TRAVELS FOR THE HEART. VOL. I.
TRAVELS FOR THE HEART. WRITTEN IN FRANCE, BY COURTNEY MELMOTH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR JOHN WALLIS, No. 16, LUDGATE-STREET, 1777.
TO THE HEART OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD STORMONT, AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF FRANCE, THESE TRAVELS ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS MOST DEVOTED, MOST OBEDIENT, AND MOST OBLIGED, HUMBLE SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
THE motive by which I am urged to write a Preface to this little book of running remarks, is, chiefly, to enter a caveat against a charge, which precipitate readers may be pleased to bring against it, upon account of my having admitted
trifles,
that, at first sight, seem not worthy so much notice.
This, certainly, I should not have done, had I not been fully persuaded that, these very trifles, light, airy and unsubstantial, as they appear, more forcibly mark a character, develope an action, however entangled by circumstances, and serve as a clue to unfold the mazes of the heart, than any of those elaborate performances which have, for their objects, the mighty, the marvellous, and the magnificent.
Those who have, at any time, done me the honour to make my former writings a part of their amusement, will see and recollect that I was, long ago, of this opinion; and, as I grow older in the world, and more experienced in its manners, I have still greater reason to imagine it is solidly founded.
Were not long prefaces a large evil, the defence of what appear to be
trifles,
in literature and in life, might lead into a pleasing speculation. But this is, in part, unnecessary, as many sentiments on this very subject are interwoven into the body of the book itself: a few
others,
however, press upon me just now to introduce them, and the reader is therefore invited to receive them courteously.
In calling to mind a concise list of the most celebrated of those writers, who justly reflect so much credit on the genius of the country (to which, after all migrations of business, of pleasure, and of curiosity, I shall return with joy, as to the dear soil of my nativity) I find they are indebted for the lustre of their literary character, rather to the art of embellishing trifles, than to any formal description of the great, the grand, or the extraordinary.
But this does not arise entirely, as some might suspect, from the superficiality of the age, which is said to take a delight in unimportant publications; nor does it proceed from want of depth in the genius of the writer. On the contrary, it is, in both cases, rather a matter for compliment than of censure. The proof of this requires no sophistry; but lies upon the surface open to every man's observation. That which is too obvious (and very many things are so) requires only a half-glance, of the most lack-lustre eye to be discovered. For instance; the spacious building, the stupendous mountain which seems ambitious of Heaven; the castle, whose emulous spire cleaveth the clouds; the forest, which fills the eye as far as it can sweep; and the appearance of an huge metropolis, like that of London, Constantinople or Paris, taken on the expanded scale, with all their towers, hospitals, palaces, and public buildings, are objects too unweildy to be missed; insomuch that he who is not wont to observe, must perforce run his nose against them. Thus, things which are seen too plainly, are seen by every body, and scarce regarded by any body. A citizen of London, who hath many years resided in that metropolis, shall survey such a prodigious object as St. Paul's, and a native of Paris look upon the Louvre, and slightly tell you, that they are superb edifices, and the admiration of the world; but these praises are indeterminate, and make no durable impressions. Now, were we to take these two citizens into the body of these separate buildings, and imagine one of them to be an organist, and one a painter, they would discover their profession, and their hearts in five minutes. The organist would sound the keys of the instrument, and, with the ear of a connoisseur, be either pleased or pained, as it happened to be in, or out of tune, and the painter would execrate a picture for bearing marks, and almost imperceptible touches of awkwardness, although a common person, by looking at the picture, and hearing the organ, would say of the first, that it was beautiful, and of the second, that it was harmonious. The reason is, that the heart is generally in love with its old habits, and artists attend to the minutiae.
But what, in my opinion, makes more against those ostensible, and glaring facts which look us full in the face, is, that it is impossible, from the very nature of their public situation upon the globe, that they should be favourable either to industry or to ingenuity. They afford scope neither to genius, labour, imagination, nor the heart; and, without there is somewhat of heart, beating briskly through every undertaking, whether it be of the pen or pencil, I leave you to judge, if it must not be all poverty, stagnation, stupidity, and wretchedness. Destitute of the animating vibrations of that most enchanting machinery, which is every hour shifting the scene in our bosom, every thing must, of necessity, be sordid, dull, dispirited.
Like the earth, in the absence of that sun, who is now darting his ray vertically over my head, vegetation is enwrapped in gloom, and, for the time being, a garden is the very last thing in the world into which one would go for good spirits.
Now without relying on the gaiety of this simile, which is made on May-day, when every body knows, similes vegetate so fast, that they can almost make themselves, without any assistance from the author; without, I say, depending on this May-bush of a simile, it is, I conceive, clearly deduceable from the preceding sentiments in plain prose, that it is the heart which informs, inspires, and animates all literature; that all its powers, properties, propensities and passions, are best seen by penetrating into its recesses; that it is the business of a moral writer to take it as it were by surprise, while at one moment it is beating with apprehension; struggling at another with concealed anxiety; throbbing with expectation; trembling with fear, or panting with hope; that little is to be known by taking a man's mind in the lump. We should follow the example of surgeons, who think nothing of his body, while they are only gazing upon it as an entire carcase. We should take up the incision-pen, call the utmost keenness into our eye, and begin to dissect and to dismember; a thousand curious turnings, difficult labyrinths, and critical meanders, various as the veins, and twined into branchings equally multiplied, are all to be noted by him who looks at his subject; especially when that subject is the human heart, in an unsuspicious moment.
When the heart, on the contrary, is dressed our for great actions, which are to be done in the eye of the world, the whole matter is
premeditated;
and the heart is, in that case, in the situation of a stage-player, who sits deliberately down to his looking-glass, to assume, for the hour that he is to strut, precisely that sort of gesture which suits his character: but then these gestures form no part of the actor's private disposition, which, although it is now the representative of every amiable quality, may, possibly, when the robes of the theatre are laid aside, be deformed by all that is odious and contemptible. I would no more form any conclusions of either the goodness or badness of a man's heart, from his doing any particular business before twenty spectators, supposing him to have had a week's, or even a day's
preparation
(in which time if he is not an ideot, he certainly may be perfect in his part, be it what it will) than I would pretend to determine of a woman's beauty or ugliness whose face is covered with a veil. Faces, like hearts, are so differently formed, that,
under a veil,
there is no possibility of seeing the truth. That fine rubied tint that seems to glow in the cheek, may, for ought I can tell, be the blush of nature or the brush of art: the clearness that appears to adorn the complexion, may be the true transparency of beauty, or
tout au contraire,
it may be a kind of white powder, more poisonous than arsenic. Those gentle sinkings, moreover, which look beneath this umbrage, like the beds of the dimples, may be those horrid pits which have been dug in the cheek by the small-pox. In short as soul and body very often club together, to carry on any farce for which they are prepared, I wholly renounce any sort of sagacity, when I look at them in such situations. It is like a naked man fighting two others armed cap-a-pee! No, it is from quiet, unlooked-for, minute surveys, and those upon little circumstances, in which men are little guarded, as thinking that they betray nothing: it is, from watching the lucky crisis, and catching it up as the golden opportunity to pry into those nooks, corners and bye-places of the heart, that are incautiously left open, that its true state must be ascertained to the hundreth part of a vibration.
Many of our English writers have rested their fame on the swell of heroic actions, and on the pomps of those gigantic circumstances which belong to them. Such exhibitions while they are yet new, arrest the streams of life in their progress, and give exactly that sort of stupendous sensation, which strikes us, upon suddenly lifting the eye to a prodigious ridge of rocks, or pile of buildings, especially if the latter should happen to be ornamented with all the great strokes of sculpture, and over-sized figures, such as mice bigger than men, and men larger than elephants; we open the mouth; and declare it is very extraordinary: but, presently, nature is weary of such disproportions, and we turn from them to the minutiae, from the exactitude of which we can draw our inferences with accuracy and precision. Let it be taken into consideration, however, that, when the eye hath once ached, at gratifying its astonishment upon these occasions, it will not risk a second pain. There is no recompense: so that after the first sally, the circulation proceeds in its usual course, without ever again exciting an emotion, either of pleasure or of pain.
Other authors have rejected the mighty and monstrous, for the trifling and minute.
From those who stand foremost in the British list, amongst the moderns, we find the names of Fielding and Sterne. These drew figures from the life. Like true and impartial painters, they considered the heart, exactly as it was: every feature they faithfully preserved. They dealt in the most delicate facts: they followed their object from the street, from the theatre, and from bustling societies into his own house: they watched the process of his after-reflections; his conduct to servants, children, wife, connections: they looked at his heart in the moment of success, and, in that, immediately after disappointment. They regarded not the meagre description of houses, towers, turrets, steeples or fortifications in the gross, but they separated one part from another: they discriminated: they divided: subdivided: united: and, lastly, having patiently marked the smaller actions, they were able to pronounce with certainty of the greater, till, in the end, the truth of the whole became evident and distinguishable.
For my own part, I have here written travels, which I wholly dedicate to the reader's
heart.
No one hath ever travelled in the same way, but the pathetic Yorick; and Yorick hath by no means exhausted the observations to be picked up in a tour through France. I put my name to these little volumes with equal pleasure and confidence, because every page in them was written in the ardour of relating some event, which really happened; and the true impressions
of the heart
are given in every sentence.
To obviate all objection that might arise, from the notion of the
idea
of these volumes being borrowed, from that beautiful work called The Sentimental Journey, it is requested that the reader will
peruse
the performance before he
judges
of it; and then he will find that the very PLAN of these Travels, and those of Yorick, agree in no part so much, as that, they were both written to
amuse the heart,
and with
a design to be printed.
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PREFACE.
CONTAINS remarks on what are commonly called
trifles
— Proofs brought of their importance in all matters that relate to the heart—The Author asserts his originality, notwithstanding Yorick hath gone the same road before him. Page ix
CHAP. I.
Particulars relating to the Author's Case—A discourse betwixt a physician of the heart, and his hectical patient —An apostrophe to Health—Remarks upon apostrophes —
Festina Lente
should be the motto upon every man's carriage, who sets out upon a long journey—The Author is at first in some danger of fatiguing himself and his horses by being too much in a hurry. P. 1
CHAP. II.
Contains a cabinet of curiosities — A new scheme, among the first of enjoyments—Reason is not so good a painter, as Fancy—Several pictures drawn by imagination
for the heart
— The pathos of kissing. P. 18
CHAP. III.
The Author is convinced of the propriety of taking his time—He packs up his portmanteau in a dream—He quarrels with a visionary post-chaise which he imagines to be ill hung— Awakes in a passion, and presents an unexpected scene
for the Heart
—A lady is introduced, and the reason is found out why the post-chaise moved so ruggedly—The lady is to attend the Author on his tour for a purpose
of the Heart,
which, in its proper place, will be acknowledged: meantime, the reader is not to be inquisitive as to the fair traveller's situation; nor even to ask whether she is of flesh and blood, or a mistress of the imagination — As soon as the lady consents to the journey, and trips into the chaise, it is found to be the easiest that ever swung upon leather. P. 26
CHAP. IV.
Wherein
the Heart
is anatomized—The pleasure of carrying on a scheme
characteristically
— The doctrine of delicate
surprises
—Descant upon the ideas associated with a tour to Paris —Dissertation on the
sensibilities,
with a philosophical analysis of the right and left side of the male and female
heart
—The notions of a London-bred citizen—On the subject of travel —Apostrophe to prejudice, with the conclusions of the
heart.
P. 44
CHAP. V.
A lady contrasted on the subject of Travel; to the London-bred citizen. P. 73
CHAP. VI.
Contains such an apology as the reader ought to be very well contented with —The art of being a minute travelling philosopher—Excellent reasons for the Author's going the first stage of his journey, fair, and softly —The circumstance of the chaise setting off
the door in the middle of the first volume properly accounted for—Body travelling alone, and body and heart travelling together, makes a difference in the expedition—A man, with a heart, meets many delays to which a man without one, is not subject—The Author, just as he ends this sixth chapter, mounts Westminster Bridge. P. 76
CHAP. VII.
A small stop to make an apostrophe in praise of Old England—With proposals for a new Dictionary
for the Heart
—Several specimens of the plan —Explanations of certain important words, as they are understood by the Heart — Particularly, the words, Honour, Society, System, &c.—The fatal consequence of not having a
Heart Dictionary,
illustrated, in the true story of Lucius and Avarus, concluding with the legacy of a farthing. P. 83
CHAP. VIII.
The Doctrine of Relapses—Shewing, that the human heart is not the most constant thing under the sun; and that it is very apt to break a favourite resolution the same hour it was made— The writer jogs on steadily in the
Travels for the Heart,
and gives fresh reasons for not making more haste; being convinced that, if he was to gallop, his book would crawl, through its first edition, a miserable footpace—Thoughts upon travellers of
fortune,
and travellers
for the heart.
