o and
see Bedlam."

_Goldsmith._

THE LITTLE BEAU

I lately received a visit from the little beau, who I found had
assumed a new flow of spirits with a new suit of clothes. Our
discourse happened to turn upon the different treatment of the fair
sex here and in Asia, with the influence of beauty in refining our
manners and improving our conversation.

I soon perceived he was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Asiatic
method of treating the sex, and that it was impossible to persuade
him, but that a man was happier who had four wives at his command,
than he who had only one. "It is true," cries he, "your men of fashion
in the East are slaves, and under some terrors of having their throats
squeezed by a bow-string; but what then? they can find ample
consolation in a seraglio; they make indeed an indifferent figure in
conversation abroad, but then they have a seraglio to console them at
home. I am told they have no balls, drums, nor operas, but then they
have got a seraglio; they may be deprived of wine and French cookery,
but they have a seraglio; a seraglio, a seraglio, my dear creature,
wipes off every inconvenience in the world.

"Besides, I am told, your Asiatic beauties are the most convenient
women alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing in
Nature I should like so much as ladies without souls; soul here is the
utter ruin of half the sex. A girl of eighteen shall have soul enough
to spend an hundred pounds in the turning of a trump. Her mother shall
have soul enough to ride a sweepstake match at a horse-race; her
maiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the furniture of a
whole toyshop, and others shall have soul enough to behave as if they
had no souls at all."

"With respect to the soul," interrupted I, "the Asiatics are much
kinder to the fair sex than you imagine; instead of one soul, Fohi the
idol of China gives every woman three, the Bramins give them fifteen;
and even Mahomet himself no where excludes the sex from Paradise.
Abul-feda reports, that an old woman one day importuning him to know
what she ought to do in order to gain Paradise? 'My good lady,'
answered the prophet, 'old women never get there.'--'What, never get
to Paradise!' returned the matron, in a fury. 'Never,' says he, 'for
they always grow young by the way.'

"No, sir," continued I, "the men of Asia behave with more deference to
the sex than you seem to imagine. As you of Europe say grace, upon