Slop,
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v24 - Sta to Tal
When I told you this, I
knew you would laugh at me; but the next woman that makes
me ridiculous shall be a young one. ”
ON FLOGGING AT SCHOOLS
From the Spectator
I
AM very much at a loss to express by any word that occurs to
me in our language, that which is understood by indoles in
Latin. The natural disposition to any particular art, science,
profession, or trade, is very much to be consulted in the care
of youth, and studied by men for their own conduct when they
form to themselves any scheme of life. It is wonderfully hard,
indeed, for a man to judge of his own capacity impartially. That
may look great to me which may appear little to another; and I
may be carried by fondness towards myself so far as to attempt
## p. 13895 (#77) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13895
things too high for my talents and accomplishments. But it is
not, methinks, so very difficult a matter to make a judgment
of the abilities of others, especially of those who are in their
infancy.
My commonplace-book directs me on this occasion to men-
tion the dawning of greatness in Alexander, who, being asked in
his youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic games, answered
he would, if he had kings to run against him. Cassius, who
was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof
of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a playfellow, the
son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman peo-
ple. Scipio is reported to have answered, when some flatterers at
supper were asking him what the Romans should do for a gen-
eral arter his death, “Take Marius. ” Marius was then a very
boy, and had given no instances of his valor; but it was visible
to Scipio, from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul
formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings.
I must confess I have very often, with much sorrow, bewailed
the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider
the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmas-
ters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for
the long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors, to which our
childhood is exposed in going through a grammar-school. Many
of these stupid tyrants exercise their cruelty without any man-
ner of distinction of the capacities of children, or the intention
of parents in their behalf. There are many excellent tempers
which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible
diligence and care, that were never designed to be acquainted
with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have
capacities for understanding every word those great persons have
writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings.
For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who
have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable
creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are
for ever near a right understanding and will never arrive at it.
These are the scandal of letters, and these are generally the men
who are to teach others.
The sense of shame and honor is enough to keep the world
itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train
the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. It happens, I
doubt not, more than once in a year, that a lad is chastised for
## p. 13896 (#78) ###########################################
13896
SIR RICHARD STEELE
a blockhead, when it is good apprehension that makes him inca-
pable of knowing what his teacher means. A brisk imagination
very often may suggest an error, which a lad could not have
fallen into if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his mas-
ter in explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong
interpretation of his meaning: the sufferings of the scholar's body
are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.
I am confident that no boy who will not be allured to let-
ters without blows, will ever be brought to anything with them.
A great or good mind must necessarily be the worse for such
indignities; and it is a sad change, to lose of its virtue for the
improvement of its knowledge. No one who has gone through
what they call a great school, but must remember to have seen
children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards
appeared in their manhood),- I say no man has passed through
this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature,
expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and
silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and kneel on its tender
knees to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quan-
tity of a word in making a Latin verse. The child is punished,
and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a third with
the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man
whether this lad, in the simplicity of his native innocence, full
of shame, and capable of any impression from that grace of soul,
was not fitter for any purpose in this life, than after that spark
of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write
twenty verses in an evening?
Seneca says, after his exalted way of talking, “As the immor-
tal gods never learnt any virtue, though they are endued with
all that is good, so there are some men who have so natural a
propensity to what they should follow, that they learn it almost
as soon as they hear it. ” Plants and vegetables are cultivated
into the production of finer fruits than they would yield with-
out that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing
a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same
methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece
of stone.
It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a
certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally
educated, carry about them in all their behavior. To be bred
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
## p. 13897 (#79) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13897
it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes
in men of letters.
The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen
and hid under his coat) to eat into his bowels, I daresay had
not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools
among us; but the glorious sense of honor, or rather fear of
shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the
learning in the world without it.
It is, methinks, a very melancholy consideration, that a lit-
tle negligence can spoil us, but great industry is necessary to
improve us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but
evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits.