— Various businesses of a man with a heart as he goes upon the road—A panegyric on crowned heads—A discourse on the tissue of sensibility, and singularity, that is woven in every man's character, and a simile which is embellished with all the colours of the rainbow—One more apology for
hasting slowly.
P. 115
CHAP. IX.
A new Dissertation on
Human Nature, Imagination, Reason, and the Passions,
proving the first to be whimsical, the second delicious, the third weak, and the fourth strong. In this chapter there is a considerable quantity of Love, some sparks of Anger, a look or two of Jealousy, and a proper quantum of Madness—The doctrine of
Relapses
resumed — A quarrel of the
heart,
ending, as usual, in a reconciliation. The Author, towards the conclusion of this chapter, travels extremely fast—A solemn contract made betwixt him and his fair associate—The contract broken
by the heart
—The Author continues at full speed till he gets absolutely to Dover. P. 139
CHAP. X.
An Englishman's prospect of Calais, with the observations of the heart upon surveying the coast of France— The heart deliberates—It descants upon the probable design of the sea dividing the land.—The Author is convinced that he is treading upon the border of a foolish action, in going abroad, and so determines to set off again for London. P. 175
CHAP. XI.
Which shews that the heart is apt to change—The picture of the captain of the packet-boat — Several pages of irresolution—Amelia's enthusiastic address to the sea-gods, and the Author's weakness in the hour of temptation; when he thinks fit to make it the end of the first volume of these
Travels for the Heart.
P. 191
TRAVELS FOR THE HEART.
THE AUTHOR's CASE.
THE finger and thumb of my physician, who is of the people called Quakers, were applied affectionately to my right wrist.
I could see, by his eyes, he did not like the vibrations: they anticipated, by two or three sagacious turns of the pupil, the alarms of his heart.
"The irregularity and skiey influences of this country (said he)— the damps and dews, drizzlings and drippings of this realm of vapours, will not do for thee. Thou canst not humour their caprices."
"Now, France (continued he) France, with all her balmy breezes —the hilarity of her chearful children—the resisting spirit of joy which they profess, to repel the invasions of that disconsolation which would otherwise seise upon the heart—and the attracting novelties of a journey so salient, and undertaken at a season of the year, in which a blossom is peeping from almost every bush to salute thee—France, I say, whose patient sons, and light-hearted daughters, like thy own philosopher Lemuel
A character in the sixth Volume of LIBERAL OPINIONS.
, always take things as they find them—such an excursion to such a country, might—.
The prolixity of this advice— first shewing me the object, and then artfully adorning it — now tempting my curiosity, and now firing my fancy, did the business ten times better than all the downright persuasions in the world. In truth, advice of every kind is
physical,
and must, before it can be received without disgust, be purged of its natural bitterness, smoothed, softened and prepared, with the most delicate skill of composition.
The dose, now gently administered by my physician, was perfectly palatable. It was made up by one of the best and gentlest of the human race, and, as a proof that I discovered nothing of the
medicinal
in it, which, whether in cathartics of the soul or body, are equally hateful and recoiling, I was so eager to take it off hand, that I interrupted him towards the close of his sentence, and prematurely drew the inference from a competent knack which belongs to me of translating his looks.
I am positive my translation was true to the letter and sense of the original; for, as my physician talked upon the benefits of a tour to the Continent, there were so many points symptomatic of his meaning that any man, very moderately skilled in physiognomy, must have interpreted correctly. The symptoms were these: a sparkling eye— an expanded brow — brightened features, and over his face, particularly in the center of the cheeks, that gentle diffusion of blood, which is the genuine tincture of a pleasure streaming from the heart, and characterises the moment of entire complacency.
Entering therefore into the spirit of translation, I drew my conclusion in the following manner—France, you would say, assisted by her train of salutary airs, songs, serenades, and dances, might restore nature to her healthy tone again. — There, you imagine I might breathe a more benignant temperature — there reestablish that shattered system of the nerves which has long been subjected to the whimsical shocks of a less genial element.
He was still pressing his thumb gently upon the artery.
"The very idea of this excursion, (said he) hath been friendly to the pulsations of this little pendulum of life.—Its movements approximate much more to what they should be, than before thou wert journeying in imagination.
Thy case is purely hypochondriacal —France knows nothing of these disorders."
"I will set off directly (said I); one ounce of that health which I originally enjoyed, turns the tremblings of the balance against all the mines that are enclosed within the bowels of the earth. Ah, invaluable treasure! — thou, who givest fresh lustre to the beams of the sun, and fresh radiance to the skies of Heaven!—who bestowest a more balmy odour on the breath of morning, and deepeneth the richness of that tincture which flushes over the rose!—Ah Health, thou prime source of pleasure, and vivifying soul of every felicity beneath the moon—for thee, and thy inspiring influence, I would travel, were I assured of meeting thy rewarding smiles, into the heart of the most uncheary and unpeopled climes. Instead of going forth amidst the fragrancies, and fertilities of France, I would be contented to pursue thy footsteps through the burning shores of Africa, or through the depth of those sterile regions, which deform Arabia. With what a fervent alacrity doth the sick man leave even his velvet couch, and downy pillow, to court those breezes and those vales, however distant and obscure, which thou deignest to frequent. No desert can long deserve that name, or long remain barren which is honoured by thy radiating presence. Wherever thou journeyest, plenty and pleasure are thy harbingers — the thorn is softened to a flower, and from the barren rock issues at thy bidding the most copious streams of running water. In thy train are all the graces, and the gayest assemblage of those enchanting ideas, which those graces inspire. Imagination, fancy, poesy, and every power belonging to her divine and ingenious sisters, are thine — They describe, sing, design, paint, and regulate their seperate arts, each allied to the other, only under thy immediate auspices.
If then thou art to be found, oftener in the kingdoms of Louis of Bourbon, than of George of Britain, I rise with all the strength and energy that nature hath left me to carry this person nearer to the Seine. With the blessings of health come, spontaneously, the blessings of correcter remark—the eye acquires a clearer light of its object—the intellect is cleansed of those cloudy films which before entangled it—and the ways of men—their manners—and their hearts, are more easily read, and more easily written upon.—In short, the longer I contemplate this journey, the more comforts shall I find arising from it, and so, to cut short the whole matter, by one decisive sentence—I will set off for Dover this very evening.
Nothing could possibly be a stronger testimony of genuine good-nature, than what was now exhibited by my physician, who, with incredible temper, sat out my apostrophe, and, I doubt not would have suffered me to figure away uninterruptedly had I gone on to the last tick of the twelfth hour; although he held in his hand, and once or twice put to his ear, one of those machines which reminds every man how much time remains for him to do his business. Apostrophies, however, and more especially, where imagination is invited to dress up, and trick out, any amiable images, are too delightful to admit any thing that diminishes their loveliness, or robs them of the beauty which they acquire from ornamental personification.
If I were not in a violent hurry to get forward in my journey, I could, here, say a great many things on the art of personifying and apostrophising; but as these points may, perhaps, come in, sufficiently a-propos, in any other part of these travels (which I hope
so
to write, as to make the heart of every reader, of every sex and complexion, go willingly along with me) whether I lead him first to the confines of France, from thence to the foot of the Pope, and then onward, as far as foot, either of man or horse can journey, I shall rest contented, at present, with first noteing that in these cases, when a man warms in his apostrophe—when—moreover— he kindles in the course of personifying an object so attracting as the goddess of health, all human things around him, are, for the time being, compleatly annihilated; and the apostrophiser obliviates every article in the place where his
body
happens to be—his soul is on the wing—whether those articles are of wood or stone, or brick or mortar, or flesh or blood.
My physician, recollecting the happiness I was enjoying in these brisk sallies of the imagination, and well aware of the fine activity in which all the vessels, that either feed, or are fed by the heart, were voluptuously regaled, sat quiet, and when I finished, examined once more the flutterings of the pulse; after which ceremony, being the third of the same sort, he left me with an assurance that, I had only to think myself happy, and to be so; for that he cordially congratulated me on safely dismounting, after so successful a gallop, through the plains of fancy.—He stopped, however, and turned short round as he got to the door just to beg of me not to use the whip and spur with too much energy at first setting off, since, it was easy to perceive, if I went on upon the stretch as I began, all the terra firma, as well as all the water in the universe, must be overtraversed after a few airings, and I should get to the end of the world
ideally,
before I had, according to the slow order of
actual
travel, turned round my chaise and first given the gehew.
THE CABINET.
A NEW scheme, aptly projected, and in the right moment, is as the morning sun which brighteneth more and more unto the perfect day. From the time it takes possession, fancy begins the business of decoration, and mixes up her most beautiful colours with the nicest art and ingenuity. Every body who hath either a head to conceive, or a heart to feel, can tell, fancy is a fine though a flattering painter; but then her portraits, like those of the artist who pleased every-body, become delightful from the delicacy of certain adulatory touches which throw an air of complacency into them, so that it is impossible for any one to be disgusted, but those surly and sordid mortals who are only to be satisfied by the downright full-length drawings of reason —an artist who piques herself upon etching correctly from the life, but whose pictures, nevertheless, like the unseasonable truths which run at random from the lips of blunt and ill-bred people, offend even from their very accuracy. Fancy, on the contrary, softens the rigid, and improves the elegant. At least, she was now in the humour to oblige in the greatest degree, and threw figures into such attitudes, postures, and positions, that hypochondriacism, fleeted away like the dreary shadows of the December night, and spleen withdrew to that Erebus in which she was engendered.
Many things contributed to this unusual gaiety of heart. At the corner of a little apartment, I at this time occupied, stood a small cabinet inlaid with ebony, and slips of cedar—It descended to me in a right line from the male part of my ancestors, and had been preserved entire, with all that caution which we bestow upon a favourite. It became, now, not only a relick of family, but a curiosity from its antiquity. Both these adjoined to some other circumstances traditionally tender—such as its having contained in one of the drawers those little golden circles, which united three of my relations, from whose fingers they were taken after death had dissolved the connection—locks of hair also cut, with a trembling hand, by the disconsolate survivors, as a last testimony of conjugal recollection.—These circumstances I say, and ten thousand more which belong
to the heart,
made this little pittance of patrimony so inexpressibly dear to me, that whether I resided in town or country, and indeed whithersoever I went, this was sure to be my travelling companion. Its size was, luckily, favourable to such purposes; but notwithstanding this avowed partiality, it never would have been brought forward to the notice of the world, had it not been necessary to introduce something
for the heart.
In the centre drawer of this little cabinet was deposited, in a case of velvet, the portrait of a lady, dear to me by every sensibility that attracts one heart to another. I drew it from the case, where, with all the jealousy of passion, it was concealed, equally, from the breath of Heaven, and the dust of the earth. To tell you that the original was absent, and then that I kissed the resemblance, would be too cold, too common, and too unimpassioned a relation of the fact, unless I acquainted you with all the tender ceremonies that preceded such a salutation; and yet to make you acquainted with these, is so far beyond the scope of any language in which I have any skill, and, I much fear, so much beyond the scope of any language now in use amongst men, that I shall not rob the best of sensations in the softest of moments by any description whatever.
Be assured, the salutation was of that sort, my eyes were darted upon the fair similitude with such a fervour, and it was pressed to my bosom, which throbbed at the junction, with a feeling so far above the things of this world, that nothing but the power who allowed the sensation, could create words to express it.
"And thou, fair creature (said I) as well as that form which as much surpasseth thee, as the master-pieces of God surpass the master-pieces of man, shall be the companions of my journey."—
At this time the servant came to inform me my physician was at the door in the chariot.—I put the miniature into its case, and descended with it into the parlour.
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
WHEN the doctor saw me enter with an air of chearfulness, he again felt the pulse, whose beatings he liked so well, that he left me to pack up my things, under a persuasion, that the sooner I was gone, and the more I engaged in these little sallies of activity — in which hand, head, and heart are all at work—the better.
But when a nervous mortal sets out in a hurry, he runs himself down—like a watch, injured in those springs which sustain the wheels on their centre—long before the twelve hours, and the transactions belonging to such a quantity of life, are duly noted and performed.
Lassitude of body, produces fatigue of soul. After all this vehement agitation, forcibly carried on for more than sixty minutes, in which I had more precipitately bestired myself than was either necessary to the occasion, or consistent with the peace and quietness of any man's fibres — unless they had been bound up with bracings of iron — after all this, I say, heaviness came upon me, and I had sudden recourse to that benign Power who repairs this fragil tenement of nature, which we carry about us; a power whose obliviating draught every son of Adam, and every being on the mortal scale, whether an atom or a giant, fondly thirsts for. But even the slumbers of weariness are not sound; and extreme lassitude is inconsistent with that serenity which produces, after the decays and waste of the day, a perfect repose.
