-
I'm Confident, Said I To Myself, I Should Have Overset Her Creed.
The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as
she could go; - I was at peace with the world before, and this
finish'd the treaty with myself.
-
- Now, was I King of France, cried I - what a moment for an orphan
to have begg'd his father's portmanteau of me!
THE MONK. CALAIS.
I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of
St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent.
No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies - or one
man may be generous, as another is puissant; - sed non quoad hanc -
or be it as it may, - for there is no regular reasoning upon the
ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same
causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves:
'twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I'm sure
at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly
satisfied, to have it said by the world, "I had had an affair with
the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame," than have it
pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
of both.
- But, be this as it may, - the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I
was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly,
I put my purse into my pocket - buttoned it - set myself a little
more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was
something, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this
moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which
deserved better.
The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might
be about seventy; - but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which
was in them, which seemed more temper'd by courtesy than years,
could be no more than sixty: - Truth might lie between - He was
certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance,
notwithstanding something seem'd to have been planting-wrinkles in
it before their time, agreed to the account.
It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted, - mild,
pale - penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; - it look'd forwards;
but look'd as if it look'd at something beyond this world. - How one
of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a
monk's shoulders best knows: but it would have suited a Bramin,
and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.
The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither
elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so:
it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it
lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, - but it
was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my
imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.
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