flappers, and the use they were of to your friends the Laputans; whose
minds (Gulliver says) are so taken up with intense speculations, that
they neither can speak nor attend to the discourses of others, without
being roused by some external traction upon the organs of speech and
hearing; for which reason, those people who are able to afford it, always
keep a flapper in their family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk
about, or make visits without him. This flapper is likewise employed
diligently to attend his master in his walks; and, upon occasion, to give
a soft flap upon his eyes, because he is always so wrapped up in
cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every
precipice, and bouncing his head against every post, and, in the streets,
of jostling others, or being jostled into the kennel himself. If
CHRISTIAN will undertake this province into the bargain, with all my
heart; but I will not allow him any increase of wages upon that score. In
short, I give you fair warning, that, when we meet, if you are absent in
mind, I will soon be absent in body; for it will be impossible for me to
stay in the room; and if at table you throw down your knife, plate,
bread, etc., and hack the wing of a chicken for half an hour, without
being able to cut it off, and your sleeve all the time in another dish, I
must rise from the table to escape the fever you would certainly give me.
Good God! how I should be shocked, if you came into my room, for the
first time, with two left legs, presenting yourself with all the graces
and dignity of a tailor, and your clothes hanging upon you, like those in
Monmouth street, upon tenter-hooks! whereas, I expect, nay, require, to
see you present yourself with the easy and genteel air of a man of
fashion, who has kept good company. I expect you not only well dressed
but very well dressed; I expect a gracefulness in all your motions, and
something particularly engaging in your address, All this I expect, and
all this it is in your power, by care and attention, to make me find; but
to tell you the plain truth, if I do not find it, we shall not converse
very much together; for I cannot stand inattention and awkwardness; it
would endanger my health. You have often seen, and I have as often made
you observe L----'s distinguished inattention and awkwardness. Wrapped
up, like a Laputan, in intense thought, and possibly sometimes in no
thought at all (which, I believe, is very often the