Be my body, however, in whatever state it might, my mind asserted its immortality, and, assisted by imagination, carried me in a vision of the night, from one room to another, from the top of the house to the bottom of it—from the drawer which contained my treasure in a small silken purse, to that which held my apparel, till I had fairly filled to the brim a responsible travelling trunk; which being so well studded with nails, and preserved by iron and leather-work, looked as if it belonged rather to
my Lord Anglois
than to an author.
In the hey-day of this visionary and violent exercise, just upon the point, as it were, of ravishing the maidenhead of a
nouvelle
pursuit, I represented the luggage as fastening before me on the chaise, into which I got with the dispatchful step of eager resolution.
Methought the carriage was infinitely too large—too commodious —too roomy—it appeared to my fancy, like entering alone into a prodigious apartment without a single piece of valuable furniture. It wanted something — I rocked myself backwards and forwards upon the seat, till the whole machine tossed upon its traces, like a vessel in a tempest. Never surely was there a more melancholy moment of see-saw—What can possibly be the matter with this strange confound—
The see-saw, assisted by my more vehement movements, encreased so much that every syllable jerked in its articulation—
"What can possibly be the matter (said I) with this con-found-ed— rumb-ling — mis-e-rable-hung — vil-lain of a chaise? — It is like taking a journey on the rack!" I bid the postillion go forwards a little — Worse and worse — The swing of the vehicle shook me to pieces. What was before tedious, was now unsupportable. In hopes that after I had passed the rugged stones of London, all would go on smoothly, I directed the driver to proceed.
I reached a road more level than the green sward. Still shocking— and nothing in prospect, but rock, morass, and desart. Unable to find out the cause, I grew angry, as most people do,
I could not tell why,
and choosing to impute the whole matter to the carriage itself, I insisted upon getting out, and having it immediately changed: so without more ado, I opened the door myself, and then shut or rather slapped it too, as the only reasoning animal does when he is in a passion; after which pleasant testimony of the state of my temper, and the amendment of my nerves, I walked home, with a speed, which still farther signified that if a man had any little address to make to my heart, he had better keep out of the way. Just as fancy who had been playing these vagaries with a poor fellow who never offended her—conducted me to the door of my apartment; I was so thoroughly vexed with the see-saw of that same infamous machine—with the caitiff of an artizan who put it so pitifully together— and with the proprietor at the livery stables, who could have the heart and conscience to send an hypochondriacal man, the first stage of a long journey, in a vehicle, which must, inevitably, knock him up at once, that I stamped my right foot against the floor till I fairly awoke; and in waking, lo—It was a dream.
It is fabled that dreams descend from Jove. Presently, it will be seen, whether I have any reason for assenting to such an opinion. But, before this, I have another stroke
for the heart.
Weariness is not very delicate in the choice of her resting-place, any more than hunger is precise in the choice of her viands. The one closes her eye upon the first shelter she can find, as the other diets contentedly upon whatever presents itself. I had thrown myself, upon the departure of my physician, upon a small sopha, which not allowing me to extend myself, in all the luxury of a bed, at full length, I was obliged to contract myself till my head hung uneasily over the edges of the sopha.
Readers who are punctilious, will insist on being informed how I came to know this, when I tell them that I neither recollect the posture in which I lay down, and that, I did not find myself in the position above described when I got up. In all my writings it has been a maxim to request the reader will allow me the reasonable priviledge of telling a story, introducing a circumstance, and relating a fact, my own way; promising, not ultimately to leave him in the dark, although it might not be expedient to throw at first sight so much commentary on the text as he might imagine necessary. This priviledge I still claim, and, indeed, cannot find it in my heart to give it up, but with the faculty which enables me to fabricate the sentiments, and set it down upon paper.
I remain, moreover, more and more convinced, that, in adhering to this practice, I equally consult my own ease, as well as that of the reader. Now, had I told him, for instance, that some time after my waking from so perturbed a slumber, I learned from the lips of that excellent creature (from whose native graces were copied the fainter traits of the miniature in the velvet case) that I was, a little while ago, found sleeping without a pillow, or wherewithal to lay the head of an invalid—Had I told the reader such a tale, without telling him, at the same time, or even, previously, that out of such disquieting attitudes I was removed by the tender care of that very lady who had laid my head upon her arm, and was surveying me in a silent fondness, which characterises the tenderness of a young mother, when she superintends the slumbers of her sleeping son.
The whole truth of the matter became, from this moment, apparent; and I saw plainly into the nature of my dream; which thus, with the accuracy of a Joseph, I proceeded to interpret:
"Beshrew me (said I) if all the faults I imputed to the chaise, were not to be imputed to
myself
—to my own imprudence in entering it alone! alone! ah—foolish idea— the chariot of the clouds—even that which Jupiter is wont to mount in his progress through the skies, must have been uneasy, unless the divine Juno was sitting beside him—Albeit, that illustrious dame, is said to have pealed in his celestial ears the domestic thunder of a wife—still it was society—it was still better than cutting through the other in solitary majesty!"
And was I, even though in vision, about to traverse through unknown countries, without society—without
that
society which was most dear to me — without one kind bosom to soothe me in the hours of accident or anxiety, should either of them befal me on the way; or one gentle soul to share my pleasures, should pleasures be bestowed! how forlorn is the path of the traveller in the gayest and most chearful climes!— How barren are prospects of the most ample expansion, and most florid aspect, if they are ranged over alone!—Every heart hath some delicate attractions, on which it relies in every situation of joy or sorrow for relief! smiles and tears —the sunshine and the showers, of life, must all be divided. It may, indeed, sometimes be allowable to seek out a corner wherein to
weep,
for there is a delicacy to be observed in the communication of
distress;
but he who is a niggard of his
joy,
and can be avaricious in his happier sensations, is unfit for the more elegant connections, and deserves to have his dreams invaded, and his slumbers disturbed by disagreeable see-saws all the days of his pilgrimage through the difficult journey of life.
This ejaculation, supported as it was by the smiling countenance that was before me, and by a touch of the hand that thrilled a feeling felicity to the very end of the fingers, put the whole matter into a new train, and made the second excursion of fancy, when she was broad awake, so inexpressibly pleasing that she once more tript with me into one of those carriages, which she hath always ready harnessed at a moment's warning;—indeed it was the same I had before execrated, and, methought, no chaise was ever hung on its springs so easily, nor did I ever anticipate any thing with so true a relish of expected pleasure, as the moment of setting off upon a journey of near three hundred miles.
ANATOMY OF THE HEART.
THE reader hath now been brought as a witness, that the person who sat for the picture, was no longer absent, and that she was certainly to be the companion of my migrations to whatever shores they were directed. Fresh matter of surprise will it, therefore, be to him, if he happens not to be quite so retrogade in his motions as the author of these pages; against the likelihood of which, indeed, the odds are considerable. He will wonder at that spirit of Quixotism which enabled me to proceed in my plan, without informing of it the only person who was not only most nearly interested in this event, but in every turn, twist, and angle I should make, in the journey of life.
Peradventure, the matter will appear even more mysterious yet, should I, with any face of seriousness, assert, which here I solemnly do, that I took, propensly, the opportunity of this dear person's going out on a visit, to pack up my travelling parcels, and go on, in the same snug, obscure way, even to the last preparation of ordering a chaise to receive them.
Curiosity, whose eyes, ears, and mouth are always open, would like to know the reason of this. Now, these pages being addressed to the heart, I shall, for the sole use of students therein, enter into an elaborate dissertation, in which I shall dissect that irregular part of humanity, and by so doing, settle the intricacy that seems to be involved round the enigma before us. To such, however, as know any thing about nature, or can any way account for the thousand whimsical traits which go to the making up a single man's character—and of all others that of an Englishman—it will seem no enigma at all. But my pen itches to begin the anatomy; and I invite every stripling, who is beginning to study the heart, to be very attentive to the lecture, which I am now going to read upon it.
Minds there be, to whom a scheme is delicious. There is more of soul than body in it; and very frequently the principal pleasure of it is, carrying it on progressively, to the conclusion, with as much secrecy, care, and circumspection, as would be necessary to carry on a conspiracy. It is amongst the chief of natural curiosities, to take a view of a person engaged in a business of this kind. Every faculty, from the blood which flows, to the heart which beats, hath something to do, and puts forth the best ability to the work—The idea once born, with what parental vigilance a man cherishes the new creation! How fondly he feeds it with the pap of imagination—How assiduously he nurses it into strength and activity, and how enchantingly does he adorn the full-blown folly with fragrance and with flowers that bloom for ever. I wish with all my soul I could do perfect justice to a delicate part of my subject which I am about to treat—namely
the doctrine of pleasing surprises,
to manage which, as they constitute the chief happiness of life, demands a nicety and address to which few of either sex are equal.
The most charming circumstances, are, generally, the most unexpected. Those which have been anticipated are despoiled of their virgin beauties, and are sadly tarnished before they come into possession; but in the true crisis, to come upon the heart, when perhaps it declines from the desireable medium, and gravitates towards the extreme of sorrow—in such a season, to steal imperceptibly upon the senses and gladden them with an unlooked-for enjoyment, eclipses in lustre all the formal preliminaries, and cold expectancies of a proposed pleasure, that ever were made. A long antidated pleasure, dimly seen at a distance, tedious in its advances, and all its novelty gone before it comes within reach, is the dullest of all things which are unworthily thrust into the list of delights: it is like the certainty of the sun shining with uniform radiance through the year; in which case his orb might rise and set without the least regard or homage. The hearts for which I am writing revolt from transports so villainously forestalled. "Give me (say they)—I shall truly translate their beating — give us the lustre which breaks upon us unawares— Let
us
relish the blessing of that glorious luminary who is paramount lord of the aether, when the storm, the tempest, the cloud impends horridly over our heads—just in the moment when we have given up a prospect of pleasure which depended on the elements. When the rain and hail of disappointment descends upon us, then let his beams produce his lucid wonders to dispel the collected gloom, and shew us that the homage of the human heart is ensured by surprise."
This point still admits of brighter illustrations.
I no sooner discovered myself supported by the lady as above described, than, depending fully upon the success of surprise, I began a congratulation on the near prospect of a trip to Paris — "A trip, dear lady (said I, elevating my tones in conformity to the charms of the intelligence; for more than half, whether of joyful or sad tidings, depends upon the tones—) a trip, dear lady, for the tender feelings— an excursion, purely calculated to draw forth all the finer affections— an excursion, moreover, in which, though we omit the description of hotels, and streets and towns, and towers, with all the tiresome etcetera of the plodding traveller—all that is novelle, characteristic, and curious —all that is allied to the movements —stops and meanders of the heart, shall attract us on the way."
I need not have rambled into such a length of recommendation: dear lady, let us make a tour to Paris, would have been enough. Never was idea more complexed; and fashion hath now associated with the very name of that city such soothing opinions with respect to the urbanity, smoothness, politesse, and courtesy of its people, that a journey thither might have drawn a Penelope from her web, and made her a downright gossip. The most mild and moderate women in Christendom might be allowed some emotions upon so apt a piece of news, coming too with such a direct stroke upon the nerves; the more particularly as, in the crisis of general vegetation, when every part of nature acquires fresh sensibility, one is more inclined to perigrinate.
Let it not therefore be turned or twistest by any mortal who is hackneyed in crooked ways of misrepresentation—ah, let it not be turned against the gentle sex, if in the candour of my fidelity towards the reader—with whom I resolve to deal, notwithstanding that I am on my travels, according to the entire truth that is in me—let it not, I, a third time charge the reader, be turned against the fairest and best part of the creation, should I observe that this notion of a trip to Paris was received with one of those jumps of ineffable approbation and acquiescence, in which every limb, artery, fibre, and membrane leaps in concert—in one sentence, every atom that makes up the woman danced in tune to the harmony of the proposal.
Readers, unacquainted with
the heart,
may, nevertheless, imagine, there was an objection against this proposal on account of its
instantaniety;
although so much pains hath already been taken to make it palpable as the light of Heaven, that suddenness, is the very sublime of a surprise. To know the heart is as difficult a science as ever was studied. Fine-spun, subtle, and delicate are the intellectual threads which fasten and connect the corresponding thoughts one to another. In a female subject, these threads are so extremely fine, that, although every link is distinctly separated, yet the whole chain which wreaths itself round the heart, seems, at first sight, a chaos of confused matter, unadjusted by any sort of oeconomy. But to have any sound notion of this philosophical anatomy, in which neither Galen, Hippocrates, or Machaon, appear to have been adequate adepts, it is necessary to know, first, that the sensibilities of the beautiful sex are not only more transparent and impressive than those of the male part of the human species, but lie, as it were, in a train—are engaged in the closest union, and reciprocally maintain the most harmonious alliance.
