where I lay. I kept from them
at as great a distance as I could, but was forced to move with extreme
difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes not above a foot
distant, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt them. However,
I made shift to go forward till I came to a part of the field where
the corn had been laid by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible
for me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven that I
could not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so strong
and pointed that they pierced though my clothes into my flesh. At the
same time I heard the reapers not above ah hundred yards behind me.
Being quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and
despair, I lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might
there end my days. I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless
children. I lamented my own folly and willfulness, in attempting a
second voyage against the advice of all my friends and relations. In
this terrible agitation of mind, I could not forbear thinking of
Lilliput, whose inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest prodigy
that ever appeared in the world; where I was able to draw an imperial
fleet in my hand, and perform those other actions which will be
recorded forever in the chronicles of that empire, while posterity
shall hardly believe them, although attested by millions. I reflected
what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable
in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us. But this,
I conceived, was to be the least of my misfortunes; for, as human
creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to
their bulk, what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the
first among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me?
Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right when they tell us that
nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might have
pleased fortune to let the Lilliputians find some nation where the
people were as diminutive with respect to them as they were to me. And
who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be
equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have
yet no discovery?

Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with
these reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten
yards of the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next
step I should be squashed t