Page:Tale of Paraguay - Southey.djvu/154

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148
NOTES.

stood out in so unsightly a manner. They answered that it was possible to remove, it, but the operation would be exceedingly painful, much more so than any which he had before undergone. He nevertheless directed them to cut it out, that he might have his will, and (as he himself related in my hearing, says Ribadeneira,) that he might wear fashionable and well-fitting boots. Nor could he be dissuaded from this determination. He would not consent to be bound during the operation, and went through it with the same firmness of mind which he had manifested in the former operations. By this means the deformity of the bone was removed. The contraction of the leg was in some degree relieved by other applications, and especially by certain machines, with which during many days, and with great and continual pain, it was stretched; nevertheless it could not be so extended, but that it always remained something shorter than the other."—Ribadeneira, Vita S. Ignatii Loyolœ, Acta SS. Jul. t. 7. p. 659.

A close fitting boot seems to have been as fashionable at one time as close fitting innominables of buckskin were about the year 1790: and perhaps it was as severe an operation to get into them for the first time. "The greasy shoemaker," says Tom Nash, "with his squirrel's skin, and a whole stall of ware upon his arm enters, and wrencheth his legs for an hour together, and after shows his tally. By St. Loy