Secondly, it is proper to understand that the affections of the sex are divided into two capital classes; one class keeping jure divino, full possession of the right side, and one, by virtue of the same authority, of the left side of
The Heart thus
Affections of Pain.
Affections of Pleasure.
The least and gentlest touch upon either of the chords which regulate these, sets the whole fearful and wonderfully-made machine in motion. There is, besides, at particular periods, an exquisite, and—I had almost said divine irratibility— in the sensations, that torment; transport, or tranquillity, a smile, or a frown, tears or laughter, are produced in a moment. It is but hitting off the critical situation to be master of the science that leads directly to a true knowledge of the heart.
Thus, for instance, if a lover looks sombre, a lap-dog is sick, or a ruffle is lacerated, that nerve, upon which, as upon a main spring, is hinged the painful associations, begins to distress the poor lady, till a softer stroke on the nerve which directs the affections on the opposite side of the heart, strikes up a tune of gayer emotions, and makes all that was jarring again concordant. Hence it appears as plain as the page which you are now reading, that women require none of those tedious preparations which throw a damp over the face of enjoyment, and which men of books and business too often demand before their sluggish, abstract, or Change-alley hearts into feelings suitable to a pleasurable surprise. And, herein consists the indiscribeable superiority of the female organization. Every artery, about them, is hung more airily; the avenues which nature hath opened to the heart, though perhaps more involved in mazes, are yet so like a wilderness of sweets, that we have many more inducements to clear the way, and examine them: add to all this that certain voluptuous particles swim along the beautiful labyrinths that are formed by the veins, and always fit them for a spirited proposal at a moment's notice.
The per contra of this argument may, even yet, furnish corroborations still more indisputable. Had a London-bred, Lombard-street citizen, flush from the Change, been accosted with a direct invitation to step into a post-chaise to make an excursion to Paris, those who have seen the workings of a merchant's heart will represent him as dropping his jaw, uplifting his eyes, and opening his mouth, as if his whole sordid body of negociation was put to a silent stand.—"To Paris (when he recovered that breath which surprise had alarmed) he would exclaim, Paris!—God of my fathers—what do you take me for! Leave my own incomparable country!—the country in which I was begat, in which I was born, in which I grew, in which I prospered!—Leave my gettings, my gleanings, my clubs, my meetings, my friends!—Leave the Change, the Jerusalem coffee-house, Lombard-street, and London! —Leave England, the unparalleled England—the nonpareil of nations —a land flowing with milk and honey!—Leave all these joys and advantages, for Paris — a city of whip sillabubs—the capital of coxcombs—a tawdry town made up of tinsel, pomatum, paint, and petits maitres!—and would you persuade me to go from hence to such a country?—no, no, no,—England, England, Old England for ever!"
Oh Prejudice, Prejudice—what a monster art thou!—How blind— how low-thoughted! uglier even than thy sister Partiality—Thou hast the vanity and ignorance to think, that the handful of inhabitants scattered over the surface of thy own country are only in favour with the god of all countries, and that all the other parts of the world are the wretched offals of nature, unworthy the protection of providence. Most irreligious suggestion! — most unbenevolent, and unmanly! Does nature bloom into luxuries? Does spring burst into verdure, and summer ripen into blossoms for only one of the most diminutive proportions of the universe? In what abject corner of thy heart didst thou find, lurking, this miserable system? Be certain, that the great Governor of Nature despises every illiberal tenet, and thou canst not do better than to root it out of thy bosom for ever. The bounties of Heaven and earth circumscribed by such an atom upon the scale, as thou art, forsooth! The very mite that engenders in the pores of thy skin, for whose banqueting thy personal beauties were partly made, might laugh thee to scorn for such presumption. Does not the sun, with a lustre equally lavish, and luxuriant, invigorate the vegetation? Do not spirits equally cordial and cheary, do not hopes and wishes, equally ardent, inspire and adorn other places and other people beside thee and thine? Try a little, I prithee, to enlarge and to expand thy heart. Venture, for once, to let thy fancy, or thy reason, or what else it is, by which thou art distinguished as amongst the order of rationals, to make an excursion beyond the confines of thy own kingdom. Walk onward to the beach that presents to you the beginnings of that ocean which divides one part of the human race from common intercouse with another, and then casting thine eye — the eye of the soul—beyond the waters, be liberal in thy conclusions. People of all manners, all modes, and all persuasions, as well as of all languages, pass in prospect before thee —the Turks—the Jew—the Capodocian—the Neopolitan—the Genoese — the Tartan — the Swiss— the Spaniard—the Frenchman—the Laplander—the Hottentot, and the Arab. Most of these differ from thee in ceremonies, in habits, in customs peculiar either to place, or people; but the great characters of the heart admit of small variations: they all, like thee, have friends who are dear, and foes who are obnoxious: their anxiety is expressed by tears, and their felicity is marked by a smile. Gentle tempers are every where complacent, elegant, social and pathetic; and Fury is true to her characteristics, and hath her eye of fire, her tongue of venom, and her arm of vengeance in all countries of the world. Every heart too in every clime is susceptible of that softer sensation which not only draws body to body, but soul to soul. The tender sighs of passion, the languor of disappointed love, the agony of hope deferred, seizes with equal force upon the Greenlander in his hut that is hemmed in by the ice, and the panting Indian who is buried in the foliage of his forest to avoid the burnings of the sun. The ties of friendship too have a resistless magnetic power throughout the globe. Charity, philanthrophy, good-will also, abound wherever men have assembled, and wherever they have fixed only a temporary residence.
No degradation to thy native land to say this. Thy native land is distinguished by many excellencies. Her soil is fruitful, her sons are generous, and her daughters are fair—but what of that? Neither fertility, nor generosity, nor beauty are confined to her alone. How might the God of all government be accused! How would the natives of other nations rise up with unanimous rebuke against him if he had limited his benignity in the manner thou would'st insinuate? Nay how much reason would the tender-hearted even of thine own country, have to complain were this the case? The stubborn trader that hangs about thy heart, is, I should in charity hope, by this time softened. The man of the world, and the ruggedness which is contracted by the pursuit of money, is, perhaps, worn smooth by the force of social arguments, and upon this persuasion, I will venture to ask thee whether even thou couldst avoid murmuring against such partial distributions? Could'st thou withhold thy tears? Nay, couldst thou enjoy the smiles of prosperity, were it possible for thee, seriously, to suppose that all that is good, and fair, and happy, and amiable, was resident only in Britain, and, consequently, that all the other divisions of the globe were deserted by nature, and abandoned by her director? I make a solemn appeal to thy
heart,
man of gain, to know if thou
could'st
enjoy this?—
"For the joys of wealth, I could:" replies my hero of the Royal Exchange — "For Lombard-street, London, and the roast beef of Old England, so could I;" echoes one of those chimney-corner characters who hath cultivated the clods from whence he grew, and to which he shall return after fifty years insensibility, just as wise as liberal, and as serviceable as he was born.
Fie, fie, and a thousand blushes upon such for the poorness of their heads, and the pitylessness of feelings —but I am writing
for the heart,
and have therefore no leisure to address those who are without one.
THE CONTRAST.
FOIL opposed to jewel is the life and soul of brilliance. The last pages should be set off by a contrast.
"In that trunk (said I) Amelia, I have, without any ceremony put up your things with mine, and with as little ceremony, we will, if you please, set off directly for Dover in our way to Paris"—
At this very moment the crack of the post-boy's whip announced the arrival of the chaise.—
Had I talked to eternity with the eloquence of a Seraph, nothing could have been so perfectly argumentative as the advances of this chaise at this period.—It did not leave a single word more to be said upon the subject. As Heaven would have it too, the evening sun shot his rays more merrily upon us, and at the back of all this entered a person, who, by way of one of those surprises I have just celebrated, paid me in the lawful money of Great Britain, sufficient of itself to weigh down all scruples had there been any feathers of objection remaining. I could easily see that, that side of the heart was touched which contains those vessels that feed the passions of pleasure—I saw consent bloomingly written on every feature—I took my little cabinet under my arm, handed Amelia into the chaise, and heard, with pleasure, the wheels rattle over the pavement.
THE APOLOGY.
ONE can scarce look attentively at any object in nature, if we have but the policy to turn it in on all sides, and place it in every point of view where it may be fairly seen, without finding sufficient scope to engage the heart and its affections. To such as are willing to exercise their better sensibilities, there is not room in the whole universe for so much blank as might be crouded (speaking figuratively) upon the point of a needle. Every part of the globe, and all which it inherits, teems with subjects of meditation; and I pity from my soul that poor creature who goes to sleep in his arm-chair of indolence upon the false pretence of filling up the hiatus, which he would persuade us, opens its jaws before him.
Let no man, therefore, say, I have been too tedious in my outset. He who travels for the benefit of the human heart, and designs to see how it beats, what it is propense to, and against what it recoils, in the bosoms of a strange people, must take care what he is about. Besides which, it is to be noted, that although I was a little agitated so that the nerves could scarce bear the concussion of the first idea of such a journey, yet, when one is cool enough to put circumstances into a regular train, the necessity of "hastening slowly" is more obvious.
I do not deny having made large strides towards the middle of the first volume of my travels before I have made any great progress towards the first place of my destination: nay, I farther own, that the chaise is only now wheeling from the door—but what of all this? The preparations of the heart are manifold: especially when it bids adieu to its native country. Those preparations, however, are all interesting, and, if related in a tolerable manner, can leave no room for discontent. Common journeys, indeed, whether to the farthest inn, or to the nearest cake-house, undertaken upon the common principles of perigrination, have few matters to settle besides the folding of silks, emboxing of laces, disposition of trinkets, and other flattering fripperies which belong to the paraphernalia of trifling people. All these are too superficial, and skim about on the surface of the fluids, without affecting the solids of a philosophical heart. This last sentence is by no means expressed to my wish, but it may do to shew, that I have not lingered unnecessarily. On the contrary, I hope, the knowledge
of the heart
hath been manifest in every minute circumstance which hath interrupted me. It is no small matter to fit out the heart of man for a long journey, however it may, at first, leap at the notion of travel. In one part of his house he sees one thing which presses hard upon his affections—in another part he observes something else which, whether dead or alive, lays claim to his last attentions—the cat purs for notice, the dog fondles for his share of courtesy—the domestics, which are left behind, will, at such a time, venture to tug a little boldly, at the feelings, and the very household furniture seems to say unto us, as it stands disordered about the rooms, "God send thee a safe deliverance to the land of thy fathers!" The tender impediments which happened to
me,
I have honestly and frankly related. I am now taking—you will allow me the retrospect—I am now taking my farewell of the beautiful Thames from the elevation of one of the noblest bridges of the world, which I am just mounting; and if the reader is considerate enough to be satisfied, that it was impossible for me, with any decency, to get any farther, I shall now invite him to let his heart travel with mine and Amelia's upon that road, which leads to one of the boundaries of the British empire.
SCHEME OF A NEW DICTIONARY FOR THE HEART.
I HAVE already celebrated the beauty of the evening in which we set out. Nature and art appeared, indeed, to be contending for the mastery, and in the struggles of this very contention, the elegancies of both became more apparent. Who will not, therefore, forgive me, if even yet I detain him with that animated apostrophe which broke from me at a time when I was leaving my native country?
Farewell beautiful villages—scenes of luxuriant herbage — pleasing prospects, and magnificent mansions!—Farewell too to thee, imperial London!—to thy gorgeous edifices, cloud-capped towers, ample streets, and multiplied amusements —oh farewell!
The spectator who hath not used his eyes to a keen purpose, and who hath not, indeed, travelled far enough into the labyrinths of human nature, or gone close to the confines of
the heart,
can have no conception, how much those clouds which either
beautify
or
deform
our day, depend upon accidents the most adventitious, and circumstances the most minute. One mal-a-propos syllable, is sufficient to turn smiles into tears, and change the entire countenance of society. Prithee reader, grudge not the time thou wilt be taken up, in looking into this subject
of the heart.
Those partitions which seperate felicity from woe, are so transparently thin; and the powers — the genii — the passions—the deities—the demons, or whatever they really be, which preside over the misery and the joy of life, are so constantly at work, that they alternately have their triumphs and their disgraces so often, there seems to be, in fact, no positive separation at all. In the gayest moment of pleasure, while we are yet plucking the rose, which, if it ever blooms at all, blooms more charmingly in the May of our existence, than at any later period, how cautious should we be even in the act of cropping it, least the thorns which are beneath it, diminish not our ideas of its fragrance. If I could either satisfy myself, or those good people who may hereafter travel with me through these pages, I would not fail to introduce in this place a chapter upon
words.
