’Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my garters in my hand, reflecting upon what had not pass’d——’Tis enough, Tristram, and I am satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in my ear, **** ** **** *** ******;—**** ** **——any other man would have sunk down to the center——
——Everything is good for something, quoth I.
——I’ll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat’s whey—and I’ll gain seven years longer life for the accident. For which reason I think myself inexcusable, for blaming fortune so often as I have done, for pelting me all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call’d her, with so many small evils: surely, if I have any cause to be angry with her, ’tis that she has not sent me great ones—a score of good cursed, bouncing losses, would have been as good as a pension to me. 379
——One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wish—I would not be at the plague of paying land-tax for a larger.
CHAPTER XXX
To those who call vexations, VEXATIONS, as knowing what they are, there could not be a greater, than to be the best part of a day at Lyons, the most opulent and flourishing city in France, enriched with the most fragments of antiquity—and not be able to see it. To be withheld upon any account, must be a vexation; but to be withheld by a vexation——must certainly be, what philosophy justly calls VEXATION
UPON
VEXATION.
I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee together—otherwise ’tis only coffee and milk)—and as it was no more than eight in the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had time to see enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all the friends I had in the world with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list, and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock of Lippius of Basil, in the first place——
Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism——I have neither genius, or taste, or fancy—and have a brain so entirely unapt for everything of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet able to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or a common knife-grinder’s wheel—tho’ I have many an hour of my life look’d up with great devotion at the one—and stood by with as much patience as any christian ever could do, at the other——
I’ll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very first thing I do: and then I will pay a visit to the great library of the Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the general history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarean, but) in the Chinese language, and in the Chinese character too.
Now I almost know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the mechanism of Lippius’s clock-work; so, why these should 380 have jostled themselves into the two first articles of my list——I leave to the curious as a problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her ladyship’s obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her humour as much as I.
When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my valet de place, who stood behind me——’twill be no hurt if we go to the church of St. Irenæus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tied——and after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived——’Twas at the next town, said the valet de place—at Vienne; I am glad of it, said I, rising briskly from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as my usual pace——“for so much the sooner shall I be at the Tomb of the two lovers.”
What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in uttering this——I might leave to the curious too; but as no principle of clock-work is concerned in it——’twill be as well for the reader if I explain it myself.
CHAPTER XXXI
O there is a sweet æra in the life of man, when (the brain being tender and fibrillous, and more like pap than anything else)——a story read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more cruel destiny——
Amandus——He
Amanda——She——
each ignorant of the other’s course,
He——east
She——west
Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the emperor of Morocco’s court, where the princess of Morocco falling in love with him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of his Amanda.——
She—(Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell’d hair, o’er rocks and mountains, enquiring for Amandus!——Amandus! Amandus!—making every hill and valley to echo back his name——
Amandus! Amandus!
at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate——Has Amandus!—has my Amandus enter’d?——till,——going round, and round, and round the world——chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by different 381 ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native city, and each in well-known accents calling out aloud, Is Amandus
Is my Amanda still alive?
they fly into each other’s arms, and both drop down dead for joy.
There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story affords more pabulum to the brain, than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.
——’Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows——That sacred to the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their truths——I never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of the lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the close——nay such a kind of empire had it establish’d over me, that I could seldom think or speak of Lyons—and sometimes not so much as see even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running on——tho’ I fear with some irreverence——“I thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and so little short, except in wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons) on purpose to pay it a visit.”
In my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, tho’ last,—was not, you see, least; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than usual across my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the Basse Cour, in order to sally forth; and having called for my bill—as it was uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid it——had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the Rhône——when I was stopped at the gate——