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among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me?
Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that
nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might
have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some
nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them,
as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious
race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part
of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.

Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with
these reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten
yards of the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the
next step I should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in
two with his reaping-hook. And therefore, when he was again about
to move, I screamed as loud as fear could make me: whereupon the
huge creature trod short, and, looking round about under him for
some time, at last espied me as I lay on the ground. He considered
awhile, with the caution of one who endeavours to lay hold on a
small dangerous animal in such a manner that it shall not be able
either to scratch or bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with
a weasel in England. At length he ventured to take me behind, by
the middle, between his fore-finger and thumb, and brought me
within three yards of his eyes, that he might behold my shape more
perfectly. I guessed his meaning, and my good fortune gave me so
much presence of mind, that I resolved not to struggle in the least
as he held me in the air above sixty feet from the ground, although
he grievously pinched my sides, for fear I should slip through his
fingers. All I ventured was to raise mine eyes towards the sun,
and place my hands together in a supplicating posture, and to speak
some words in a humble melancholy tone, suitable to the condition I
then was in: for I apprehended every moment that he would dash me
against the ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal,
which we have a mind to destroy. But my good star would have it,
that he appeared pleased with my voice and gestures, and began to
look upon me as a curiosity, much wondering to hear me pronounce
articulate words, although he could not understand them. In the
mean time I was not able to forbear groaning and shedding tears,
and turning my head towards my sides; letting him know, as well as
I could, how cruelly I was hurt by the pressure of his thumb and
finger. He seemed to apprehend my meaning; for, lifting up the
lappet of his coat, he put me gently into it, and immediately ran
along with me to his master, who was a substantial farmer, and the
same person I had first seen in the field.

The farmer having (as I suppose by their talk) received such an
account of me as his servant could give him, took a piece of a
small straw, about the size of a walking-staff, and therewith
lifted up the lappets of my coat; which it seems he thought to be

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