"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. --------------------