Even as it is, I must throw out a few hints, just to put the reader's mind into a track, which may then be better pursued by himself.
The
use of words,
in the sense I mean to speak of them, is not so much what philogicians, and dictionary-makers interpret, as what
Divines
express in relation to them.
That which, in the phrase of ecclesiastics, is designed by
the government of the tongue,
comes the nearest to what I would say upon the matter. Let us suppose ourselves sitting at a banquet where festivity, and hospitality have joined every hand and united every heart. The tender caress, the sentiments of cordiality, and the smiles of the face produced by those of the heart, are before us. What a feast were this for a man of any goodness or good-nature!
He will not look, upon such an occasion, too near; at least he will not
seem
to look too near to that source from whence flow the streams of pleasure and of▪ pain. He will not, in such a case,
anatomise.
The general aspect of benignity which brightens around him, he will kindly imagine to be sincere—and that—at least till the banquet is over—anxiety of every sort, is, with the dusky robe of drudgery, hung up at home, and forgotten.
Let the man of mere goodness and good nature I say, take all this for granted, and let his soul sit down amongst them in perfect felicity. Hark—hark! as the generous spirit of Bacchus begins to sparkle, the wit, and hilarity which he inspires becomes proportionably brilliant. If haply, the sable wing of sorrow hovered over any heart before, all is now well again, and the plumes of the dove cannot be more soft or more fair than the present moments: but every moment beyond these—however white these may be—may become a moment of agony: and to prevent their really being such require the most delicate skill, as well as the most consummate discretion, in the
use of words.
At this crisis, just as the hilarity of the circle is mantling to the brim, without overflowing, let the sage—but without a sage's brow— who travels for the information
of the heart
—enter into the society as a willing and invited guest. So long as the harmony lasts, every key that winds up the feelings of sympathy, must needs be in tune. But alas! how soon do the notes begin to jar, the sound to flatten, and the strings to fly, till the whole instrument becomes an instrument of discord. Perhaps in less time than I am obliged to employ in the sentence that relates it, one friend may wound another in the most intolerable part — the peace of a father—the honour of a son—the purity of a daughter—the continence of a wife may be destroyed—The credit of a merchant may be tainted, and those hands which were before joined in friendly unanimity, as if, in the embrace they grew together, may be stained with blood.
Now all these misfortunes, which very well might happen, and a thousand similar to them which
do
come to pass, all—or by much the greatest part — proceed from not understanding the
use of words.
Amongst all our dictionaries, we have not yet one
for the heart.
Ingenuity and excessive labour have employed themselves to instruct the illiterate world in the necessary points of verbal criticism; and the arts have all been assisted by such means. Human nature only hath been neglected, and yet even Locke could not have engaged his abilities in a better cause.
As words are to convey thoughts, and as thoughts come from the heart, every pain or pleasure produced by words, in fact, originates from the heart. Indeed! how much, and how often, then, gracious God, are we in the power of each other!— What delicacy, what oeconomy, what conduct, should we use in the
arrangement
of every sentence!
Does the happiness of any man's heart—does the character of any woman's fame—do their pursuits— successes—disgraces, depend on
me?
—Have I all their hopes and fears, as it were at will, and can I dispense, to the first, joy, or to the last anxiety, only by the proper or the malicious turn of an expression?
If this be the case, should there not be one more dictionary still added to the list—tediously long as it is—in order to explain the language of the heart; or rather, to shew what terms it can, and what terms it cannot bear. To genius, rather than to labour, is this work recommended. He who undertakes it, must have mixed amongst men, must have noted manners, and must be at no loss to account for a thousand seeming contradictions that happen in society. Thus equipped for the task, he might enter upon the subject with all the address and nicety which it deserves. Might it not pursue some such plan as the following, which I offer by way of hints? Let us first touch upon the article
honour,
and our explanations of this, as well as of all other words, must be exactly suited to the customs of the climate, and the feelings of the heart. For instance
H. HONOUR.
The heart takes this word in several senses, though they all have a correspondence. I. With the hearts of young men, it implies a quick sense of resentment with which is connected an high notion of dignity, independence, &c. &c. It must always be used with great caution in the company of military people, and in conversation about women: nay the very tone with which it is articulated, must be correctly and complacently in tune, otherwise many fatal accidents may happen. II, The heart takes this word to imply, amongst persons in business, a sense of probity, integrity, fair-dealing, and common honesty; so that it should, in this case, be always pronounced with a full, copious, unsuspicious and liberal utterance; as the least reserve in the pronunciation may be attended with the destruction of the object whom it describes. The adoption of any expressions like those which are used by Hamlet, such as, we could an we would, a significant wag of the finger, an arch turn of the eye, or a shake of the head as much as to say we know what we know, —any of these, at the time of pronouncing the word honour, is enough to make it necessary to take out a commission of bankruptcy.—
Let our second example of this new Dictionary be upon the article Society, under the letter
SOCIETY.
THE ideas which the heart associates with this word, are complex; sometimes considering it as extending largely to the whole species, and sometimes to a few beloved individuals whom opportunity, and the affections of the heart, have selected from the rest. It also signifies that convivial circle which, bound by the most chearful cement, is closely compacted for now and then an occasional hour, merely to dissipate the cares of life, and lay its ruggedness level by sporting relaxations. But, in which ever import it is understood, the greatest delicacy, both in the choice and arrangement of words as well as in their application, and the tones in which they are delivered, is necessary. As in the case of Honour, so in the present of Society, a syllable too much or too little, a wink, a nod, a look, the hundredth part of a false cadence, or the most trifling variation from the key-note of philanthropy, good will, politeness or propriety, are more than sufficient to ruin the system of the most agreeable society that ever was formed. Nay, farther still, those who would desire to have precise notions of the word Society, should take care to enter fully into all the niceties proper to be used in articulating the word.
SYSTEM.
BY which, the heart comprehends, not only the different theories of Religion, Politics, Theology, Mathematics and Philosophy, but also different Systems of Taste, Pain, Pleasure, Temper, Humour, Inclination, Genius, &c. &c. &c. Every man breathing hath his System, and scarce two men in the universe—and not by any means two women in it—agree in their Systems exactly. One man delights for instance in the slim, genteel shape of his mistress, and admires her for a faint and voluptuous languor that he sees in her features: another perhaps finds attraction in the same sort of form, but then instead of a languid delicacy, he chooses to have it animated by a vivacious and brisk power of the eye. Lucius one day suddenly met Avarus, who bore such an affection for Lucius, that he found more pleasure in serving him whenever his situation called for accommodation, even than in hoarding up his money in an iron cabinet, that he venerated to the rust that was contracted over its surface. It was, therefore, you see his System to oblige Lucius. Lucius one day sent to his friend, at half an hour's warning, for a supply of cash to the amount of an hundred and sixteen pounds, which Avarus complied with in the following way —to wit—One hundred pounds by bank bill, another bill of fifteen pounds payable at sight, half a guinea in gold, nine shillings in silver, fourpence in copper, and the residue in farthings.
To scrutinize this mode of making up a sum through the formal spectacles of business, it might certainly be censured as fantastical: but, besides that Lucius had no right to look with so accurate an eye at a favour, I shall enter a substantial caveat against all future objections, by observing that it was consistent with the lender's System to pay it in this way; and if it had contained two thousand times as many divisions, subdivisions, halveings, and quarterings more, till the whole sum was frittered into farthings, still, I say, Lucius was the last man upon earth to cross his friend's humour. He should have received the purse gratefully—tell it over not with extreme caution, unless he suspected the messenger— never have the baseness but for the same reason to put a single guinea into the scale, and feasted his heart upon the firmness of a friendship so dear to him. We are now coming to the crisis.
It happened that in the fraction of the copper, Avarus had made a mistake; for by the account of Lucius there was an extra farthing: and the interview which Avarus now had with Lucius, was the first since the mistake was committed—
Lucius meeting Avarus, therefore, said to him, without any regard to the heart,
"How much have you obliged me, my very dear Avarus, in that last supply: it has answered all my exigences, and made me entirely an easy man; but, apropos, I must set you right in your calculation. There is a small balance in your favour and I must insist upon giving it you—"
Avarus, who although a miser to all the rest of the world, was to the last degree generous to Lucius, because it belonged to his System so to be, imagined there might have been some miscount of the black word that characterizes the value of a British bank bill, for which reason (but even then not in the tone of eager apprehension) he requested to be set right.
Lucius, for the want of a Dictionary of the Heart to set him right (putting his hand into his breeches pocket, but forgetting to put upon his face a smile at the same time, which would at worst have compromised the matter with his friend's heart) replied,
"A farthing is coming to you."
He presented it to Avarus, who started two steps back, lifting up both his hands and throwing them forward in the attitude of declining an offer—
"A farthing coming to me! (said Avarus:) a farthing!"—
Nothing in the whole world— not the most industrious efforts which malice could have used, could have torn up a man's System so entirely by the roots. Had Lucius made a sudden retreat into another country; had he pretended that the draft upon the banker was five instead of fifteen pounds; had he spurred liberality by a fresh application; in short had he done or said any thing but what he
did
say and do, the Heart, possibly, might, by some courteous interpretations, have found a palliative if not a pardon: but, as it was, assisted too, by an half note of triumph as to the point of calculation, some degree of ridicule and irony in the tones, and an undue stress upon the first syllable of the word
far
-thing—considering, I say, all these heightenings, the whole transaction was unpardonable.
"A sarthing did you say, coming to me (exclaimed Avarus in rather a bolder note, and with somewhat of a severer emphasis!) A FARTHING! Unhappy Lucius! How could'st thou have been so ignorant of an old friend's System! Better hadst thou buried the paltry, the pitiful ballance in the bowels of the earth. What inacquaintance with every finer operation of the heart—nay what poverty in the circumstances that pass within thy own breast not to know that so wretched a punctilio —so ungenerous an exactness, at such a period, must inflame every principle, and every sentiment against thee! A
farthing!
—Oh God of caution; was there ever shewn from friend to friend, so little policy, or so large an insult!"
The will of Avarus was, in the amplest degree, in favour of Lucius. "A farthing coming to me (repeated he, as he went home, after his interview with Lucius!) neither more nor less than a farthing!" Upon his arrival, he twitched up a pen, and with a hand of hurry, wrote as follows:
TO LUCIUS.
Sir,
This is written to acquaint you that the sums of money you have from time to time had of me, are discharged. You will consider this letter, therefore, first, as a solemn deed of settlement which closes our connection; and secondly, as a receipt in full for the sums above alluded to. That you may not be put upon my
account
to a FARTHING'S expence I send this, by an especial messenger.
I am, Sir, Your humble servant, AVARUS.
Some few years after this transaction, the writer of this letter died. His heart was so sorely hurt, and his System so shaken, that he recollected Lucius amidst the afflictions of a tormenting distemper. Yet he pitied his condition, which, after the quarrel, became more wretched: yet his sense of the injury struggled with the emotions of his pity. He gratified, however, upon his death-bed, both the passions that were contending in his heart. Two distinct codicils, for this purpose, were added to his will, and thus they ran:
I. For the satisfaction of those feelings about my heart, which plead for the man who was once so near it, I bequeath the sum of ten thousand pounds to Lucius.
II. For being too good a mathematician, and not suffering an old friend to do a tolerable action his own way, I bequeath to the said Lucius, one farthing sterling, of the lawful money of Great Britain, bearing date on the impression 1721, in the reign of George the first; to be paid to him the said Lucius, precisely at three quarters and three clicks lacking of twelve o'clock at night, by my gold repeater, which I also bequeath him.
THE RELAPSE.
I CONFESS the preceding chapter is a very long one, but I deny that it is a digression. On the contrary, it is perfectly in point; and I desire your patience only for five minutes to prove this. Allow me to step back a few pages.
"Farewell beautiful villages — scenes of luxuriant herbage—pleasing prospects, and magnificent mansions!—Farewell too to thee, imperial London!—to thy gorgeous edifices, cloud-capped towers, ample streets, and multiplied pleasures— oh farewell!"
In the course of these fervent compliments to my country, I was unlucky enough to kindle as I went along, till towards that part of them which addresses an adieu, not only to the capital, but the various
pleasures
in it, I became perfectly enthusiastic.
A glowing exclamation in the harmonious moment, when every body within reach of it enjoys a benign tranquility, is enchanting. It may then be considered as an ardour of the soul aspiring beyond the clouds; but when it bursts forth, as it did in the present case, unseasonably, nothing can be more irksome.