To help this by punishments is the same thing as killing a
man to cure him of a distemper: when he comes to suffer pun-
ishment in that one circumstance, he is brought below the exist-
ence of a rational creature, and is in the state of a brute that
moves only by the admonition of stripes. But since this custom
of educating by the lash is suffered by the gentry of Great Brit-
ain, I would prevail only that honest heavy lads may be dismissed
from slavery sooner than they are at present, and not whipped
on to their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether they expect any
progress from them or not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith
examined, and he sent to some mechanic way of life, without
respect to his birth, if nature designed him for nothing higher;
let him go before he has innocently suffered, and is debased into
a dereliction of mind for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain
man. I would not here be supposed to have said that our learned
men of either robe who have been whipped at school are not
still men of noble and liberal minds; but I am sure they would
have been much more so than they are, had they never suffered
that infamy.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING
From the Guardian
.
.
I
HAVE often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a
poet. It is, I think, certain that some men have such a pe-
culiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light
than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination
and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in
the same
manner as they themselves were affected with them;
## p. 13898 (#80) ###########################################
13898
SIR RICHARD STEELE
and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted
at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same
occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the
disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only
which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is there-
fore not an art, but what we call a “knack”; it does not so
much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add that it is
not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which nat-
urally attend such merry emotions of the mind.
I know very
well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off
to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end:
but this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently con-
venient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agita-
tions. I will go yet further; and affirm that the success of a
story very often depends upon the make of the body, and forma-
tion of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this
opinion ever since I criticized upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I
very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his
conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the
coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor
could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, though
upon examination I thought most of them very fat and insipid.
I found, after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded
upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair
of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness which robbed him
of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months
before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his
floridity.
He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good
constitution for wit.
Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature are apt
to show their parts with too much ostentation: I would there-
fore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but
as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conver-
sation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that
are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly intro-
duced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of
allusion. Those that are altogether new should never be ushered
in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons
concerned, because by that means you make the company ac-
quainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and
trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us administer more
mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.
## p. 13898 (#81) ###########################################
## p. 13898 (#82) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNEK
## p. 13898 (#83) ###########################################
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## p. 13898 (#84) ###########################################
## p. 13899 (#85) ###########################################
13899
LAURENCE STERNE
(1713-1768)
enue
He life of the Reverend Laurence Sterne was as inconsistent
with his profession as with his writings. Reading these, no
one would for a moment believe that he was a clergyman.
Such a career as his would not be possible to-day; but to a Church
of England parson of the eighteenth century, extraordinary moral
latitude was allowed, and toward him extraordinary tolerance was
exercised. Although Sterne's sermons were clever, they were very
peculiar. His contemporaries thought of him only as a literary man,
and it is doubtful if he took himself seriously as a cleric.
He was a
humorist to the marrow, and had all the vagaries of his natural
predilection. Although in his day the English Church was chosen
for a calling, like the army, the navy, or the law, and the re
from a benefice was fitly named a living, it is not likely that he vol-
untarily selected his profession.
He was the great-grandson of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of
York; and the recollection of his distinguished ancestor, with consid-
erations of family influence, must have decided his vocation. His
father, a younger son, was an ensign of the 34th Regiment, with
which he served in Flanders, taking part in the sieges of Lisle and
Douay. His mother was Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of good
connections. The ensign and his wife went to Clonmel, in Ireland,
at the close of the war; and there, in barracks, Laurence was born,
November 24th, 1713; his parents and all his progenitors being Eng-
lish. His father having been recalled into active service, the child
was carried from barracks to transport, from Ireland to England, and
was familiar with the shifts, hardships, and vulgarities of a vagabond
military life, until he reached his tenth year. This happy-go-lucky
existence, with its fun, its extravagance, and its pinching poverty, no
doubt influenced his character, and affected his ways of thinking.
At the age of ten he was fortunately rescued from it by a good-
natured cousin, Squire Sterne, and sent first to school at Halifax,
and then to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which the archiepiscopal
great-grandfather had been master. He was entered as a sizar; and
in exchange for his free commons and free tuition, had to render
such services as Goldsmith gave a few years later,- sweeping the
courts, carrying up the dishes to the fellows' dining-hall, and pour-
ing the ale. The position involved some mortifications, and the little
-
## p. 13900 (#86) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13900
beneficiary, already half an invalid, was unequal to much hard work.
But he seems to have accepted all the conditions of life with a good-
natured philosophy that made him popular.
