Madame de V-'s coterie; - and she put off the epocha of deism for

two years.
I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in

which I was showing the necessity of a FIRST cause, when the young
Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the

room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn'd too straight about my
neck. - It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down

upon his own; - but a word, Monsieur Yorick, TO THE WISE -
And FROM THE WISE, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,

- IS ENOUGH.
The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was

embraced by mortal man.
For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met. -

Pardi! ce Monsieur Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres. - Il
raisonne bien, said another. - C'est un bon enfant, said a third. -

And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all
the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonestreckoning; - I

grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain of a slave; - every sentiment
of honour revolted against it; - the higher I got, the more was I

forced upon my beggarly system; - the better the coterie, - the
more children of Art; - I languish'd for those of Nature: and one

night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen
different people, I grew sick, - went to bed; - order'd La Fleur to

get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
MARIA. MOULINES.

I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
now, - to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of

France, - in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a

journey, through each step of which Music beats time to Labour, and
all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to

pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at
every group before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with

adventures. -
Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have

but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of
these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy,

met with near Moulines.
The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a

little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood
where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I could

not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of
the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to enquire after

her.
'Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in

quest of melancholy adventures. But I know not how it is, but I am
never so perfectlyconscious of the existence of a soul within me,

as when I am entangled in them.
The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before

she open'd her mouth. - She had lost her husband; he had died, she
said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month

before. - She had feared at first, she added, that it would have
plunder'd her poor girl of what little understanding was left; -

but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: - still,
she could not rest. - Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was

wandering somewhere about the road.
Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La

Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back
of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?

I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.
When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little

opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria
sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap,

and her head leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook
ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La
Fleur to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.

She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her,
except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a

silk net. - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green
riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of

which hung her pipe. - Her goat had been as faithless as her lover;
and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept

tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew
him towards her with the string. - "Thou shalt not leave me,

Sylvio," said she. I look'd in Maria's eyes and saw she was
thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;

for, as she utter'd them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they

fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep'd it in my own, - and
then in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip'd hers again; -

and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I
am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter

and motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which

materialists have pester'd the world ever convince me to the
contrary.

MARIA.
When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask'd her if she

remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt
her and her goat about two years before? She said she was

unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: -
that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that

her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the
theft; - she had wash'd it, she said, in the brook, and kept it

ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should
ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As

she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to
let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine

leaves, tied round with a tendril; - on opening it, I saw an S.
marked in one of the corners.

She had since that, she told me, stray'd as far as Rome, and walk'd
round St. Peter's once, - and return'd back; - that she found her

way alone across the Apennines; - had travell'd over all Lombardy,
without money, - and through the flinty roads of Savoy without

shoes: - how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she
could not tell; - but God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the

shorn lamb.
Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own

land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter
thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; -

I would be kind to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and
wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back; - when the

sun went down I would say my prayers: and when I had done thou
shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense

of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with
that of a broken heart!

Nature melted within me, as I utter'd this; and Maria observing, as
I took out my handkerchief, that it was steep'd too much already to

be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. - And where will
you dry it, Maria? said I. - I'll dry it in my bosom, said she: -

'twill do me good.
And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.

I touch'd upon the string on which hung all her sorrows: - she
look'd with wistfuldisorder for some time in my face; and then,

without saying any thing, took her pipe and play'd her service to