The Indiscreet Jewels quotes

Believe me, Seigneur Codindo, suffer your poultry to feed in quiet, and pronounce on the fate of my son, as you lately did on the cold of my wife’s parrot.”

Codindo immediately drew a glass out of his pocket, took the infant’s left ear, rubb’d his eyes, turn’d his spectacles again and again, peep’d at that ear, did the like to the right ear, and pronounced, “that the young prince’s reign would be happy, if it proved long.”

“I understand you,” replied Erguebzed: “my son will do the finest things in the world, if he has time. But, zounds! what I want to have told me is, that he will have time.

But, zounds! what I want to have told me is, that he will have time. What matter is it to me, after he is dead, that he would have been the greatest prince upon earth, had he lived.

I have sent for you to cast my son’s horoscope, and you make me his funeral oration.

”

he drove out those injurious guards of their virtue; he prudently confided in themselves for their fidelity: the entrance into their apartments was as free for men as into those of the canonesses of Flanders; and doubtless their behaviour as decent.

Oh! how good a Sultan he was! There never was his equal, but in some French romance.

He was mild, affable, cheerful, gallant, of a charming figure, a lover of pleasures, cut out for them, and contained more wit and sense in his head, than had been in those of all his predecessors put together.

“By what then will they speak?” says Mangogul.

“By the frankest part about them, and the best instructed in those things which you desire to know,” says Cucufa; “by their Toys.”

“By their Toys,” replies Mangogul bursting into laughter; “that is particular. Talking Toys! That is an unheard extravagance.”

“My son,” said the Genius, “I have performed many greater prodigies for your grandfather: therefore depend on my word. Go, and may Brama bless you.

Make a good use of your secret, and remember that there are ill-placed curiosities.

” This said, the old hypocrite nodded his head, pull’d his hood over his face, took his horn-owls by the legs, and vanish’d in the air.

They had made their appearance in the same box at the Opera, in the same coach at the Bois de Boulogne, they had finished their visits; and the fashion of the times exempted them from loving or even meeting each other.

“If this Toy,” says Mangogul, “is as silly as its mistress, we shall have a diverting soliloquy.”

At this instant the favorite appear’d. “Welcome,” said the Sultan to her in a whisper. “I have cast my lead, waiting for you.”

A loud burst of laughter, which seized Alcina at some comical saying of her husband, was suddenly cut short by the operation of the ring; and immediately a murmuring noise was heard under her petticoats. “Well, now I am titled. Truly I am glad on’t.

Nothing like having a rank. If my first advices had been heeded, I should have been provided with something better than an Emir: but yet an Emir is better than nothing.

” At these words all the ladies quitted the game, to seek from what quarter the voice issued. This movement made a great noise.

and she must have sunk under this confederacy, had not the Sultan taken her part. “I do not pretend,” said he, “that Monima is less gallant than Zelmaida; but I believe her Toy has more discretion.

Besides, when the mouth and Toy of a woman contradict each other, which to believe?

”

It was at that time divided into two factions, the one composed of Vorticists, and the other of Attractionists.

Olibrio, an able geometrician and great natural philosopher, founded the sect of the Vorticists. Circino, an able natural philosopher and great geometrician, was the first Attractionist.

Both Olibrio and Circino proposed to explain nature. Olibrio’s principles have at first sight a certain air of simplicity, which seduces: in the gross they account for the principal phenomena, but they contradict themselves in the detail.

One enters without preparation into Olibrio’s school; everybody has the key of it. That of Circino is open to none but geometricians of the first class. Olibrio’s Vortices are within the reach of all capacities. Circino’s central powers are made for first rate Algebraists only.

Wherefore there will always be an hundred Vorticists for one Attractionist; and one Attractionist will always be worth an hundred Vorticists.

Such was the state of the academy of sciences at Banza, when it handled the subject of the indiscreet Toys.

They are neat and convenient. He has some of all sizes, of all prices, and for all ages: and he has had the honour to serve persons of the highest distinction with them.

There is nothing like being a member of a body of men. Be a work ever so ridiculous, it is puff’d into success.

Thus it was, that Eolipila’s invention gain’d ground. People flock’d to his house. The gay ladies went thither in their own equipages, prudent women in hackney-coaches; the devouts sent their confessors or footmen, and nuns their doorkeepers.

In a little time he was rank’d with Eolipila in the class of quacks; and they will both continue therein, until it shall please Brama to take them out.

Shame was preferred to the apoplexy. “The one kills,” said the women, “the other does not.”

Wherefore they renounced their muzzles; let their Toys talk on; and nobody died thereby.

He went from Salica’s house to that of Arsinoe, which is not far from it. On entering her chambers he heard loud bursts of laughter, and advanced, thinking to find her in company: but she was alone; and Mangogul was not much surprised.

“A woman who gives herself the vapors,” says he, “gives them melancholy or merry, as is most convenient.”

He turn’d his ring on her, and presently her Toy began to laugh unmercifully. From these immoderate laughing fits it made a sudden transition to ridiculous lamentations on the absence of Narces, whom it advised as a friend to hasten his return;

and I have remark’d on more occasions than one, that a woman, who thought she was following her head, was obeying her Toy. A great philosopher placed the soul, I mean ours, in the pineal gland.

If I allowed women to have one, I well know where I would place it.

