_Eighteenth and nineteenth trials of the Ring._
The flatted Spheroïd, and Girgiro the entangled: catch who can.
"That is singular," continued the favorite. "Till this moment, I always
imagined, that the chief fault found with Toys, was their speaking too
plainly." "Oh! madam," replied Mangogul, "these two are not of that
tribe; understand them who can.
"You know that little crumpling of woman, whose head is sunk into
her shoulders, whose arms are hardly to be seen, and whose legs are
so short, and her belly so lank, that one might mistake her for a
hedge-hog, for a clumsy ill-develop'd embryo, who bears the the
nick-name of the _flatted Spheroïd_; who has filled her head with a
notion that Brama called her to the study of geometry, because he has
given her the figure of a bowl; and who consequently might have chosen
the profession of artillery: for considering her make, she must have
issued out of nature's bosom, as a bullet out of the mouth of a cannon.
"Willing to receive informations from her Toy, I examined it. But the
vorticose creature spoke in terms of such sublime geometry, that I
did not understand one word, nor perhaps did it understand its own
language. It was nothing but right lines, concave surfaces, given
quantities, longitude, latitude, profundity, solids, living forces,
dead forces, cone, cylinder, conic sections, curves, elastic curves,
curve re-entring into itself, with its point conjugated----"
"I pray your highness to excuse me from the rest," cried the favorite
mournfully. "You have a cruel memory, enough to put one to death. It
has raised a swimming in my head, which I dare say I shall not get rid
of these eight days. But was the other so diverting?"
"You shall be the judge," replied Mangogul. "By Brama's great toe, I
have performed a prodigy. I have retain'd its motly gibberish word for
word, tho' it be so thoroughly void of sense and perspicuity, that if
you give me a subtile and critical explanation of it, madam, you will
make me an acceptable present."
"How have you said, prince?" cried Mirzoza. "Let me die, if you have
not stolen that phrase from somebody."
"I can't tell how it has happened," replied Mangogul: "for these two
Toys are the only persons to whom I have given audience this day. The
last, on whom I turned my ring, after a moment's silence, said, as if
addressing an audience,
"'Gentlemen,
"'I shall take the liberty to avoid seeking, to the contempt of my
own reason, a model of thinking and expressing myself. But yet if I
advance any thing new, it shall not be affectation, but the subject
shall have furnished me with it: if I repeat what has been already
said, it will be my own thought, as well as it has been that of
others. Let not irony come to turn this preamble into ridicule, and
accuse me of either not having read, or of having read to no purpose.
A Toy like me is not made for reading, or profiting by its reading, or
foreseeing an objection, or answering it.
"'I shall not debar myself of reflections and ornaments proportioned
to my subject; the rather because in this regard it is extremely
modest, and will not admit of any great quantity or brilliancy. But I
will avoid sinking into those little minute details, which fall to the
share of the barren orator. It would be cause of great grief to me to
be suspected of this defect.
"'After having informed ye, gentlemen, of what you are to expect from
my discoveries and elocution, some few strokes of the pencil will be
sufficient, to sketch you out my character.
"'You know, gentlemen, as well as I, that there are two sorts of Toys:
proud Toys and modest Toys. The former are haughty, and always expect
the place of honour. The latter affect to be courteous, and present
themselves with an air of submission. These two intentions appear
manifestly in the execution of their projects, and determine both
sorts to act according to the genius that guides them.
"'I imagined, thro' attachment to the prejudices of my first
education, that I should open to myself a safer, easier, and more
agreeable career, if I preferr'd the part of humility to that of
pride; and I offered myself with infantile bashfulness and winning
supplications to all, whom I had the good fortune to meet.
"'But oh! how unhappy are the times. After ten times more _buts_ and
_ifs_ and _ands_ than were sufficient to make the most unemployed
Toy lose all patience, my services were accepted. Alas! this job
was of short duration. My first possessor giving himself up to the
flattering glory of a new conquest, discarded me, and I found myself
all at once out of employment.
"'My treasure was gone, and I did not flatter myself that fortune
would make me amends for it. In effect the vacant place was occupied,
but not filled by a Sexagenarian, to whom good will was less wanting
than the means.
"'He laboured with all his might to make me forget my past state. He
had for me all that behavior, which is esteemed polite and engaging in
the career that I pursued: but his efforts did not conquer my regret.
"'If industry, which is said never to fall short, made him find in
the treasures of the natural faculty some abatement to my grief; this
compensation to me appeared insufficient, in spite of my imagination,
which was daily on the rack to find new resemblances, and even to
suppose imaginary ones, but to no purpose.
"'Such is the advantage of primacy, that it seizes the idea, and forms
a barrier against every thing that would afterwards present itself
under other forms: and such is, shall I say it, to our shame, the
ungrateful nature of Toys, that they never take the good-will for the
deed.
"'This remark seems to me so natural, that, without being indebted to
any body for it, I cannot think that I am the only one who has made
it. But if any person before me has been struck with it; at least,
gentlemen I am the first who undertake, by demonstrating it, to set
its full value in a proper light.
"'I am far from laying the least blame to the charge of those who have
raised their voice hitherto, for having let this stroke escape them;
my self-love being abundantly satisfied, to be able, after so great a
number of orators, to present my observation as something new.--'"
"Ah! prince," cried Mirzoza smartly, "I fancy I hear the chiromancer
of the Manimonbanda. Apply to him, and you will have the subtile and
critical explanation, of which you would in vain expect the agreeable
present from any other person."
The African author says, that Mangogul smiled, and continued. "But I
do not intend," says he, "to relate the rest of his discourse. If this
beginning has not given as much amusement as the first pages of _La Fée
Taupe_, the sequel would be more tiresome than the last pages of the
_Fée Moustache_."