----’Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large
panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and
cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside
of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as
not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.
Now, ’tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to
strike----there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so
unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for
him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like
to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I
will--whether in town or country--in cart or under panniers--whether in
liberty or bondage ----I have ever something civil to say to him on my
part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do
as I) ----I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never
is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings
of his countenance--and where those carry me not deep enough----in
flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass
to think--as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only
creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this:
for parrots, jackdaws, &c. ----I never exchange a word with them----nor
with the apes, &c., for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote,
as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my
cat, though I value them both----(and for my dog he would speak if he
could)--yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents
for conversation ----I can make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond
the _proposition_, the _reply_, and _rejoinder_, which terminated my
father’s and my mother’s conversations, in his beds of justice----and
those utter’d----there’s an end of the dialogue----
--But with an ass, I can commune for ever.
Come, _Honesty!_ said I, ----seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt
him and the gate----art thou for coming in, or going out?
The ass twisted his head round to look up the street----
Well--replied I--we’ll wait a minute for thy driver:
----He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the
opposite way----
I understand thee perfectly, answered I ----If thou takest a wrong step
in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death ----Well! a minute is but a
minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be
set down as ill spent.
He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in
the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and
unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and
pick’d it up again ----God help thee, _Jack!_ said I, thou hast a bitter
breakfast on’t--and many a bitter day’s labour, --and many a bitter
blow, I fear, for its wages----’tis all--all bitterness to thee,
whatever life is to others. ----And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth
of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot--(for he had cast aside the
stem) and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will
give thee a macaroon. ----In saying this, I pull’d out a paper of ’em,
which I had just purchased, and gave him one--and at this moment that I
am telling it, my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in
the conceit, of seeing _how_ an ass would eat a macaroon----than of
benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.
When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press’d him to come in--the poor
beast was heavy loaded----his legs seem’d to tremble under him----he
hung rather backwards, and as I pull’d at his halter, it broke short in
my hand----he look’d up pensive in my face-- “Don’t thrash me with
it--but if you will, you may” ----If I do, said I, I’ll be d----d.
The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of
_Andoüillets’_--(so there was no sin in it)--when a person coming in,
let fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil’s crupper, which put
an end to the ceremony.
_Out upon it!_
cried I----but the interjection was equivocal----and, I think, wrong
placed too--for the end of an osier which had started out from the
contexture of the ass’s pannier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket,
as he rush’d by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can
imagine----so that the
_Out upon it!_ in my opinion, should have come in here----but this I
leave to be settled by
THE
REVIEWERS
OF
MY BREECHES,
which I have brought over along with me for that purpose.