After ordination he procured, through another kinsman, Dr. Jaques
Sterne, the vicarage of Sutton in Yorkshire, and in time a prebendal
stall in York Cathedral. Marrying at twenty-eight, he received from
a friend of his wife the living of Stillington, in the immediate neigh-
borhood of Sutton. The churchman had been fortunate from his
boyhood; and that supposed good luck continued which led to phys-
ical and moral deterioration, and his premature death at fifty-four.
For nearly twenty years he led a free-and-easy life in the country,
reading, painting, fiddling, fishing, shooting, dining, but writing nothing
save his regular sermons, with occasional political squibs and para-
graphs for a Whig newspaper. He had gained, however, a local rep-
utation for wit and story-telling, and was much quoted in York for
smart sayings, not at all sacerdotal. His disposition was extremely
gay, and the kind of gayety he preferred was expensive. His income
proving inadequate, he began to run in debt,- a habit which increased
with his years. He had published a few sermons which found ad-
mirers; but on the first day of January, 1760, being then forty-six years
of age, he burst on an astonished world with two volumes of "The
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. '
Though printed in the provincial town of York, the story gave
him instantaneous renown. York was immensely scandalized at the
satirical levity of its prebend; but London was taken captive by. the
cleverness and the unconventionality of the new free-lance. The book
was republished under the pen-name of Yorick; Yorick being a char-
acter in "Tristram Shandy,'— a sporting parson, who claims descent
from the king's jester in Hamlet. ' Everybody, however, soon knew
the author to be no other than Laurence Sterne. Eager to enjoy
his triumph, he visited London, and was received with an enthusiasm
wholly beyond his fondest anticipations. He was honored and flat-
tered as few authors have been; he was feasted, courted, caressed;
he became at once the talk and the lion of the town. It was a dis-
tinction to have seen, much more to have spoken to, Laurence Sterne.
He was classed with Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett as a master
of prose fiction. Praise was exhausted on his humor, his invention,
his learning, his originality. Lord Falconbridge conferred on him the
living of Coxwould; the arrogant Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester,
presented him with a purse of gold; Reynolds painted his portrait;
Dodsley offered him seven hundred pounds for two more volumes of
(Tristram Shandy,' and a second edition. He was invited to dine
with the most noted men of the metropolis, three weeks in advance;
and the most fashionable game of cards was named after his hero.
## p. 13901 (#87) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13901
Such incense, as welcome as intoxicating to Sterne, turned his head,
ruined his fragile constitution, and undermined such moral principles
as he still professed. Having once enjoyed the stimulus, the diver-
sity, the delightful adulation of London, he could not content himself
in the provinces. He took a house in York for his wife and daugh-
ter Lydia, to whom he was much attached; but passed most of his
own time in the capital, or on the Continent.
The third and fourth volumes of (Tristram Shandy) appeared
in 1761; the fifth and sixth in 1762. Sterne was “fully determined
to write as hard as could be,” and was sure that he could give the
public “two volumes of Shandyism every year for forty years to
come. ”
Too much feasting, however, too late hours, and perhaps too
constant application, wore him out. From birth he had been delicate,
-a tendency to consumption sapping his nervous energies, para-
lyzing his will, and vitiating perhaps his moral impulses. A hemor-
rhage, a cough, and increasing weakness drove him to France for a
sojourn of more than two years. There he met the warmest recep-
tion from literary and fashionable circles, and wrote to Garrick from
Paris:— «'Tis comme à Londres. I have just now a fortnight's dinners
and suppers on my hands. Be it known I Shandy it away fifty times
more than I was ever wont,- talk more nonsense than ever you
heard me talk in all your days, and to more sorts of people. ” When
society would let him, he still worked at the history of the Shandy
family, and in 1765, after his return to England (very little better
for the sort of health journey he had undertaken), he brought out
the fourth installment of two volumes. The later issues only deep-
ened and intensified the impression made by the first two.
He was
universally regarded not only as a writer of rare genius, but as one
of the most original of humorists, and compared with Rabelais and
Cervantes. His novel was accepted on its face in that uncritical
age, and not impartially judged till after his death. But in Dr.
Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne,' published in 1812, that ingenious
gentleman took pains to track the humorist's phrases and inventions
to their source in Rabelais and other old French authors; to Bur-
ton, from whose (Anatomy of Melancholy, much of his erudition is
«lifted”; to Bishop Hall, Dr. Donne, Dr. Arbuthnot, and many more.