”

“

The sober woman, for example, would be she whose Toy is silent, or is not attended to.

“The prude, she who pretends not to listen to her Toy.

“

The prude, she who pretends not to listen to her Toy.

“The intriguing woman, she whose Toy desires a great deal, and who allows it too much.

“Is the child born? ’tis still in the feet that the chief motions are performed. We are obliged to confine them: and this is never done without some reluctance on their part.

The head is a block, with which we do what we will; but the feet are sensible of, shake off the yoke, and seem jealous of the liberty, of which they are deprived.

“Is the child able to stand alone? the feet make a thousand efforts to move; they put everything into action:

“My mare,” says Mangogul, “will dictate to you this once, write.”

Ziguezague, whom this order reduced too low in his own opinion, assumed the liberty of representing to the Sultan, that he would always esteem it a high honour to be his secretary, but not that of his mare.

“Write, I tell you,” said the Sultan again.

“Waa,” says Mangogul, yawning and rubbing his eyes, “my head aches. Let nobody evermore talk philosophy to me. Such conversations are unwholsome.

Last night I lay on empty ideas; and instead of sleeping like a Sultan, my brain work’d more than those of my ministers do in a year.

You laugh; but to convince you that I do not exaggerate, and to take my revenge for the bad night which your reasonings gave me, I enjoin you the penance of hearing my dream in its full extent.

“ ‘No, no,’ replied Plato, ‘it was not by such means that he merited of the Gods the name of the wisest of men. His constant occupation, during life, was forming heads and hearts. The secret was lost at his death.

Socrates died, and the bright days of philosophy were no more.

These pieces of stuff, which those very systematics think it an honour to wear, are scraps of his garment. Scarcely had his eyes been closed, when those, who aspired to the title of philosophers, seized his robe, and tore it in pieces.’

He had a little head, slender body, weak arms and short legs: but all these parts increased in all dimensions, according as he came forward.

In the progress of his successive growth, he appear’d to me under a hundred different forms

; I saw him directing a long telescope towards the heavens, estimating the fall of bodies by means of a pendulum, determining the weight of the air by a tube fill’d with quicksilver, and discomposing light with a prism.

he is insensible to her tears and deaf to her reasons, and she is banish’d two hundred miles from Banza, to an old castle, where she is allowed no other company than two maids and four black eunuchs, who continually watch her.

Scarcely was she set out, when she was innocent.

The Petits-Maîtres forgot her adventures; the women forgave her her wit and charms, and all the world bemoaned her.

“I do not,” answered Mirzoza, “relish compliments which are addressed to me at the expense of my sex. When anyone takes it into his head to praise me, I could wish that nobody suffered by it.

Most of the fine speeches which are offered to us, are like the sumptuous entertainments which your highness receives from your Pacha’s: they are always at the expense of the public.

”

At these meetings, the Sultan and his favorite put themselves on a level with their subjects: their presence gave no sort of check to whatever could amuse; and people seldom found the time tedious.

Mangogul had learned early in his life, that pleasures are not to be found above the foot of the throne; and no man descended from it with better grace, or knew how to put off majesty more apropos.

While he was surveying the private lodge of the Senator Hippomanes, Mirzoza waited for him in the rose-colour’d salon, with the youthful Zaide, the cheerful Leocris, the lively Serica, Amina and Benzaira, the wives of two Emirs, Orphisa the prude, and Vetula the great Seneschal’s …

and there was no room to hope, that a play would be performed with any tolerable success, without taking care to model the characters on the defects of the comedians. This is what was meant in my time by the custom of the stage.

Formerly the actors were made for the pieces; but now the pieces were made for the actors.

If you offer’d a new play, to be sure it underwent an examination, to know whether the subject was engaging, the intrigue well connected, the characters supported, and the diction pure and flowing:

and it was almost out of breath, when it continued in these terms. “You see I have some memory. But I am like all others;

I have retained but the smallest part of what I have been entrusted with.

Be satisfied therefore with what I have related to you, I can recollect no more at present.”

In this place the African author specifies all the metaphysical arguments of the Cartesians against the soul of brutes, which he applies with all possible sagacity to the prating of Toys. In a word, his opinion is, that

Toys speak as birds sing; that is to say, so perfectly without having been taught, that, to be sure, they are prompted by some superior intelligence.

But you ask me how he disposes of his prince. He sends him to dine with the favorite: at least ’tis there we shall find him in the following chapter.

yet I should be a fool to listen seriously to those same discourses with which you have deceived thousands, before you addressed them to me.

Without esteem, what is love?

A trifle, and you do not know me sufficiently to esteem me. Whatever judgment and penetration a person may have, he cannot in two days time enter deep enough into the character of a woman, to say that she deserves to be adored. Mr.

‘Jargon,’ said she, ‘pure jargon. Either think no more of me, or do not believe me stupid enough to be catch’d by those trite protestations.

What you have just said to me, everybody says without thinking of it, and everybody hears without believing it.

’

Nothing is truer, than that lovers have an instinct: if their mistress be unfaithful, they are seized with an horror much like to that, which animals feel at the approach of bad weather.

The suspicious lover is a cat, whose ear itches in cloudy weather.

Animals and lovers have this property also in common, that domestic animals lose this instinct, and that it grows dull in lovers, when they are converted into husbands.