roken. By every remove I only drag a greater length
of chain.

Could I find aught worth transmitting from so remote a region as this
to which I have wandered I should gladly send it; but, instead of
this, you must be contented with a renewal of my former professions
and an imperfect account of a people with whom I am as yet but
superficially acquainted. The remarks of a man who has been but three
days in the country can only be those obvious circumstances which
force themselves upon the imagination. I consider myself here as a
newly created being introduced into a new world; every object strikes
with wonder and surprize. The imagination, still unsated, seems the
only active principle of the mind. The most trifling occurrences give
pleasure till the gloss of novelty is worn away. When I have ceased to
wonder, I may possibly grow wise; I may then call the reasoning
principle to my aid, and compare those objects with each other, which
were before examined without reflection.

Behold me then in London, gazing at the strangers, and they at me; it
seems they find somewhat absurd in my figure; and had I been never
from home, it is possible I might find an infinite fund of ridicule in
theirs; but by long traveling I am taught to laugh at folly alone, and
to find nothing truly ridiculous but villainy and vice.

When I had quitted my native country, and crossed the Chinese wall, I
fancied every deviation from the customs and manners of China was a
departing from nature. I smiled at the blue lips and red foreheads of
the Tonguese; and could hardly contain when I saw the Daures dress
their heads with horns. The Ostiacs powdered with red earth; and the
Calmuck beauties, tricked out in all the finery of sheepskin, appeared
highly ridiculous: but I soon perceived that the ridicule lay not in
them, but in me; that I falsely condemned others for absurdity
because they happened to differ from a standard originally founded in
prejudice or partiality.

I find no pleasure therefore in taxing the English with departing from
nature in their external appearance, which is all I yet know of their
character: it is possible they only endeavor to improve her simple
plan, since every extravagance in dress proceeds from a desire of
becoming more beautiful than nature made us; and this is so harmless a
vanity that I not only pardon but approve it. A desire to be more
excellent than others is what actually makes us so; and as thousands
find a live