Yet Dr. Ferriar admitted that these appropriations were of material
only; that Sterne, like Shakespeare, bettered what he took, and that
his reputation as a great literary artist is not in the least affected by
this habit of spoliation. Indeed, he was strikingly original,- as such
characters as Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr.
Slop,
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
“Tristram Shandy' is in no strict sense a novel. Such story as
there is is constantly interrupted by episodes, digressions, absurdities,
affectations, and incongruities. In more than one volume the whole
## p. 13902 (#88) ###########################################
13902
LAURENCE STERNE
(
(
>
movement is suspended while the author introduces a discourse, a
journey, or any other irrelevant personal experience. But he knew
his own tendencies, and declared that he had reconciled digressive
motion with progressive. ”
Longing to spin out the tawdry life of excitement and pleasure
that seemed so fine to him, yet racked by his cough and hampered by
weakness, Sterne went to Italy in 1765, hoping to improve in a milder
climate. Again he gained little in health; but he managed to bring
out the concluding volume of Tristram Shandy) in 1767. This was
received with hardly diminished favor, and edition after edition of
the coinpleted story was sold. To the taste of to-day it makes lit-
tle appeal,-- its premeditated quaintness, its pervading coarseness, and
its archaisms repel the general reader; yet for its higher qualities it
retains almost unequaled charm to a minority of cultivated minds,
and even children can fall under its spell with a lasting enchantment.
The “Sentimental Journey through France and Italy) was projected
as a long story, but Sterne's strength was unequal to his resolution.
In 1767 he brought out the first part — and the last; full of fine
description and admirable pathos. This work was partly undertaken
to ridicule Smollett's Travels through France and Italy' (1766): one
of its most quoted phrases, “I pity the man who can travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry 'Tis all barren, ” is directly aimed at the too
sincere Scotchman, whom he patently nicknames Smelfungus.
At the height of his fame, just after the publication of the 'Senti-
mental Journey,' Sterne died in lodgings, “at the sign of the Silk
Bag” in Old Bond Street, alone but for the presence of a hired nurse.
He had desired to end his life at an inn, and his desire was fulfilled.
Although he had earned much money, he died in debt; and a collec-
tion of eight hundred pounds was made at the York races for his wife
and daughter.
Sterne has been accused of gross vices. He has been called a
man overflowing with sentiment on paper, but devoid of real feeling;
a weeper over dead asses, and a discarder of the common ties of
humanity. His late biographers have defended him stoutly, declaring
his memory to have been maligned. But his own correspondence,
published posthumously, convicts him of many offenses. It has been
said by one of his fairest critics that though in any just estimation
of him, censure must be lost in pity, yet the fact remains that Sterne
is one of the very few men of real genius, who, however faulty in
their lives, have in their writings not sought to be faithful to the
highest truth they knew. Concerning his work there is but one ver-
dict: that whatever its superficial defects, and however unattractive
its quality to modern taste, its art is exquisite; and that by reason
of this its author is entitled to a place with the great masters of
literature.
## p. 13903 (#89) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13903
THE WIDOW WADMAN LAYS SIEGE TO UNCLE TOBY'S HEART
From "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
"I
-
)
Am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, hold-
ing up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she
approached the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry-box. "A
mote, or sand, or something — I know not what — has got into
this eye of mine; do look into it—it is not in the white. ”
In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside
my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of
his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without
rising up.
“Do look into it,” said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as inuch innocence
of heart as ever child looked into a raree-show box; and 'twere
as much a sin to have hurt thee.
If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of
that nature, I've nothing to say to it.
My Uncle Toby never did; and I will answer for him that he
would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January (which,
you know, takes in both the hot and cold months) with an eye
as fine as the Thracian Rhodope's beside him, without being able
to tell whether it was a black or a blue one.
The difficulty was to get my Uncle Toby to look at one
at all.
'Tis surmounted. And -
I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and
the ashes falling out of it, looking and looking, then rubbing his
eyes and looking again, with twice the good-nature that ever
Galileo looked for a spot in the sun.
In vain! for by all the powers which animate the organ,
Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her
right: there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor
speck, nor particle of opaque matter floating in it; there is
nothing, my dear paternal uncle, but one lambent delicious fire,
furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all directions, into
thine.
If thou lookest, Uncle Toby, in search of this mote one mo-
ment longer, thou art undone.
