Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/332

306 for the freedom I took, in my representation of things. I had not yet been a year in this country, before I contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution, never to return to humankind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms, in the contemplarion and practice of every virtue; where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall to my share. However, it is now some comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults, as much as I durst before so strict an examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn, as the matter would bear. For indeed, who is there alive, that will not he swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?

I have related the substance of several conversations I had with my master, during the greatest part of the time I had the honour to be in his service; but have indeed, for brevity sake, omitted much more than is here set down.

When I had answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed to be fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early, and commanded me to sit down at some distance (an honour which he had never before conferred upon me); he said, he had been very seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related both to myself and my country: that he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its assistance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new