I asked if there was any reason. Perhaps some sorrow had given her mind that bent--some disappointment of that kind which rests on woman's heart like a blight, till the whole tree withers? but they told us no; that she had always been thus. She was, it seems, one of those calm, quiet spirits, which are as strangers in the midst of the busy world, taking no part in its cares and its joys, and looking sorrowfully upon all the evil that is done and suffered, She was very good, the people said, and very charitable, and every body loved her; and for the moment I felt a degree of grief that her heart had never met any one that was worthy of its affection. But no, it was better not; for love is but a brighter name for pain; and God forbid that a spirit which turned towards heaven, should be weighed down by any of the passions of earth.
In the evening I missed my friend for half an hour; and when he rejoined me, "I have been talking with our nun," said he, "over the fire." But I begged him not to tell me any thing about it. "I would not have done it for the world," said I.
"Why not?" demanded he:--and as some one else may ask the same question, and think I meant differently from that which I did, I will give the reasons now, as I gave them then. I would not have done it for the world; for I never like to compare the paintings of fancy with the originals. Realities are seldom the pleasantest parts of life. Hope, memory, and, even enjoyment, are more than half imagination. Every thing is mellowed by distance; and when we come too near, the airy softness is lost, and the hard lines of truth are offered harshly to the eye. Half our sorrows are the breaking of different illusions: sometimes they must be broken; but when, without danger to himself, or injury to others, man can enrich the scene before him with ideal beauties, he is foolish to examine minutely the objects of which it is composed. The cottage, with its broken thatch and shining piece of water in the foreground, is picturesque and beautiful in a landscape;--but what is the reality? The dwelling of misery, decorated with a horse-pond! The splendid pageants, that dazzle the lesser children at a theatre, are but dirty daubs of paint and tinsel; and it is the same with the stage of the world. It never answers to be behind the scenes. In life, I have met with but two things equal to what I fancied them--sunrise from a mountain, and a draught of water when I was thirsty.
A FRENCH COOK.
There is no man on earth, I believe, who has not figured to himself a sort of animal totally distinct from every thing else in nature, and called it in his own mind a French cook.
It is, in a manner, an historical character; and from the very nursery we accustom ourselves to picture him with a long pigtail and a nightcap, skinning cats and fricasseeing frogs. But the breed is nearly extinct: I had sought for one of the true race all over France with the zeal and fervour of an antiquary, and long had only the mortification of finding every kitchen filled with plump, greasy professors (who for fat and solemnity, might have occupied any chair in a Dutch university), skimming their dirty saucepans, and mercilessly compounding mutton and beef to supply the cravings of a nation who have nearly abandoned frogs,[[4]] snails and vipers, to feed upon the same gross aliments as the English. As I have said, much had been my mortification; but there was a reward in store for me, Le Valliant could not have been more gratified when he first met with the giraffe than was I, when, on entering the kitchen at le Mans, my eyes fell upon the minister of the culinary department. It was the beau ideal of a French cook! and had Hogarth seen him, he would have made him immortal.
He was about sixty, and as thin as could be well desired. His complexion was café au lait, set off by a pair of small eyes, high up in his head, as black as jet, and sparkling like the charcoal under his saucepans; while his hair, as white as snow, stuck out in full friz, like a powder-puff, and supported a candid nightcap, which, leaning slightly to one side, let the tassel sway peacefully over his left ear.
Whether it was from constantly leaning to the side of royalty (for he had been an émigré), or from some accident, I do not know, but one of his legs was rather shorter than the other. This, however, nothing deteriorated the dignity of his deportment; and when he appeared in the midst of stews and sauces, with his gray jacket, his snowy apron, and his knife by his side, my imagination became exalted: his nightcap assumed the appearance of a wreath; his jacket transformed itself into pontifical robes; his knife became the instrument of sacrifice; the b[oe]uf au naturel changed to the bellowing victim; the kitchen to the porch of the temple; and I began to fancy myself in ancient Greece, when suddenly he advanced towards us with a smiling air, and placed chairs for us by the fire. "Sit down English gentlemans," said he, in a barbarous corruption of my native language; "sit down, sit down. Oh! I go make you nice dinner. I be in England; I make the kitchen to Lord Salisbury. Do you understand Lord Salisbury? Connaissez-vous Lord Salisbury."
What between himself and his English, I have seldom met any thing equal to him. He had all the importance, too, of his profession; there was a gravity in his emptiness, and a politeness in his gravity. When he cooked, his whole soul seemed in the dish; but when any one addressed him, his face relaxed into a smile, and the dish was forgot. The pride of his heart was in his saucepans, which hung up in innumerable shining rows above our heads, burnished like the armour of Achilles, and from those saucepans he produced fare worthy the great Lucullus. Indeed, he was the best cook I ever met; but that is easily accounted for. He had been cook to a seminary of Catholic priests, and quitted it upon some quarrel. The good father directors, soon finding how much their palates lost by his absence, wished him to return; and he showed with no small triumph a letter he had received to that effect. I copied, and give it word for word. The colouring might be heightened, but it is better as it is; and, as a specimen of an epistle from a priest to a cook, it is unique:--