1
## p. 13904 (#90) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13904
THE STORY OF LE FEVRE
From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
>
I"
T WAS some time in the summer of that year in which Den-
dermond was taken by the Allies, which was about seven
years before my father came into the country, and about as
many after the time that my Uncle Toby and Trim had pri-
vately decamped from my father's house in town in order to lay
some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in
Europe, - when my Uncle Toby was one evening getting his
supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard: I say
sitting, for in consideration of the Corporal's lame knee (which
sometimes gave him exquisite pain), when my Uncle Toby dined
or supped alone he would never suffer the Corporal to stand;
and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that
with a proper artillery my Uncle Toby could have taken Den-
dermond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain this
point over him: for many a time when my Uncle Toby supposed
the Corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back and detect
him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect; this
bred more little squabbles betwixt them than all other causes
for five-and-twenty years together.
But this is neither here nor
there: why do I mention it? Ask my pen: it governs me-I
govern not it.
He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the land.
lord of a little inn in the village came into the parlor with an
empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack: «'Tis for
a poor gentleman, I think of the army,” said the landlord, “who
has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never
held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything till just
now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast:
I think,' says he, taking his hand from his forehead, it would
comfort me. ' If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a
thing,” added the landlord, “I would almost steal it for the poor
gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will still mend,” con-
tinued he: « we are all of us concerned for him. ”
“Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee,” cried
my Uncle Toby; "and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's
health in a glass of sack thyself, and take a couple of bottles,
with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them,
and to a dozen more if they will do him good.
>
## p. 13905 (#91) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13905
-
of age:
“Though I am persuaded,” said my Uncle Toby as the land-
lord shut the door, he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet
I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there
must be something more than common in him, that in so short
a time should win so much upon the affections of his host. ”
"And of his whole family,” added the Corporal, "for they are all
,
concerned for him. ” — "Step after him," said my Uncle Toby;
“"
do, Trim, and ask if he knows his name. ”
“I have quite forgot it, truly," said the landlord, coming back
into the parlor with the Corporal, “but I can ask his son again. ”
-«Has he a son with him, then? ” said my Uncle Toby. -
"A boy,” replied the landlord, “of about eleven or twelve years
but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his
father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night
and day.
He has not stirred from the bedside these two days. ”
My Uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his
plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account;
and Trim, without being ordered, took it away without saying
one word, and in a few minutes after brought him his pipe and
tobacco.
“Stay in the room a little,” said my Uncle Toby.
« Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, after he had lighted his pipe
and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in front of his
master and made his bow; my Uncle Toby smoked on and said
« Corporal,” said my Uncle Toby. The Corporal made
his bow. My Uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished his
pipe.
« Trim," said my Uncle Toby, "I have a project in my head,
as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roque-
laure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman. ” — “Your Hon-
or's roquelaure,” replied the Corporal, “has not once been had
on since the night before your Honor received your wound, when
we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicolas;
and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the
roquelaure and what with the weather, 'twill be enough to give
your Honor your death, and bring on your Honor's torment
in your groin. ”—“I fear so,” replied my Uncle Toby; “but I am
not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord
has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair,”
added my Uncle Toby, “or that I had known more of it. How
shall we manage it ? ” — "Leave it, an' please your Honor, to me,”
XXIV-870
»
no more.
## p. 13906 (#92) ###########################################
13906
LAURENCE STERNE
quoth the Corporal: "I'll take my hat and stick and go to the
house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your
Honor a full account in an hour. ” - « Thou shalt go, Trim," said
my Uncle Toby; "and here's a shilling for thee to drink with
his servant. ” — "I shall get it all out of him," said the Corporal,
shutting the door.
My Uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been
that he now and then wandered from the point with considering
whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tenaile
a straight line as a crooked one, he might be said to have thought
of nothing else but poor Le Fevre and his boy the whole time
he smoked it.
