It is, however, true
that much of this habitual respect might have been attributed to the
personal appearance of the metaphysician. A distinguished exterior
will, I am constrained to say, have its way even with a beast; and I
am willing to allow much in the outward man of the restaurateur
calculated to impress the imagination of the quadruped. There is a
peculiar majesty about the atmosphere of the little great- if I may
be permitted so equivocal an expression- which mere physical bulk
alone will be found at all times inefficient in creating. If,
however, Bon-Bon was barely three feet in height, and if his head was
diminutively small, still it was impossible to behold the rotundity of
his stomach without a sense of magnificence nearly bordering upon
the sublime. In its size both dogs and men must have seen a type of
his acquirements- in its immensity a fitting habitation for his
immortal soul.
I might here- if it so pleased me- dilate upon the matter of
habiliment, and other mere circumstances of the external
metaphysician. I might hint that the hair of our hero was worn
short, combed smoothly over his forehead, and surmounted by a
conical-shaped white flannel cap and tassels- that his pea-green
jerkin was not after the fashion of those worn by the common class of
restaurateurs at that day- that the sleeves were something fuller
than the reigning costume permitted- that the cuffs were turned up,
not as usual in that barbarous period, with cloth of the same quality
and color as the garment, but faced in a more fanciful manner with the
particolored velvet of Genoa- that his slippers were of a bright
purple, curiously filigreed, and might have been manufactured in
Japan, but for the exquisite pointing of the toes, and the brilliant
tints of the binding and embroidery- that his breeches were of the
yellow satin-like material called aimable- that his sky-blue cloak,
resembling in form a dressing-wrapper, and richly bestudded all over
with crimson devices, floated cavalierly upon his shoulders like a
mist of the morning- and that his tout ensemble gave rise to the
remarkable words of Benevenuta, the Improvisatrice of Florence,
"that it was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird
of Paradise, or rather a very Paradise of perfection.
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