All. We hope so, papa.
Ferdinand. May I first tell you a very curious account of a little dwarf, which I read today?
Mr. B. By all means, my boy.
Ferdinand. It is now seventy-four years since he was born, at a village in France. He was a very little creature indeed, as you will suppose, when I tell you he only weighed a pound and a quarter. When he was baptized, they handed him to the clergyman on a plate, and, for a long time, he used to sleep in a slipper. He could not walk alone till he was two years old, and then his shoes were only an inch and a half long. At six years old he was fifteen inches high. Notwithstanding he was so very small, he was well-made and extremely handsome, but he had not much sense. The king of Poland sent for him to his court, called him baby, and kept him in his palace. They tried to teach him dancing and music, but he could not learn. He was never more than twenty-nine inches tall. By the time he was sixteen he began to grow infirm, like an old man. From being very beautiful, the poor little creature became quite deformed. At twenty he was extremely feeble and decrepid, and two years after, he died.
Mr. B. Poor little creature: such objects are much to be pitied. There are persons who take pleasure in seeing them; but I must confess, there is something to me extremely unnatural, in such an exposure of our unhappy fellow-creatures.
Edward. Did not Peter the Great, on some occasion, assemble a vast number together?
Mr. B. He did; and I rather think Emily can give you an account of it.
Emily. It was in the year 1710, that a marriage between two dwarfs was celebrated at the Russian court. The preparations for this wedding were very grand, and executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. Peter ordered that all the dwarfs, both men and women, within two hundred miles, should repair to the capital, and insisted that they should be present at the ceremony. Some of them were unwilling to comply with this order, knowing that the object was to turn them into ridicule; but he soon obliged them to obey, and, as a punishment for their reluctance, made them wait on the others. There were seventy assembled, besides the bride and bridegroom, who were richly adorned in the extreme of fashion. Everything was suitably provided for the little company; a low table, small plates, little glasses; in short, all was dwindled down to their own standard. Dancing followed the dinner, and the ball was opened with a minuet by the bride and bridegroom, the latter of whom was exactly three feet two inches high, and the day closed more cheerfully than it had begun.
Edward. I had always understood that Peter was a man of a very barbarous disposition, and I think this circumstance is a strong proof of it. How cruel! to make sport of the misfortunes and miseries of others.
Mr. B. The Czar Peter was a most extraordinary man. No monarch ever did more towards the civilization of his subjects, or less towards the subduing of his own barbarous nature. My dear Ferdinand, ring the bell; I believe the tea-things may now be removed.