Previous - Next

betwixt the taper and his eye. -

It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will
rouse up every affection in nature;--it will kill the humane, and
touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -

- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a
third time into his ink-horn--and the old gentleman, turning a
little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these
words: -

- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then
enter'd the room.


THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {1} PARIS.


When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to
comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other
sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to
keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the
boulevards.--Then prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to
the Count de B-'s hotel, and see if thou canst get it.--There is no
doubt of it, said La Fleur;--and away he flew.

In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could
arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment. Juste Ciel!
in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
tender farewell of her--his faithless mistress had given his gage
d'amour to one of the Count's footmen,--the footman to a young
sempstress,--and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at
the end of it.--Our misfortunes were involved together: --I gave a
sigh,--and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.

- How perfidious! cried La Fleur.--How unlucky! said I.

- I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if
she had lost it.--Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.

Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.


THE ACT OF CHARITY. PARIS.


The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller.--I count little of the
many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
streets.--Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in
such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of
hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded
together,--and yet they are absolutely fine;--and whenever I have a
more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a
preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of
'em;--and for the text,--"Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
Pamphylia,"--is as good as any one in the Bible.

There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique
into a narrow street; 'tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a
fiacre, {2} or wish to get off quietly o'foot when the opera is
done. At the end of it, towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a

Previous - Next