A Sentimental Journey | Page 5

I must one
day come and give an account of this work)--that I do not speak it
vauntingly,--but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more
variety of learning,--where the sciences may be more fitly woo'd, or
more surely won, than here,--where art is encouraged, and will so soon
rise high,--where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to answer
for,--and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character
to feed the mind with: --Where then, my dear countrymen, are you
going? -
We are only looking at this chaise, said they.--Your most obedient
servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat.--We were
wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an Inquisitive

Traveller,--what could occasion its motion.--'Twas the agitation, said I,
coolly, of writing a preface.--I never heard, said the other, who was a
Simple Traveller, of a preface wrote in a desobligeant.--It would have
been better, said I, in a vis-a-vis.
- As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to my
room.
CALAIS.
I perceived that something darken'd the passage more than myself, as I
stepp'd along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the
master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and with his
hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in
mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with
the desobligeant, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if
it would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it
belong'd to some Innocent Traveller, who, on his return home, had left
it to Mons. Dessein's honour to make the most of. Four months had
elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Mons.
Dessein's coach-yard; and having sallied out from thence but a
vampt-up business at the first, though it had been twice taken to pieces
on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures,--but by
none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of
Mons. Dessein's coach-yard. Much indeed was not to be said for it,--but
something might;--and when a few words will rescue misery out of her
distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.
- Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of my
fore-finger on Mons. Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a point
of getting rid of this unfortunate desobligeant;--it stands swinging
reproaches at you every time you pass by it.
Mon Dieu! said Mons. Dessein,--I have no interest--Except the interest,
said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in
their own sensations,--I'm persuaded, to a man who feels for others as
well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, must cast
a damp upon your spirits: --You suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the
machine -
I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a
compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself,
whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein

made me a bow.
C'est bien vrai, said he.--But in this case I should only exchange one
disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir,
that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had
got half-way to Paris,--figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in
giving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the
mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.
The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
not help tasting it,--and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without
more casuistry we walk'd together towards his Remise, to take a view
of his magazine of chaises.
IN THE STREET. CALAIS.
It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but
of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the
street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls
into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same
sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park corner to
fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way
a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements
within me, to which the situation is incident;--I looked at Monsieur
Dessein through and through--eyed him as he walk'd along in
profile,--then, en face;--thought like a Jew,--then a Turk,--disliked his
wig,-- cursed him by my gods,--wished him at the devil. -