CHAPTER I

With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s fancy----with so many family prejudices--and ten decads of such tales running on for ever along with them----how was it possible with such exquisite----was it a true nose? ----That a man with such exquisite feelings as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs----or indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have described?

----Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times----taking care only to place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do it --But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one?

To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth decad, which immediately follows this.

This tale, cried _Slawkenbergius_, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it thro’--’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book; inasmuch, continues _Slawkenbergius_, as I know of no tale which could possibly ever go down after it.

’Tis a tale indeed!

This sets out with the first interview in the inn at _Lyons_, when _Fernandez_ left the courteous stranger and his sister _Julia_ alone in her chamber, and is over-written

_THE INTRICACIES_ of _Diego_ and _Julia_

Heavens! thou art a strange creature, _Slawkenbergius!_ what a whimsical view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of _Slawkenbergius’s_ tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the world--translated shall a couple of volumes be. ------Else, how this can ever be translated into good _English_, I have no sort of conception. --There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do it rightly. ----What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat, five notes below the natural tone----which you know, madam, is little more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive an attempt towards a vibration in the strings, about the region of the heart. ------The brain made no acknowledgment. ----There’s often no good understanding betwixt ’em --I felt as if I understood it. ----I had no ideas. ----The movement could not be without cause. --I’m lost. I can make nothing of it--unless, may it please your worships, the voice, in that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes to approach not only within six inches of each other--but to look into the pupils--is not that dangerous? ----But it can’t be avoided--for to look up to the ceiling, in that case the two chins unavoidably meet----and to look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to immediate contact, which at once puts an end to the conference ----I mean to the sentimental part of it. ----What is left, madam, is not worth stooping for.

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