Le tour est fait! Paillasse has tumbled! Paillasse has jumped over the désobligeant, cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the noble company. Does anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery—out of an old cab, is genuine feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he begins, “The man who,” &c. &c., and wishes to pass off for a saint with his credulous, good-humoured dupes.
Our friend purchases the carriage—after turning that notorious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a soft and good-natured Paillasse as he was, and very free with his money when he had it), an exchange of snuff-boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais; sets down in immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous he gives away to the Montreuil beggars; and, at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any sentimentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably and skilfully done—that dead jackass; like M. de Soubise's cook, on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey inside! Psha! Mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny more for that trick, donkey and all!
This donkey had appeared once before with signal effect. In 1765, three years before the publication of the Sentimental Journey, the seventh and eighth volumes of Tristram Shandy were given to the world, and the famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 316):—
“'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at his back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary [pg 668] turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.
“Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike; there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and, as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I), I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing responses from the etchings of his countenance; and where those carry me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think—as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me with whom I can do this.... With an ass I can commune for ever.
“ ‘Come, Honesty,’ said I, seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate, ‘art thou for coming in or going out?’
“The ass twisted his head round to look up the street.
“ ‘Well!’ replied I, ‘we'll wait a minute for thy driver.’
“He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way.
“ ‘I understand thee perfectly,’ answered I: ‘if thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well! a minute is but a minute; and if it saves a fellow creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.’