- No Doubt She Sports At Certain Times In Almost
Every Corner Of The World; But In Paris There Is No End To Her
Amusements.
- The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.
As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, I measured
every body I saw walking in the streets by it. - Melancholy
application! especially where the size was extremely little, - the
face extremely dark, - the eyes quick, - the nose long, - the teeth
white, - the jaw prominent, - to see so many miserables, by force of
accidents driven out of their own proper class into the very verge
of another, which it gives me pain to write down: - every third man
a pigmy! - some by rickety heads and hump backs; - others by bandy
legs; - a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and
seventh years of their growth; - a fourth, in their perfect and
natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and
stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.
A Medical Traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages; - a
Splenetic one, to want of air; - and an Inquisitive Traveller, to
fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, - the
narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the
sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and
sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted
for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these
matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be
increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop'd up,
that they had not actually room enough to get them. - I do not call
it getting anything, said he; - 'tis getting nothing. - Nay,
continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than
nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty
years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed
upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy
being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found
it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is
verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I was walking down
that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and
observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter
which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and help'd
him over. Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I
perceived he was about forty. - Never mind, said I, some good body
will do as much for me when I am ninety.
I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be
merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have
neither size nor strength to get on in the world. - I cannot bear to
see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old
French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very
thing happen under the box we sat in.
At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side
box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is
full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you stand, as in
the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. A poor
defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other
into this luckless place; - the night was hot, and he was surrounded
by beings two feet and a half higher than himself. The dwarf
suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which incommoded
him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet high, who
stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either
the stage or the actors. The poor dwarf did all he could to get a
peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening
betwixt the German's arm and his body, trying first on one side,
then the other; but the German stood square in the most
unaccommodating posture that can be imagined: - the dwarf might as
well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well in
Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's sleeve,
and told him his distress. - The German turn'd his head back, looked
down upon him as Goliah did upon David, - and unfeelingly resumed
his posture.
I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's little
horn box. - And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear
monk! so temper'd to BEAR AND FORBEAR! - how sweetly would it have
lent an ear to this poor soul's complaint!
The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion,
as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the
matter? - I told him the story in three words; and added, how
inhuman it was.
By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first
transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German
he would cut off his long queue with his knife. - The German look'd
back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.
An injury sharpen'd by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes
every man of sentiment a party: I could have leap'd out of the box
to have redressed it. - The old French officer did it with much less
confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel,
and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress, - the
sentinel made his way to it. - There was no occasion to tell the
grievance, - the thing told himself; so thrusting back the German
instantly with his musket, - he took the poor dwarf by the hand, and
placed him before him.
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