In our navy, both royal and
commercial, and generally from deep remembrances of slighted love,
women have sometimes served in disguise for many years, taking
contentedly their daily allowance of burgoo, biscuit, or cannon-balls--
anything, in short, digestible or indigestible, that it might please
Providence to send. One thing, at least, is to their credit: never any
of these poor masks, with their deep silent remembrances, have been
detected through murmuring, or what is nautically understood by
"skulking." So, for once, M. Michelet has an _erratum_ to enter
upon the fly-leaf of his book in presentation copies.
4. But the last of these ebullitions is the most lively. We English, at
Orleans, and after Orleans (which is not quite so extraordinary, if all
were told), fled before the Maid of Arc. Yes, says M. Michelet, you
_did_: deny it, if you can. Deny it, _mon cher_? I don't mean
to deny it. Running away, in many cases, is a thing so excellent that
no philosopher would, at times, condescend to adopt any other step. All
of us nations in Europe, without one exception, have shown our
philosophy in that way at times. Even people "_qui ne se rendent
pas_" have deigned both to run and to shout, "_Sauve qui peut_!"
at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I have no pleasure in
recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being
so philosophic, they ought _not_ to be unpleasant.
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