My heart smote me the moment he shut the door - Psha! said I, with
an air of carelessness, three several times - but it would not do:
every ungracious syllable I had utter'd crowded back into my
imagination: I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan,
but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the
disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. - I
consider'd his gray hairs - his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter
and gently ask me what injury he had done me? - and why I could use
him thus? - I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. - I
have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just
set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
along.
THE DESOBLIGEANT. CALAIS.
When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage
however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for
making a bargain. Now there being no travelling through France and
Italy without a chaise, - and nature generally prompting us to the
thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy
or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old desobligeant
in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight,
so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony
with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein,
the master of the hotel: - but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being
determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote
the preface to it in the desobligeant.
PREFACE. IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain
boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she
has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by
laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his
ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home. It is there only that
she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of
his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which in all
countries and ages has ever been too heavy for one pair of
shoulders. 'Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of
spreading our happiness sometimes beyond HER limits, but 'tis so
ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and
dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs, and
habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our
sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total
impossibility.
It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer:
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