A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) by Philip Thicknesse
page 96 of 146 (65%)
page 96 of 146 (65%)
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sportsman to kill the parent.--God forbid, said he, that one of them
should fall, but by his hands who gave it life!--Give me your hand, said I, and bless me!--I believe it did; _but it shortened my visit_:--so I stept into the _grot_, and _stole_ a pound of chocolate upon his stone table, and myself away. If there is a happy man upon this earth, I have seen that extraordinary man, and here he dwells!--his features, his manners, all his looks and actions, announce it;--yet he had not even a single _maravedi_ in his pocket:--money is as useless to him, as to one of his black-birds. Within a gun-shot of this _remnant_ of _Eden_, are the remains of an ancient hermitage, called _St. Pedro_. While I was there, my hermit followed me; but I too _coveted retirement_. I had just bought a fine fowling-piece at _Barcelona_; and when he came, I was availing myself of the hallowed spot, to make _my vow_ never to use it. In truth, dear Sir, there are some sorts of pleasures too powerful for the body to bear, as well as some sort of pain: and here I was wrecked upon the wheel of felicity; and could only say, like the poor criminal who suffered at _Dijon_,--O God! O God! at every _coup_. I was sorry my host did not understand English, nor I Spanish enough, to give him the sense of the lines written in poor _Shenstone_'s alcove. "O you that bathe in courtlye bliss, "Or toyle in fortune's giddy spheare; "Do not too rashly deeme amisse "Of him that hides contented here. I forgot the other lines; but they conclude thus: |
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