THE SHORT GENTLEMAN. 385 



expansion, both longitudinally and laterally. When I predicate that 

 baneful truth I conceive I have told the reader all he needs know con- 

 cerning the " sort of man " who addresses him, and at the same time, 

 furnished a sufficient key to the jeremiad impending. Would he 

 have me more precise, he may understand that my express height is 

 five feet and five- eighths of an inch. Frequent admeasurements have 

 convinced me that I do not err a single hair's breadth in this state- 

 ment. I had sooner have been a positive dwarf than thus barely 

 insignificant; for then I might have claimed a peculiar kind of con- 

 sideration, nay, have acquired the fame of a Hudson, or a Borulaski; 

 but, as it is, I have no consolation. 



In looking back to past days I sincerely thank Heaven that I lived 

 up to what is commonly called the age of discretion before I became 

 fully sensible that my altitude fell so far within the statute of limita- 

 tions. During my previous years of hope and thoughtlessness I did 

 enjoy something like the pride of active youth. But when once the* 

 period arived when I felt called on to assume the toga virilis it oc- 

 curred to me displeasingly that I was somewhat lost amidst its flow- 

 ing folds ; and beginning to suspect that unkind fate had issued a 

 decree of " hitherto shalt thou grow and no further," a new light- 

 no, a dark cloud came o'er my spirit. Then I could comprehend 

 why my friends had so strenuously discouraged an avowed wish to 

 enter a regiment of heavy dragoons: then I ceased to wonder why 

 my shadow in the sun never seemed to stretch so far across the sward 

 as those of my cotemporaries, whom (good easy soul!) I had all the 

 while fancied fellows of my own standing. In short, it was precisely 

 at the epoch, when, according to dates and registers I ought to have 

 given the world " assurance of a man," I first discovered how much I 

 had been " cheated of a man's fair proportion." Since, the con- 

 sciousness has been abundantly forced upon me, and vexations conse- 

 quent have beset me daily and hourly, with foe and with friend, 

 with mistress and with maid mensa et thoro at home and abroad. 



It might provoke laughter, of which I am very jealous, were I to 

 detail the various means I long employed to induce Nature to rescind 

 her spiteful fiat. Change of air being recommended, there was one 

 year of my life wherein I dont think I spent more than two consecu- 

 tive weeks in any given spot within the circuit of Great Britain. 

 Three hours daily was I, at another season, wont to relax or, more 

 properly strive to relax in warm baths. And, at moments, I could 

 verily have felt in my heart to have walked out, uncovered, in a 

 shower, in order that, as they say in the nursery, " the rain might 

 make me sprout." All was vain. I read the fable of the bescoured 

 blackamoor and desisted. 



Those portly personages, " the bluster of whose huff'" renders 

 rivalry modest and opposition respectful, little acknowledge the large 

 debt they owe their progenitors. Their pomp of progress would be 

 voluntarily rebuked were they made aware how much the deference 

 they would fain believe paid to dignity of manner is, in sheer truth, 

 a tribute to greater superficies of matter. How smooth is the high- 

 way over which they travel, compared with the briary bye-paths we 

 " lesser men" must toil through towards the same objects and yet 



M. M. No. 88. 2 T 



