rough or smooth, it made no difference; everything I saw or had to do with touched upon some secret spring either of sentiment or rapture.

They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly. "T is Maria," said the postilion, observing I was listening. "Poor Maria," continued he, leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us, "is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her."

The young fellow uttered this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow I would give him a four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to Moulins.

"And who is poor Maria?" said I.

"The love and pity of all the villages around us," said the postilion. "It is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them—"

He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth, and began the air again. They were the same notes, yet were ten times sweeter. "It is the evening service to the Virgin," said the young man; "but who has taught her to play it, or how she came by her pipe, no one knows. We think that Heaven has assisted her in both, for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation; she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day."

The postilion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help deciphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria taken such full possession of me.

We had got up, by this time, almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair- all but two tresses drawn up into a silk net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side. She was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her.

"God help her, poor damsel! Above a hundred masses," said the postilion, "have been said in the several parish churches

and convents around, for her, but without effect. We have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost forever."

As the postilion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.

Maria looked wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat, — and then at me, — and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately.

"Well, Maria," said I, softly, "what resemblance do you find?"

I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a beast man is, that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fall an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scattered. And yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days, and never- never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live.

As for writing nonsense to them, I believe there was a reserve, - but that I leave to the world.

Adieu, Maria! Adieu, poor helpless damsel! Some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips. But I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe, and told me such a tale of woe with it that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walked softly to my chaise.

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 1768

PREFACE: IN THE DÉSOBLIGEANT

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 dis

content 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 suffering 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. 'T is true we are endued with an imperfect power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond her limits, but 't is so ordered that, from the want of languages, connections, and dependencies, and from the difference in educations, 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: he must buy what he has little occasion for, at their own price; his conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount; and this, by the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his party.

This brings me to my point, and naturally leads me (if the see-saw of this Désobligeant will but let me get on) into the efficient as well as final causes of traveling. Your idle people that leave their native country and go abroad for some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general

causes

Infirmity of body,

Imbecility of the mind, or

Inevitable necessity.

The two first include all those who travel by land or by water, laboring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined in infinitum.

The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more especially those travelers who set out upon their travels with the benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents traveling under the direction of governors recommended by the magistrate, or young gentlemen transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and traveling under the direction of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.

There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would not deserve a distinction, was it not necessary in a work of this nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of character. And these men I speak of are such as cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers, for various reasons and upon various pretences; but as they might also save themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their money at home, and as their reasons for traveling are the least complex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by the name of Simple Travelers.

Thus the whole circle of travelers may be reduced to the following heads:

Idle Travelers,

Inquisitive Travelers,

Lying Travelers,

Proud Travelers,

Vain Travelers,

Splenetic Travelers;

then follow the Travelers of Necessity,

The delinquent and felonious Traveler,

The unfortunate and innocent Traveler,
The simple Traveler,

And last of all (if you please)

The Sentimental Traveler,

meaning thereby myself, who have traveled, and of which I am now sitting down to give an account, as much out of necessity, and the besoin de voyager, as any one in the class.

NAMPONT

...

"And this," said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet, "and this should have been thy portion," said he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me."

I thought by the accent it had been an apostrophe to his child; but 't was to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much, and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door,

with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time, then laid them down, looked at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it, held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle, — looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh.

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.

He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest borders of Franconia, and had got so far on his return home, when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.

It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in all Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest of them by the smallpox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all, and made a vow, if Heaven would not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.

When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopped to pay nature his tribute, and wept bitterly. He said Heaven had accepted the conditions, and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his journey, that it had eat the same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.

Everybody who stood about heard the poor fellow with concern. La Fleur offered him money; - the mourner said he did not want it, it was not the value of the ass, but the loss of him. The ass, he said, he was assured loved him; and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each other three days, during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that they had neither scarce eat or drank till they met.

"Thou hast one comfort, friend," said I," at least, in the loss of thy poor beast. I'm sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.”

"Alas!" said the mourner, "I thought so, when he was alive;