WHEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now, there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise, and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walked out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose. An old désobligeante,* in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight: so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel; but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not * A chaise, so called in France from its holding but one person. B caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite side of the court in conference with a lady just arrived at the inn, I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and, being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and wrote the preface to it in the désobligeante. Ir 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 discontent 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 sufferings 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. 'Tis 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, connexions, and dependances, and from the differences in education, 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 ad |