When the
ass had eaten his macaroon I pressed him to come in. The poor
beast was heavy loaded, his legs seemed to tremble under him, he
hung rather backwards, and as I pulled at his halter it broke short
in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face. 'Don't thrash me
with it; but if you will, you may.' 'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d----d.'"
Well might Thackeray say of this passage that, "the critic who refuses
to see in it wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real
sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please." It is, in
truth, excellent; and its excellence is due to its possessing nearly
every one of those qualities, positive and negative, which the two
other scenes above quoted are without. The author does not here
obtrude himself, does not importune us to admire his exquisitely
compassionate nature; on the contrary, he at once amuses us and
enlists our sympathies by that subtly humorous piece of self-analysis,
in which he shows how large an admixture of curiosity was contained
in his benevolence. The incident, too, is well chosen. No forced
concurrence of circumstances brings it about: it is such as any man
might have met with anywhere in his travels, and it is handled in a
simple and manly fashion.
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