CALAIS.
When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health,
to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary,
high honour for the humanity of his temper, - I rose up an inch
taller for the accommodation.
- No - said I - the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be
misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.
As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my
cheek - more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least
of two livres a bottle, which was such as I had been drinking)
could have produced.
- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so
many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
the way?
When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and
holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
sought for an object to share it with. - In doing this, I felt every
vessel in my frame dilate, - the arteries beat all cheerily
together, and every power which sustained life, performed it with
so little friction, that 'twould have confounded the most physical
precieuse in France; with all her materialism, she could scarce
have called me a machine.
