’s sake to go slower:—andthe louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped.—The deuce takehim and his galloping too—said I,—he’ll go on tearing my nerves to piecestill he has worked me into a foolish passion, and then he’ll go slow thatI may enjoy the sweets of it.
The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had got tothe foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont,—he had put meout of temper with him,—and then with myself, for being so.
My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling gallopwould have been of real service to me.—
—Then, prithee, get on—get on, my good lad, said I.
The postilion pointed to the hill.—I then tried to return back to thestory of the poor German and his ass—but I had broke the clue,—and couldno more get into it again, than the postilion could into a trot.
—The deuce go, said I, with it all! Here am I sitting as candidlydisposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runscounter.
There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds out tous: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the first wordwhich roused me was _Amiens_.
—Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,—this is the very town where my poorlady is to come.
AMIENS.
THE words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L—’s post-chaise,with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me abow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me shehad not yet done with me. She was as good as her look; for, before I hadquite finished my supper, her brother’s servant came into the room with abillet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with aletter, which I was to present myself to Madame R— the first morning Ihad nothing to do at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, butfrom what _penchant_ she had not considered, that she had been preventedtelling me her story,—that she still owed it to me; and if my routeshould ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the nameof Madame de L—,—that Madame de L— would be glad to discharge herobligation.
Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels;—’tis onlyreturning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route ofFlanders, home;—’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but, were itten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey, insharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me by sucha sufferer? To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain ofher tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in wipingthem away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’msitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night besideher?
There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproachedmy heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.
It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings ofmy 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 thesudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper ofEliza but about three months before,—swearing, as I did it, that itshould last me through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble thematter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she had a right to my wholeheart:—to divide my affections was to lessen them;—to expose them was torisk them: where there is risk there may be loss:—and what wilt thouhave, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence—sogood, so gentle, and unreproaching!
—I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself.—But myimagination went on,—I recalled her looks at that crisis of ourseparation, when neither of us had power to say adieu! I look’d at thepicture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,—and blush’d as Ilook’d at it.—I would have given the world to have kiss’d it,—but wasashamed.—And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between myhands,—shall it be smitten to its very root,—and smitten, Yorick! bythee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?
Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upo
n the ground,—bethou my witness—and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witnessalso, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along withme, did the road lead me towards heaven!
In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding,will always say too much.
THE LETTER.AMIENS.
FORTUNE had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in hisfeats of chivalry,—and not one thing had offered to signalise his zealfor my service from the time that he had entered into it, which wasalmost four-and-twenty hours. The poor soul burn’d with impatience; andthe Count de L—’s servant coming with the letter, being the firstpracticable occasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, inorder to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour inthe auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine inPicardy; and the Count de L—’s servant, in return, and not to bebehindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him tothe Count’s hotel. La Fleur’s _prevenancy_ (for there was a passport inhis 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 inshowing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out hisfife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the_fille de chambre_, the _maître d’hôtel_, the cook, the scullion, and allthe house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: Isuppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.
Madame de L—, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her own,hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her _fille de chambre_ toask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, whohad set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.