As I articulated the tender word
farewell,
there was more of the pathetic in the tones, and more of regret in the motion of my left-hand—which I waved in salutation, as if addressing myself to the little hedgerow that was vegetating on the left-hand side of me — than either prudence or the season in which the thing was done, could fairly allow. The epithets also, as well as the images which they were calculated to embellish, were exceedingly mal-a-propos. To mend the matter, they began with a degree of attracting moderation, and went on in an ascending series of eulogy, forming in the end a sort of complimental climax, which, when the summit was once gained, no mortal soul could resist. The transient reader, who is in a hurry to get to the end of his stage, that he may have the pride and pleasure of ordering fresh horses to carry him towards Paris, misses all these strokes, although they belong as truly to the heart, and an hundred times better discover whereabout it beats, than all the precipitation, scamper, or wear and tear of wheels in the universe. Now a deliberate traveller, who, whether he journeyeth in books or otherwise, hath the patience to go as his driver, or his author chooses; he can accommodate himself with perfect ease to all the accidents and events of travel. He knows very well that, when heart and body set out together to make an excursion, though it were but the tour of a week, much more is to be done than if a man travelled in the ordinary way, with the light luggage of a shallow head, and animal carcase. He knows, likewise, that when
two
hearts and
two
bodies incorporate and consolidate, as was the present truth, attention becomes more complex, and to expect a full gallop with such a weight, were to believe it impossible for a couple of spiders to twist their threads into traces, and, so harnessed, run off with the dome of that celebrated St. Peter, whose temple, before my return, I am resolved to see.
No bad hint this, methinks, to the public, who will, by this time, guess, I shall not suffer any thing to escape me—I mean so far as objects belong
to the heart
—that I deem worthy their notice or protection.
I must farther observe, that, the kind of deliberate traveller I have just spoken about, will not only take into consideration all the
above
circumstances, but many other equally cogent, in order to account for the many stops and stays that attack him. He is not ignorant that where the heart is much gratified, the check-string is pulled without any ceremony, and the prospect is analized acre by acre, and hedge by hedge, let the postilion think what he pleases about it. The heart is caught by innumerable small, sweet incidents, which pass wholly unobserved by the school-boy, who is sent into a foreign country, as a specimen of the worst and most unfinished crudities of our own. The body of a British booby who is thrown into this world to tarnish a title, though his mouth is usually as wide open as his eyes, and who is all a-gape
for to see a fine town,
is ten times blinder than the mole, and crawls in a more abject manner on the ground; at most, he just earths the surface. He traverses the fairest climes, and is, from top to toe,
corporeal
—not one ray of
heart
ever illumined him. Like a being compounded of mere flesh and blood, and on whom fortune hath lavished her favours, in some measure to compensate the desertion of nature, he is drawn about the globe in a glittering equipage, in which he either lolls with ridiculous supineness, or sits upright with pert and perpendicular vacuity.
Ask him upon his return to his native country, with the worst of coxcombries collected from the trash of every different place through which he has past, what he has seen?
'He hath seen the world.'
So seeth a fly, seated upon one of the shelves of a library, all the science and learning it contains, without comprehending a letter: as to that insect, the whole alphabet is a chaos, which he can by no means call into sufficient order to spell his own name; so to such a traveller, the road from the spot on which I am now writing, although it is blooming with all the odours of May, to that which leads into countries infinitely fairer still, is all an immeasurable sweep of heath-ground, where the eye, when disgusted with sterility, is relieved by the verdure of nettle-beds, and, when weary of that, must seek a last resource in the famine-struck flowers which eject in ragged blossoms from the rocks.
Not so the traveller of temper and deliberation. His heart beats "tremblingly alive" to every thing which he meets upon the way. Does the poor shoeless creature shrink as he presses his tender foot upon that earth which hath wounded him? Happily a very moderate covering of some sort may lie at the top of the trunk, and, even if it lay at the bottom, would not the heart direct the hand to take it out? Would any reader be angry at this delay, even though he should be so far benighted before he got to the end of the first stage, and to double down the leaf, and sleep upon the road till the next morning? If, peradventure, he should be apt to indulge fancy in vision with the last thing which occured in the day—and that last should chance to be such a thing as this—what an elysium dream would reward him!
Is the traveller attacked by a poor wanderer, who toils through the glow of noon upon the stony pavement of France, with an infant clinging to her bosom; and hath the traveller's heart nothing to say or to do upon such an occasion?
Shall it be minute and extreme to mark what she hath done amiss? Shall it be either lasciviously or insolently inquisitive who begat the child, and whether it claimed protection by being born in wedlock, or whether, on the contrary, virtue was to frown upon its birth, and pass on for the love of chastity?
Vile curiosity! Is poverty and mischance the less pitiable, then, because they have not had either luck or the prudence to escape the snare, which design is always setting against the simplicity of a woman? Is she to be rejected because she wants that sense of triumphant resistance which could alone support the fallen? Bring me, oh God of mercy! these taunters into situations equally severe; try them but a little by the magic wand of temptation; throw in their way but one delightful trespass; set for them, thou power of trial, but a single net, only taking care that it be spread out by the hand of pleasure, with threads of silk, and knots of gold, and then, if these boasters glide not into it, with the most easy captivity, I will then believe thou can'st forgive the traveller who passes on, without one moment's pause of pity and redress, when the charity of his heart is commanded by such a form, to deliver what the condition of his life and fortunes permit him to bestow.
The man who goes upon a Tour of the Heart, hath also many oddities, as well as many sensibilities to indulge. He hath his
system
to thwart, which is to destroy his happiness and cross him for the whole journey.
There are, upon a just calculation, taking one man with another, pretty nearly an equal number of singularities and virtues in the
best
and brightest characters; and, indeed, generally speaking, the better and the brighter, the more singular the singularity. People who stay at home shew off these only to friends, and, as the world goes, he who is not content to take a virtue and an oddity together, when his heart is trafficking for an honest bargain, deserves to be cheated.
Travellers have a multitude of opportunities to gratify every trait with which their characters may happened to be tinctured. In one intercourse with men, he who imagines he shall be able, either by his circumspection, his cunning, or his experience, to purchase the pure gold of virtue, without some small drossy particles of peculiarity, which eternally stick, more or less, to the figure of the character, and indeed, upon the impression which God himself hath made upon the man's heart, is too great a fool to have any dealings with; and I would not be condemned to trade with his heart for a single courtesy, though he were a monarch.
No!—Such crowned skulls (I dare not so far violate truth as to talk about
heads);
such regal caput mortuums, having nothing to recommend them
within,
are very properly decorated
without;
and when tricked off, like the maukin of a milliner, for mere spectacle, are mighty pretty, gay-looking things, to which, in their proper places, at due and decent distance, I have no sort of objection. On the contrary mine eyes have very great respect unto them as objects of shine and shew, nor ever did mortal, I trust, make a more loyal or essential difference or draw a deeper and broader line of distinction than myself, betwixt such gentlefolks of greatness, and glitter, and those qualities which go in my less glaring idea of the things finite, to the making up of a—man—with—a heart.
As, furthermore, to the matter of that mixture of singularity, and virtue, it is too much
in grain
ever to rub out, while we are on this imperfect side of the sun. Nor is it at all necessary. A virtuous man hath no vicious singularity; nay, very often the oddities and greatnesses, which, like the silk and worsted of different colours, which are woven together into the web of tapestry-work, are absolutely necessary to the beauties of the figure. For my part I would not give a single sixpence for a character all of one colour. I had rather see him, so as he keeps out the
black
— which neither in a moral or natural sense, can be ranked as any colour at all—I had rather see him, I say, of all the hues in which Iris is habited, when she shews herself to us after a shower! There is, in every character as in every picture, light and shade; and lights and shades too of different degrees. If there does not
seem
to be these, depend on it there is some of the tints bad at the bottom: they may be wiped out with a wet finger. Let us be indebted to the goddess Iris a little longer. Her bow is the aptest that could possibly be made use of. I desire my reader to select from his friends, the most perfect man he knows, and to place him in his imagination, immediately under this most beautiful arching, as it takes its sweeping semicircle across the Heavens.
This being done look attentively first at the rainbow, and then at the man—then compare both!
Well; you have placed him in all the positions of which he is susceptible; you have allowed proper scope for the different attitudes of his heart, and looked keenly at the colourings of his character.
Now then tell the where is the difference betwixt the man and the rainbow? Both are of all hues: some are more amiable than others: sometimes they blend, and assist the brightness of each other: now they disunite, and now again they mix rays: the blueish tints are touched more elegantly by still bluer: the fervid red is softened by a fainter rose colour: here a few streaks leave, as it were, the overcasting-work of a thin cloud: they may now and then, possibly, assume an unwonted gloom: they may be every thing but positively dark: but it is all the works of a moment; the gloom passeth away, and is no more. The comparison is exact.
Dispute then no longer against singularities. The most suspicious man, is the character which is without them; but the truth is, there never was any character either good or bad without many.
Blessed be that benign providence who hath bestowed upon
me,
a most plentiful variety of these singularities: they are as the balm to lighten the lump of existence, which, but for these, would, sometimes, be intolerably heavy. I cherish them as I cherish the sensibilities upon which they attend. I take them with me in all my migrations, and consider them not less necessary to me than my little patrimonial cabinet. They have, I acknowledge, detained me upon the road, to survey objects which others might have suffered to elude their examination. Peradventure they shall detain me still; and if they should, I shall never lose sight of the amusement of the heart; which, after what has been said, is surely a promise that will reconcile the reader to my
system of travelling.
THE RELAPSE.
ACCORDING to the order of common journals, I should have compleated all that related to the title of one chapter before I proceeded to another; but as my system of travelling is somewhat peculiar, and, as the reader very well knows, subject to a few singularities, he must not deem it strange, if, in obedience to the prevailing pulsation of the moment, I should, sometimes, break off abruptly, or pause on the middle of a hill, or make a dead stop in a valley, or turn short round a cramp corner, when the level road seemed to allure me right on. The reader's heart would be poorly entertained by my sensibility, if he was not a little supported in his progress by my singularity.
A few chapters backward, shewed me happy in the resolution of pursuing my journey. The business of the last chapter set out very calmly to account for a
relapse
in this resoluion! The wanderings of the heart took me considerably out of the road. I made a digression, or rather interwove, liberally into my plan of pleasing the heart, all the variety of the rainbow. But curiosity hath had her vagarie, and, if any of my fellow travellers think it demands an apology, I here, not only seriously ask it, but turn the rein, and promise to offend no more.
The
relapse
which threw my resolutions so much off their centre, and which threw my fair fellow traveller so much farther
still
off
hers,
was, as before observed, brought about by that ill-timed ejaculation of the heart, made so much worse by animated emphasis.
I sincerely invite the reader's pardon for being obliged to repeat this ejaculation once more; but I solemnly declare it is necessary—
"Farewell beautiful villages — scenes of luxuriant herbage—pleasing prospects—magnificent mansions!— Farewell too to thee, imperial London! —to thy gorgeous edifices, cloud capped towers, ample streets, and multiplied
pleasures
—oh, farewell."
The stress which I unfortunately laid upon the word
pleasures,
brought in retrospect,
those
pleasures which Amelia was about to leave—perhaps for ever—and the tears came into her eyes.
The wrong side of the heart was smitten; every vessel confessed the blow; the veins were affected through all their labyrinths, and at length the ideas, which pressed hard for gratification, burst forth into language.
"Pleasures,
my good God! Pleasures!—the Pleasures of London!— of that superb city to whose shining countenance we have just bidden an adieu. Wherefore talkest thou of villages — sylvan scenes, or ample prospects. What are these, but the mere avenues to those ten thousand more enchanting pleasures to which they lead? Why should I distract my memory, or distress my heart by breaking in upon the charming catalogue?—Why in so perfect a paradise should I enumerate any particular beauty? Why speak of the heavenly round of Ranelagh? —The parading of the Park—the magic novelties of the ingenious Cornely's — the Pantheon — Almack's—or the delicious indolence, and cell of luxury peculiar to the Playhouse?—Why to these should I subjoin that radiant etcetera, which, like the glittering sparks in the train of a meteor, all
depend
on these — wherefore, I say, should these elegant certainties all be quited for a country unknown, and a people that are bound to my interest by no tie either of tenderness or nations.—Ah, England, England, Old England for ever!
