MARIVAUX.
The following anecdotes from Esprit de Marivaux, a book, probably, not known to many of your readers, may serve to amuse some of them.
Marivaux was scarcely less remarkable for his indolence than his wit.—He was said to be "by nature the laziest creature in the world;" but his goodness appeared on the most trifling circumstances. He was one day setting out for the country with Mad. Lallemand de Bez. Marivaux and the lady's sister were already in the coach; she staid behind to give some orders to her domestics. In this interval, a sturdy young fellow, about eighteen or twenty, plump and fresh coloured, came to the coach door begging. Marivaux, struck with the contrast between the appearance and profession of the man, looked out, and reproved him. "Are you not ashamed," said he, "a young fellow in perfect health and vigour, to have the meanness to beg your bread, when you might procure it by honest labour?" The fellow, struck with this rebuke, was, at first, confounded and silent; but presently afterwards, scratching his head, exclaimed with a shrug and a sigh, "Ah! sir, if you did but know—I am so lazy!" Marivaux, who was himself sensible of the pain of labour, was so pleased with the fellow's confession, that he gave him a crown.
Fontenelle having heard that Marivaux was sick, and having just reason to fear that he, who never laid by any money, might be in want of it at such an exigence, went to him, and when they were alone, told him his suspicions. "Perhaps," says he, "more money may be convenient to you than you have by you.—Friends should never wait to be solicited; here is a purse with a hundred louis d'ors, which you must permit me to leave at your disposal."—"I consider them (said Marivaux) as received and used; permit me now to return them with the gratitude that such a favour ought to excite."—"What benevolence and generosity, in one of these friends," says the author, "what delicacy and greatness of mind in the other!"
[Nat. Gaz.
A curious phenomenon.—Extract of a letter dated May 4th, 1820, from a respectable physician of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, to an eminent member of the faculty in this city.
"About twelve years ago the wife of the parish minister had twins. She was a debilitated nervous woman. Her mother a healthy old lady of seventy-five, who firmly believed the prayers of the faithful could remove mountains, began to think what a comfortable thing it would be, if she could nurse one of the twins. The consequence was, that her breasts filled with milk, and she nursed it for twelve months, affording all that time an abundant supply, to the great relief of the mother.
"This story cannot be contradicted; for the most respectable persons in Northumberland have related it to me, persons who could not be deceived, and would not deceive me. They say that she often carried the child abroad in the course of her visiting, telling the wonder wherever she went, and giving her friends ocular demonstration of the lactiferous miracle."
[Ibid.
Works of Fiction.—Hannah More, in her last work, remarking on the subject of "unprofitable reading," observes, "many works of fiction may be read with safety, some even with profit; But the constant familiarity even with such as are not exceptionable in themselves, relaxes the mind that wants hardening, dissolves the heart which wants fortifying, stirs the imagination which wants quieting, irritates the passions which want calming, and, above all, disinclines and disqualifies for active virtues, and for spiritual exercises. The habitual indulgence in such reading is a silent, mining mischief. Though there is no act, and no moment, in which any open assault on the mind is made, yet the constant habit performs the work of a mental atrophy; it produces all the symptoms of decay, and the danger is not less for being more gradual, and, therefore, less suspected."
Greensborough, (Pa.) May 5, 1820.
Law Case.—Jack vs. Mauns.—The plaintiff brought suit against defendant for a rifle gun, which defendant had exchanged for a horse. The defendant insisted on the bargain being annulled, on the ground of a special agreement, that if he did not like the horse, he should be returned within a stipulated time. The cause was referred to arbitrators, who awarded, that the plaintiff should take back the horse, and the defendant his gun, the spectators pay the drink, and the justice the cost of arbitrators. Judgment on the award—parties satisfied.