The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
I remember, when I was at Lilliput, the complexions of those
diminutive people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and
talking upon the subject with a person of learning there, who was
an intimate friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much
fairer and smoother when he looked on me from the ground, than it
did upon a nearer view, when I took him up in my hand and brought
him close, which he confessed was at first a very shocking sight.
He said "he could discover great holes in my skin; that the stumps
of my beard were ten times stronger than the bristles of a boar,
and my complexion made up of several colors, altogether
disagreeable"; although I must beg leave to say for myself, that I
am as fair as most of my sex and country, and very little
sunburned by all my travels. On the other side, discoursing of
the ladies in that emperor's court, he used to tell me, "one had
freckles, another too wide a mouth, a third too large a nose";
nothing of which I was able to distinguish. I confess this
reflection was obvious enough; which, however, I could not
forbear, lest the reader might think those vast creatures were
actually deformed: for I must do them the justice to say, they are
a comely race of people; and particularly the features of my
master's countenance, although he were but a farmer, when I beheld
him from the height of sixty feet, appeared very well proportioned.
When dinner was done, my master went out to his laborers, and as I
could discover by his voice and gesture gave his wife a strict
charge to take care of me. I was very much tired and disposed to
sleep, which my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed,
covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser
than the mainsail of a man-of-war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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