Now, although the hero of the Royal Exchange displayed more the heart of
business
than that of
pleasure,
in his arguments, against this Parisian expedition, those arguments were not more characteristic of that wonderful whimsicalness which belongs to human nature, than Amelia's; the only indifference, indeed, was, the merchant betrayed the variableness of man, and the lady the variableness of woman. It is a most interesting speculation to look at nature in these her fantastical operations. Perhaps those philosophers may imagine they have hit off this same Human Nature to a nicety; who assure us that, though the heart is an inconsistent thing, providence hath given an adequate strength of reason at all times able to correct it. This is
Reason,
say they, which, like an expert ballance-master, can, if she is seriously called upon, sustain, as a monarch, all the subject passions on their proper equilibrium. I shall not be so disloyal as to advance a syllable against the sway or sovereignty of Reason, much less shall I presume to dispute the truth of these carpenter-like philosophers, who measure the lengths and breadths of the heart, by the rule and square of professional formality: for ought I know to the contrary they may be very good workmen, and labour in their vocation with diligence and success. Heaven fore-fend that I should gainsay so large and respectable a body. It is only my humble wish, in these Travels, to observe, that, Human Nature is, after all the exertions of Reason, as constant to her objects as the wind of Heaven to any single point in the thirty-two of the compass; that the heart of man, woman, and child, like a bee in summer, flies briskly through the garden of life, hastily extracts what it is pleased to call honey, from every flower, of every colour, without ever setling upon any; and lastly, that, this very heart, which is so wisely governed by the edicts of Reason, is neither to be limited by land or water, but without so much as asking a furlow of absence, leaves Reason to enjoy her crown and sceptre in some obscure corner, while it traverses the most splendid parts of the globe with a gayer companion, and as if it was perfectly its own master, doth,
"Like the poet's eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,
Glance quick from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven."
This, I readily allow is very rebellious, and enough to make this same ill-treated Majesty hang up the human heart, and that human nature, which so taints its allegiance, as incorrigible traitors. The truth is, besides that Reason is somewhat too frigid, and the heart which ought to be subject to her, is too ardent; besides this constitutional difference, by which is destroyed that most cordial and excellent medium of excellent properties, of which temperament the elements are composed, such as well-contrived portions of air, fire, earth and water; Reason, by some means or another, hath, from the beginning of her reign, which we are told was soon after the beginning of the world (and I much fear will so continue to the end thereof) been obnoxious to all the subjects of her realm. The parliament of the
passions
are also flat against her, and, though these passions are the very powers, when she was chiefly created, and enthroned, to discipline, reform and regulate, yet there is scarce one of them who does not, so far from obeying, oppose her edicts, and laugh at her laws: nay, so utterly is all the authority of this imperial dictatress renounced, that each passion propensely abjures her council, and, though its rigid propriety is often confessed, it will even suffer all the pains and penalties, as well as the pleasures, of disloyalty, rather than submit.
Love,
contrary to the admonitions of
Reason,
even though in the form, and with the tenderness of a parent, yields up the melting heart to irresistible affection.
Nature
with all her address, her force, her enchantment, first shews the virgin the Paradise: she is delighted at the prospect: one figure from all the millions that swarm upon the earth, appears, all accomplished, before her. Nature threw them in each other's company. Nature and even Reason, suggests they are of different sexes. Nature commanded their eyes to meet. Every interview is more charming. The gentle languor of the eye; the fine suffusion of brighter blushes that pass over the countenance, refusing long to tarry, or to be long absent; the delicate and stolen touch of the hand which sets the whole heart a trembling; the half-look; the whisper that sends forth the soul and all its wishes in one eloquent sigh; the disagreements; the reconciliations; the transports and terrors which all happen in him; "ah, these symptoms (I say) and many more, too delicate for description, too refined for language, and only to be
felt,
betray how far
Nature
hath carried on her intrigue. Presently the moment arrives, when the passion is grown to its utmost maturity, and admits no longer delay. Every artery labours for enjoyment. Nature now colours the prospect brighter still. Instead of a gentle languor, she arms the eyes of the lovers, with animated fire: the sigh, which before was conveyed in a whisper scarcely to be heard, now bursts violently forth, as if the heart were breaking: the blood which before coursed over the cheek in streams of serene ruby, with untumultuous emotions, now assumes a greater vehemence, and rushes along in a tide of deeper crimson: the stolen touch too, which thrilled only a soft sensation to the source of feeling, while the passion was yet growing, now flings a feverish agony from its contact, and is no longer to be endured.
Poor victims of Nature what shall ye do, or whether shall ye fly for relief in this exigence? To enjoyment? Ah, no: Reason with a frown upon her brow, and a rod of iron in her hand, forbids it. But Nature, say you, made us; Nature misled us; and Nature must answer for whatever guilt, it is possible there should be, in yielding to the tendernesses of love. For our parts we are determined to be as happy as love can make us. If we are right, so much the better: if wrong; be it at the peril of Nature!
Reason now assumes greater severity: she threatens infamy, disinheritance, loss of honour and the hisses of society. The children of Nature are obstinately deaf to all her remonstrances, and, while the sun is yet looking upon them in full lustre from the Heavens, they determine to give Reason the slip. Love is ingenious, and the following appointment is sealed with a kiss.
On the left side of that field waving with the wheat (luckily for our privacy, not yet ripe for the sickle) is a grove, which that Nature whom they find such fault with, hath, just at this period, imbellished with the most beautiful arborage you ever saw. The trees, my dear, form themselves into so thick an alcove, and the boughs meet, salute, and throw their arms about each other with so amorous a luxuriance, that it seems the love-scene of vegetation itself. Besides this, did you not observe, when sometime ago, we walked here, arm in arm with Nature—don't blush, fair creature— she commanded us to walk arm in arm—a little to the right of a cluster of May-bushes, we saw a bank of so peculiar a verdure, and made so fragrant by the primrose and violet, that Nature said, we might rest upon it awhile: as we were doing this—don't you recollect the accident that happened?—Was there not a lamb sporting with its mother just before us, and did you not say, in a whisper, that next to those beautiful babes which are the riches of happy parents, lambs were the sweetest—the prettiest—
To this grove, then, let us secretly repair. Nature shall be our guide; and as for Reason, even if she should suspect us, she is so slow a traveller that we shall have followed the advise of Nature before our enemies arrival, let her advice be ever so difficult.
Ah, fatal assignation: Reason is told of it. The world is made acquainted with the tale. All the menaces come to pass in agonizing succession; and as to Nature, barbarous nature, the crimes of the parent are visited upon her children, to the seventh generation.
But love is not the only passion whom Nature causes to revolt from the empire of Reason. Revenge dies her hands in the blood of a brother, and shews Reason either to be on a journey, or in a sleep, or else present, and powerless. The poor Maniac, she gives, voluntarily over to the whip, the iron cage, and the bed of straw. Jealousy, defies reason, and stabs
her
whom he loves to the heart, and often for no better reason than that "he suspects, for that he suspects." Ah cruel Reason, why would'st thou not set Nature right in such a case? How many lives might by so courteous an act be saved! Hate also, in despite of Reason seises her victim; and the whole truth of the matter is, that it were to be wished, nature was less cunning, Reason less weak, and Passion less strong.
This also accounts for the Doctrine of Relapses; for none of the passions are consistent even with themselves. The lover's heart, though raging before, often changes its object. The revengeful man kills his friend, and then kills himself to shew his remorse. Jealousy throws his bleeding bosom upon that of his injured wife, and Madness sometimes recovers its senses, till it has more to do with Reason than any of the rest.
What inexplicable mystery is here! I hope there is no man so great a fool—I should say, philosopher— to set calmly down to account for this? I wish, with all my soul, Reason was a little stronger!
The
relapse
had like to have brought about a fresh
resolution;
viz. that of turning our horses heads again towards London.
"At this rate (said I) if we pay strict attention to such a pack of rascally buts and ifs, whys, and wherefores, we shall never be able to get on, Amelia. Let us be at least silent upon the subject, and turn it over and over again in our minds, without saying another word, or communicating another idea, till we get to Dover, and then let us calmly discuss the whole matter over a dish of coffee, at the inn; where we will freely impart our sentiments to each other, and either go quick back again, or else proceed in our journey, very much contented with having, even in the course of less than eighty miles, seen
the heart
in to many different positions."
The proposition was pleasing, and the bargain struck upon the spot. It would have been humourous enough for a third person to see the trial which we had imposed on ourselves, pushed at by mischievous Nature with all her adroitness of besieging, in order to throw us from our guard. We never had so much inclination to break a treaty, or to talk, in our whole lives. A thousand little arguments, which were not started before the inhibition took place, now occurred. The muscles of Garrick were never more legible than ours at this juncture. Every look might have been translated to the correctness of a syllable; and, as all other intercourse was forbidden, we had ingenuity enough to sit parallel, as well as the seat would allow, and in this situation our faces entered into a very long and serious dialogue.
The articles were preserved entire till we got to Canterbury, where it was contrived by our luckless stars, to dine upon one of those joints, to which an English appetite beats the alarm of gratification. To give it all the graces of my native language, never did a fine buttock of beef appear at so critical a period. The Corn, Wine, and Oil of Old England were visible in the very grain of it. I recollected that France had no idea of such over-sized, and under-roasted enjoyments. If I had made a contract with Heaven, I doubt this would have been the time in which it must have gone hard with my fidelity. As it was only a mortal promise, it returned to the mortal dust of which it was formed.
"And so this, then (said I); this is the last fat of the land, I am for some time to behold in Canaan!" All the horrors of famine and soup-maigre were in the thought; and Amelia, without thinking about the treaty, contributed her share to its destruction—"Eat then (replied she); eat heartily of that which the Lord hath commanded to be received to-day; for if we journey on, peradventure to-morrow we look in vain for the luxuries of Canterbury."
Amongst the number of things intolerable is a
relapse.
When once the links are broken that tied a man's system happily and tightly together, then all
"Within, is anarchy and uproar."
After dinner, as we were sitting in opposite chairs, upon the very edge of ordering our rout to be changed, He who hath the directing of all things, in all places, decreed, that we should receive no benefit from banqueting so largely on the Corn, Wine, and Oil of
Old
England. Providence, in the shape of a deep sleep — the consequence of these things—, came suddenly upon us; and, when we awoke, the point was settled so perfectly, that all our former objections were as vapours before the dawn, and as shadows that glide away with the glooms of the night. A sickness like that of indigestion succeeded sleep, and this brought on a train of physical reflections—
"This vile practice (cried we with some degree of asperity in the tones); this vile practice which the English have got of feeding on such gross, canibal food, certainly brings about ten thousand distempers. We live in a nation of Hottentots! Would we were in France; for
her
sons, like our first parents in Paradise, are
—Airy light
From pure digestion bred.
The rebuking watch furthermore —for arguments love to come in a body—informed us, that we had closed our eyes on more sunshine, than would have been necessary to carry us to the next stage. Convictions of this sort, which, although the honey of truth is in their lips, the sting of remorse is in their tail, never please us; and, when we are not pleased with ourselves, Heaven take into its tender mercies, and keep from the frown of our displeasure, those about us, especially such as might seem to lead us into the error. We could have quarrelled with our teeth for eating, our eyes for closing, and our watches for both as exactly, as provokingly, agreeing in the same story; yea, even to the tenth part of a click. "A few of these farewell dinners (said I, giving my watch chain an angry shake) would oblige us to take our leave of Old England with a vengeance!"
"And of the great globe itself too:" replied Amelia revenging herself upon a poor innocent fly, which she briskly filliped from a flower on her apron, where it had, for the curiosity of its little heart, just settled.
The ball of retort being now up, and the heart in a right humour to bandy it about stoutly to and fro, we found it in the end, a very salutary exercise; for, besides that it brought round our powers to their proper tone, a
moral
reverberated from every stroke—"If thou would'st avoid both ill-nature, and ill-humour, eat not too heartily either of the boiled or the roast beef of
Old
England: said one— "If thou would be chearful and lively, indulge not sleep after dinner in Old England:" echoed a second— "Beware of a dropsy:" cried a third— "The food of France is better because cause it is not so good:" exclaims a fourth.
To conclude the whole, never were two hearts more firmly persuaded that a ride in a chaise to the next stage would set all right again. Astonishing as it may seem, the heart neither of man nor woman, experienced a single wandering from its point, in travelling sixteen miles, which is precisely the distance from Canterbury to Dover.
Upon our arrival at Dover, in high and happy spirits, I asked my fellow-traveller wherefore, in the earlier part of the afternoon, we had been so much out of temper.
"Pshaw (said she smiling) you are hypochondriacal you know, and for my part—I am—a woman. Let us now make the best of our way. I had rather go to Paris, than to Paradise."
Whether Amelia closed her last sentence so ardently, and in such terms for the sake of the alliteration, or because it came from her heart, I know not; but there was a something in the wording of it, which threw all former objections at a distance; and so, without attempting tempting to answer it, I walked about the parlour or the inn, humming a tune of acquiescence, and, in the very next minute, looking through the window, observed that the pendants of the vessels which were ranged along the quay, were pointed to the shore of Calais.
THE PROSPECT.
