- 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition, - the Bastile
is not an evil to be despised; - but strip it of its towers - fill up
the fosse, - unbarricade the doors - call it simply a confinement,
and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper - and not of a man,
which holds you in it, - the evil vanishes, and you bear the other
half without complaint.
I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice
which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get
out." - I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man,
woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words
repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung
in a little cage. - "I can't get out, - I can't get out," said the
starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through
the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they
approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. "I
can't get out," said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I'll
let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get
to the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire,
there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces.
