The Wig. Paris.

When the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with my wig: ’twas 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 emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. —

What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I. — The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker’s ideas could have gone no further than to have “dipped it into a pail of water.” — What difference! ’tis 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 beside the great deep, makes, certainly, but a sorry figure in speech; — but, ’twill be said, — it has one advantage — ’tis 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 minutiae 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 to think 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.