NEVER were the Heavens bluer, the breezes milder, the face of the earth more verdant, nor did the sun ever go down to the westward in more serenity, than upon my arrival at Dover! I walked forth upon the quay to take a survey of that water, which divides the shore of France from that of England. Curiosity, or, perhaps, some more contemplative principle, induced me to borrow a glass from a gentleman who stood near me. I levelled my eye to the mirrour, and either discerned, or imagined that I discerned, the spires of Calais.
The intelligence was that moment conveyed with inconceivable rapidity from the eye to the heart, which had a great deal to say upon the subject. I directly interpreted its vibrations. Thus it beat—The land of an old and very formidable enemy to thy native country is before thee! The towers of those temples that are consecrated to a form of devotion, and in which are practised ceremonies dissimilar to thine, are in prospect. That clustering mist, which, like a vapourish exhalation, seems to rise from the earth and settle on the shore, is the smoke of houses inhabited by (to thee) an unknown people, who speak a different language, and are subject to different laws, pursuits, and manners. The land from whence the eye is now taking its survey, and that which it is surveying, are both defended by garrisons, fortified by men of arms, who constantly keep a jealous and wary eye, upon the motions of each other—
Here the heart required a pause; and I returned the glass to its owner, that I might, leisurely, take a circuit round the quay alone. Five seconds of solitude at such a period, when every thing about one conspires to nurse the multiplying images that are arising, are worth a whole year of vacant society, where there is not even room enough to think. If there ever was a goddess of contemplation, she must now have swum upon the still air, with her serene wings expanded directly over my head.
"To
sail
or
not
to
sail
was now the question."
I could not have desired a fairer opportunity, to enter into all the
niceties
of this question, which, instead of putting to the purse, I put immediately to the heart.
The grey sobriety of twilight came on apace; the sun had left in the element only a few scattered flushings, to welcome in the moon; and even the moon was unusually softened into a lanquor, that, in the contrast, made her more femininely fair; so that the heart had every help, with respect to scenery, it could possibly wish.
Upon a solitary angle that jutted from the quay, apparently intended as a covering for the mariner upon his landing, I sat me down. There was an arching of stone over my head in the style of a rude shell-work. Every minute circumstance propitiated meditation more and more. On the one hand the distant dashing of an oar, harmonious by the regularity of its strokes, played in perfect tune, upon the ear; on the other, the waves, which were saluted by the sea-breeze, sported with an air of friendliness, as if to ratify the bonds of peace which were now enjoyed by the neighbouring nations.
In such a situation the heart travels far in the climes of fancy: truth also is summoned occasionally; but not very often.
"Yonder vessel (said I) which is now riding calmly at its anchor, whose sails shall presently be loosened to the gale, and whose pennant is now streaming in passive obedience to the whimsies of the wind; yonder vessel, perhaps, is destined to carry me from England to France—
France—from England to France! and wherefore did these ample beds of water divide one land from another, but to divide also people from people, man from man, and beast from beast. What hath the elephant to do in the groves of the English linnet, or what absurd principle would direct the British wren to the forest or cavern which is governed by the African lyon? Why then, I say, this separation, but to serve as a water-mark, in order to keep sacred that tract of territory which the author, both of earth and ocean, hath allotted to different nations? Wherefore too, this difference of religious opinion? Why—although the Protestant and the Roman, are kept asunder by only a slight arm of the sea;— why all this dissimilarity of devotional ceremony? A thin, transparent partition of property, this, to occasion such a change even in points of faith! But there is yet another article of this question to be examined. Wherefore, in the space of twenty-one miles, all this confusion of tongues? Wherefore but to confine the wanderings of the heart, and make every man contented with the society, laws, customs, and religion of the country in which he was born?
See we not, also, that storms, and calms, rocks, quicksands, and a thousand other perils, daily happen to alarm those who have the hardiness to venture upon the bosom of the capricious deep? May not this arise in providential punishment of that curiosity, and of that ridiculous ambition, which can neither be bounded by the scope of a nation, extending, even in length, several hundred miles, nor terrified by the dangers of penetrating into the property of a foreign people?"
I had worked myself up so exceedingly near to the top, that I looked at the packet, which now began to toss with the return of the tide, till I heartily despised the very idea of tumbling about those different parts of the watery world, where I had no actual business, in a wooden vehicle merely to have the pride of saying
Let no dog bark when I speak,
For I am a
traveller.
I cast my eyes, after these reflections, upon the waves, and, when I had listened a moment with ears which were
prepared
to be disgusted, I imagined their sportive murmurs were augmented into roarings to reproach me.
"Pshaw, pshaw; beshrew the folly of travel, said I,—early convinced of the vanity and vexation of it, I thank Heaven for the impressions of patriotism, and propriety that are written upon my heart, and I will return quietly back to my own chimney-corner! Yes, yes, there is sunshine enough in my native country, to warm into blossoms, and ripen into fruitage, the few wholesome vegetables of which I shall at any time be master. In any part of the empire, I shall find a little cultivated corner, not utterly barren of arborage. A small shrub-berry is easily twisted into a bower. The pagle, the violet and the primrose, flourish under the humblest hedge: haply too, some plumy friends, neither contemptible in feather nor song, may both build and warble round my cottage. There too, imagination may have, as an associate, the fairest of the fair! Good God! how she will add her enchantments to the scene! It is now blooming full upon me. I approve its proper distance from the din of London. The cottage looks down from the slopings of a gentle hill. Sweet is the salutary breeze, that, embalmed by the breath of the morning, comes fresh from the Heavens. I rise with the sun, and feel his restoring ray animate my frame. The honeysuckle and woodbines, are precipitating their growth, and promise peculiar fragrance, as if anxious to make the soil on which they grow, agreeable to my heart. And shall I quit a scene like this? A scene which a very small expenditure might procure me? Shall I quit it too, for storm, and rock, a ship, a long journey, and the hurry of a huge city at the end of it?
No, no! I am resolved upon a wiser conduct. France quotha! Not a foot farther will I advance towards thee; and as to the portion of waste-money that hath taken unto itself wheels and run away, in order to bring us to this limit of England, I calmly set it down to the account of that quantum of cash, which every man should keep in his purse to defray the absurdities of the year. Indeed, to pay somewhat smartly for having done a very foolish thing is not unreasonable. Satisfied that the offence deserves the punishment, I submit to it with the best grace imaginable. I have only gone to the last limit of my native land. I have not yet gone
beyond
it. Happy is he who only treads upon the border of a bad action. It is like walking on the extremest verge of a precipice. The eye discovers the danger, and we cautiously turn away the foot to prevent it."
Fully resolved to go back by the light of the morning, I walked briskly to the inn to my Amelia, anxious till I had made
her
as much in love with my prudence as myself.
RESOLUTIONS BROKEN.
SHE saw solicitude in my air, on my entrance into the room of the inn, and, with a tenderness which was peculiar to her, enquired into the cause. On my coming into the room, she was employed at the fire in warming a wrapping cloak, in which, she insisted upon it, I was to enfold myself when I got into the ship. A cap too, which she had been airing, would, she said, be absolutely necessary. A small bottle of cordials to recover the agitated or exhausted spirits after sickness, her caution had likewise provided; as it had, also, drops of hartshorn to remove those faintings to which I was subject.
All these little preparations of her tenderness were, like so many fair and favourable breezes, spread forth, to tempt me to the enterprize, and waft over my heart. To strengthen the whole, in came the captain of the packet-boat, with all that hardy-hood, and jolly roughness in the tones of his voice, as well as that tar-like twist in the tie of his silk-handkerchief, which sufficiently mark those who are seasoned to that element, which nature seems to have prepared rather for fishes than men.
It was written legibly, in the chapter of the captain's countenance, that the wind blew kindly from the Heavens, and that, with the advantage of the next tide, we should certainly sail.
Never was any thing—not absolutely uttered—more near to the tip of the tongue than a flat refusal to go along with him. The picture of the heart must have been admirable. What a pity it is, Reynolds was not at my elbow to copy it! I began with substantially purseing my front into the deepest wrinkles of denial, resolved to cut my way through all arguments and temptations. When I had thrown as much ruggedness and severity as I thought proper into my features, I turned round, just upon the edge of declaring that I should not go!
Amelia was, at that very moment, pouring some of the hartshorn drops upon the handkerchief which might refresh me in case of any sickness! What a check was here to a man's intentions! I felt the contracted muscles unbend, and relax into the yielding softness of compliance. The heart was going as fast as it could, to give up the point; but, after much suspicious stammer and hesitation, it just allowed me fortitude enough to say to Amelia "I think, my good girl, we had better have the prudence
to
— TO — TO — I say my dear traveller, I do take upon me to say,
that
—THAT—THAT—"
The pauses which were made at these monosyllables could not have been avoided.
Let the most rigid reader that ever was born tell me if they could!
Immediately parallel to my eye hung a map of the continent of France, and a little above that a chart of Paris, with all its scenery, gaieties and attracting magnificence. The eye treacherously dwelt upon these prospects; now surveying the city, and now the luxuriances of a new and fruitful country. It was scarce a moment's business—
for the heart
(which with the wings of imagination travels with the rapidity of light) to pass through all the land that is governed by Louis. I saw the grapes ripen under the sun that glows upon the vineyards of Burgundy. As I traced the course of different countries, as they were marked by meandering lines upon the map, I beheld the clusters of Champaigne burnish around me. I felt also the atmosphere gradually brighten into benignity, and all that can gladden the heart of an invalid, as I penetrated into the softness of the south; and after I had taken into my prospect all the beauties of the Seine and Loire, omitting not whatever fancy imagined might contribute to the flowers and buildings which embellish their banks, I looked for some relief from these insupportable temptations, at the face of Amelia. There, however, instead of relief, I was attacked by the artillery of arguments still more potent. Her eyes sparkled, as I ran my fore finger along the map, as much as to signify, if this is only the beautiful shadow, how delicious must be the substance! I wish it was the moment of departure with all my heart.
A fig for the world's opinion of my weakness. There are times and seasons when weakness is graceful. I believe, about this period, my face was as smooth as the lucid stream in which Eve surveyed herself: but, had a few stoic wrinkles still preserved their inflexibility, they would have been presently erazed by one of those smiles, which, from the beginning of the world to this very hour, have decided the most difficult points in an instant. And as if all this was not enough, she added the reinforcement of that eloquence, which, when it flows from a thin and rubied lip, talks down every trace of the most abstract philosophy.
"What pleasure shall I enjoy, (said my fair fellow traveller, gently, and as a friend, pressing my right hand, which was next to her); what pleasure shall I indeed enjoy, if in our tour to this paradisaical land of promise, health should deign to be the companion of our journey! The same beams which are darted upon the grape, and make it so much richer and brighter, than the scanty vintage which clings reluctant to the walls of Britain, may animate also the declining man! Added to this, how agreeable will it be to look at the customs, and general air, of a country so conspicuous, and which makes so brilliant a figure in the map of the world, as France: but, what is yet more—to have visited the metropolis of that gay country! To have been at Paris: at Paris, my dear Sir, which is the seat of entertainment, the circuit of delight, the centre of softness, elegance, pleasure, politesse, and the Heaven of women! Oh that the packet was this moment under sail! I can scarce bear the delay! Sure this is the longest night in the year! Ah my friend, try to take from the hours some part of the anguish which I feel from their delay! Fill up the horrid interval with something that may draw upon the treasury of our future amusements! Let every deity, who delights in water, be invoked to favour our passage. Supplicate Neptune, Thetis, with all the Tritons, Amphitritons, Naiads, Neriads, and Sea-nymphs in their train! Promise, even now, while the prayer may be best formed in the enthusiasm of the heart, to erect temples of unparelled shell-work to the dewy-locked Sabrina! Promise to rebuild her chariot of entire pearl on our safe arrival! Pray with still greater fervor that the demon Hypochondriasis may be the only thing which is thrown overboard in our passage, and, that none of the powers may want the homage or the deference which is due to them, petition the gentle Zephyrus, and all his breezy companions, to spread out our canvass, and indulgently direct us to the port of Calais!"
So much am I the child of nature and the heart, that, so far from checking this torrent of a rhapsody, like a man who had made up his mind upon the subject, that I was almost as much affected as the speaker of it. Towards the middle of the invocation to the sea-gods, I gave three jumps with the agility of a Frenchman, and I think my nerves were all the better for the concussion!
When she pointed to the environs of Paris, as if to the text of her voluptuous commentary upon the charms of that city, especially as her wrist was not without a bracelet, and that bracelet not without a flattering figure, by no means in the attitude of refusal, the animal spirits coursed along the veins with such celerity, that I felt them throb at the very ends of my fingers; and, at the conclusion, every thing within me played a tune so brisk and vivacious, that, had every wave been a rock, I do verily think, so wrought upon as I was, I could not have thrown the cold water of refusal, upon the beautiful warm blood which glowed on the face of these animated hopes of the heart.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.