THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.


This certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little
lightly as I began, must be one of Fortune's whimsical doings; to
take two utter strangers by their hands,--of different sexes, and
perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in one moment
place them together in such a cordial situation as Friendship
herself could scarce have achieved for them, had she projected it
for a month.

- And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
embarrassed you by the adventure -

When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed
as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank
Fortune, continued she--you had reason--the heart knew it, and was
satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent
notice of it to the brain to reverse the judgment?

In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought
a sufficient commentary upon the text.

It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness
of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier
occasions could not have inflicted.--I was mortified with the loss
of her hand, and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither
oil nor wine to the wound: I never felt the pain of a sheepish
inferiority so miserably in my life.