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notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh, I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears, I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. I started up from my chair, and called La Fleur; I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.

MOULINES

I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till now, to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France, in the hey-day of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up, a journey through each step of which Music beats time to Labor, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters, to pass through this with my affections flying out and kindling at every group before me and every one of them was pregnant with adventures. Just Heaven! it would fill up twenty volumes; and alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, and half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend Mr. Shandy met with near Moulines.

The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighborhood where she lived, it returned so strong into my mind, that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to inquire after her. 'Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures; but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

The old mother came to the door. Her looks told me the story before she opened her mouth; she had lost her husband. He had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month before. She had feared, at first, she added,

that it would have plundered her poor girl of what little understanding was left; but on the contrary it had brought her more to herself. Still she could not rest; her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.

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Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? And what made La Fleur, whose heart seemed only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it? I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.

When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar; - she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand. A small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines, and La Fleur to bespeak my supper; and that I would walk after him.

She was dressed in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net. She had, superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green ribbon, which fell across her shoulder to the waist, at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover, and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string. "Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I looked in Maria's eyes, and saw she was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for as she uttered them the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her, and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in my own, - and then in hers— and then in mine — and then I wiped hers again, - and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down

betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts, that, ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the theft; - she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket, to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, — which, she added, he had half promised her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied round with a tendril. On opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.

She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once, and returned back; that she found her way alone across the Apennines, had traveled

over all Lombardy without money, and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes. How she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell; "but God tempers the wind," said Maria, "to the shorn lamb."

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Shorn indeed! and to the quick,” said I. “And wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it and shelter thee. Thou shouldst eat of my own bread, and drink of my own cup; I would be kind to thy Sylvio; in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back. When the sun went down I would say my prayers, and when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with that of a broken heart."

Nature melted within me, as I uttered this; and Maria, observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. "And where will you dry it, Maria?” said I. “I'll dry it in my bosom," said she; "'t will do me good." "And is your heart still so warm, Maria?" said I.

I touched upon the string on which hung all her sorrows; she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face, and then, without saying anything, took her pipe and played her service to the Virgin. The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; in a moment or two Maria returned to herself, let her pipe fall, and rose up.

"And where are you going, Maria?" said I. She said, to

Moulines. "Let us go," said I," together." Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string, to let the dog follow in that order we entered Moulines.

Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet when we got into the middle of this, I stopped to take my last look and last farewell of Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine forms; affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly, still she was feminine; and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that, could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor luckless maiden! Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy wounds; the Being who has twice bruised thee can only bind them up forever.

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT

THE EXPEDITION OF HUMPHREY CLINKER

1771

[The epistolary form of Humphrey Clinker gave Smollett the opportunity to make it a medium of no little description and comment on contemporary life and interests, as well as a novel. It is only this incidental aspect which is represented by the following extracts, which present contrasting views of eighteenth century London, from the standpoints of different members of the same party of travelers. The cant piety of the style of the serving-woman is a reflection of the Wesleyan movement, at this period sufficiently conspicuous to become the object of satire.]

Squire Bramble to Dr. Lewis

LONDON, May 29.

DEAR DOCTOR: London is literally new to me; new in its streets, houses, and even in its situation. As the Irishman said, "London is now gone out of town." What I left open fields, producing hay and corn, I now find covered with streets and squares and palaces and churches. I am credibly informed that, in the space of seven years, eleven thousand new houses have been built in one quarter of Westminster, exclusive of what is daily added to other parts of this unwieldy metropolis. Pimlico and Knightsbridge are now almost joined to Chelsea and Kensington; and if this infatuation continues for half a century, suppose the whole county of Middlesex will be covered with brick.

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It must be allowed, indeed, for the credit of the present age, that London and Westminster are much better paved and lighted than they were formerly. The new streets are spacious, regular, and airy, and the houses generally convenient. The bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit, I wonder how they stumbled on a work of such magnificence and utility. But, notwithstanding these improvements, the capital is become an overgrown monster, which, like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and support. The absurdity will appear

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