32. The Wig. Paris

WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refus'd to have anything to do with my wig: 't was either above or below his art: I had nothing to do, but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.

-But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won't stand.-You may immerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand.-

What a great scale is everything upon in this city! thought I.-The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further than to have "dipp'd it into a pail of water."-What difference! 't is like time to eternity.

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at least. All that can be said against the French sublime in this instance of it, is this-that the grandeur is more in the word, and less in the thing. No doubt the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I should run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment.-The Parisian barber meant nothing.-

The pail of water standing besides the great deep, makes certainly but a sorry figure in speech-but 't will be said-it has one advantage-'t is in the next room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, without more ado, in a single moment.

In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, the French expression professes more than it performs.

I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonsensical minutia, than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.

I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, that it was too late of thinking of going with my letter to Madame R-- that night: but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections turn to little account; so taking down the name of the Hotel de Modene, where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go-I shall consider of that, said I, as I walk along.