'"
Another from Ecclesiastes--
"'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of
feasting.'--Eccl. vii. 2.
"That I deny--but let us hear the wise man's reasoning for
it:--'for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to
his heart; sorrow is better than laughter, for a crack-brained
order of enthusiastic monks, I grant, but not for men of the
world.'"
Of course, he introduces this cavil to combat it, but still maintains
that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of
the country they are passing through.
The following represents his arrival in the Paris of his day--
"Crack, crack! crack, crack! crack, crack!--so this is Paris! quoth
I,--and this is Paris!--humph!--Paris! cried I, repeating the name
the third time."
"The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
"The streets, however, are nasty.
"But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells. Crack, crack!
crack, crack! what a fuss thou makest! as if it concerned the good
people to be informed that a man with a pale face, and clad in
black had the honour to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at
night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with a
red calamanco! Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! I wish thy
whip----But it is the spirit of the nation; so crack, crack on.
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