twice a year; but with nine
livres a day, and pen, and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man
can't get out, he may do very well within, at least for a month or six
weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence
appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion--I forget what--to step into the courtyard as I
settled this account; and remember I walked down-stairs in no small
triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. Beshrew the somber pencil,
said I vauntingly, for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils
of life with so hard and deadly a coloring. The mind sits terrified
at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened: reduce them to
their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. "'Tis true," said I,
correcting the proposition, "the Bastile is not an evil to be
despised; but strip it of its towers, fill up the fosse, unbarricade
the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant
of a distemper and not of a man which holds you in it, the evil
vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint." I was
interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy with a voice which I took
to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." I looked up
and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman nor child, I went
out without further attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated
twice over; and looking up I saw it was a starling hung in a little
cage; "I can't get out, I can't get out," said the starling. I stood
looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage,
it ran fluttering to the side toward which they approached it, with
the same lamentation of its captivity: "I can't get out," said the
starling. "God help thee!" said I, "but I'll let thee out, cost what
it will"; so I turned about the cage to get the door. It was twisted
and double-twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open
without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird
flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and
thrusting his head through the trellis, prest his breast against it as
if impatient. "I fear, poor creature," said I, "I can not set thee at
liberty." "No," said the starling, "I can't get out; I can't get
out," said the starling. I vow I never had my affections more
tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life where the
dissipated spi