»
((
»
It was not till my Uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of
his third pipe that Corporal Trim returned from the inn, and
gave him the following account:
"I despaired at first,” said the Corporal, of being able to
bring back to your Honor any kind of intelligence concerning
the poor sick lieutenant. ” — “Is he in the army, then ? ” said my
Uncle Toby. — "He is,” said the Corporal. — “And in what regi-
ment ? " said my Uncle Toby. — “I'll tell your Honor,” replied the
Corporal, "everything straightforwards as I learnt it. ” — «Then,
Trim, I'll fill another pipe,” said my Uncle Toby, “and not inter-
rupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in
the window-seat, and begin thy story again. ” — The Corporal
made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could
speak it, “Your Honor is good. ” And having done that, he sat
down as he was ordered, and began the story to my Uncle Toby
over again, in pretty near the same words.
"I despaired at first,” said the Corporal, "of being able to
bring back any intelligence to your Honor about the lieutenant
and his son; for when I asked where his servant was, from
whom I made myself sure of knowing everything which was
proper to be asked — [“That's a right distinction, Trim,” said my
Uncle Toby. ]-"I was answered, an' please your Honor, that he
had no servant with him; that he had come to the inn with hired
horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I
suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he
came. If I get better, my dear,' said he, as he gave his purse
to his son to pay the man, we can hire horses from hence. )
But, alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said
(
## p. 13907 (#93) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13907
>>
)
>>
the landlady to me, for I heard the death-watch all night long;
and when he dies, the youth his son will certainly die with him,
for he is broken-hearted already. '
“I was hearing this account, continued the Corporal, “when
the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the land-
lord spoke of. But I will do it for my father myself,' said the
.
youth. '— 'Pray let me save you the trouble, young gentleman,'
said I, taking up a fork for that purpose, and offering him my
chair to sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. - I believe,
sir,' said he very modestly, I can please him best myself. '-
I am sure,' said I, his Honor will not like the toast the worse
for being toasted by an old soldier. The youth took hold of my
hand, and instantly burst into tears. " — "Poor youth! ” said my
Uncle Toby: (he has been bred up from an infant in the army,
and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the
name of a friend. I wish I had him here. ”
"I never in the longest march,” said the Corporal, had so
great a mind to my dinner as I had to cry with him for
company. What could be the matter with me, an' please your
Honor? ” – "Nothing in the world, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby,
blowing his nose, but that thou art a good-natured fellow. ”
“
“When I gave him the toast, continued the Corporal, "I
thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain Shandy's serv-
ant, and that your Honor (though a stranger) was extremely
concerned for his father, and that if there was anything in your
house or cellar” – ["And thou mightest have added my purse,
too,” said my Uncle Toby. ] - "he was heartily welcome to it.
He made a very low bow (which was meant to your Honor), but
no answer, for his heart was full; so he went up-stairs with the
toast. 'I warrant you, my dear,' said I as I opened the kitchen
door, 'your father will be well again. ' Mr. Yorick's curate was
smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire; but said not a word, good or
bad, to comfort the youth. I thought it wrong," added the Cor-
poral. — “I think so too,” said my Uncle Toby.
“When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast,
he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen
to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if
I would step up-stairs. I believe,' said the landlord, 'he is going
to say his prayers; for there was a book laid upon the chair
by his bedside, and as I shut the door I saw his son take up a
cushion.
»
»
»
## p. 13908 (#94) ###########################################
13908
LAURENCE STERNE
-
:! ;*
(c
“I thought,' said the curate, that you gentlemen of the
army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all. ' - 'I heard the
poor gentleman say his prayers last night,' said the landlady,
'very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have be.
lieved it. '— 'Are you sure of it ? ' replied the curate. — A soldier,
an' please your Reverence,' said I, 'prays as often (of his own
accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king and
for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to
pray to God of any one in the whole world. ) » « 'Twas well said
of thee, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby. - « But when a soldier,'
said I, “an' please your Reverence, has been standing for twelve
hours together in the trenches up to his knees in cold water,
or engaged,said I, 'for months together in long and dangerous
marches,- harassed perhaps in his rear to-day, harassing others
to-morrow; detached here, countermanded there; resting this night
out upon his arms, beat up in his shirt the next, benumbed in
his joints, perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on,- must
say his prayers how and when he can, I believe,' said I - for I
was piqued,” quoth the Corporal, for the reputation of the
army-'I believe, an' please your Reverence,' said I, that when
a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson,
though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. ) » — «Thou shouldst
not have said that, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, "for God only
knows who is a hypocrite and who is not. At the great and
general review of us all, Corporal, at the Day of Judgment
(and not till then), it will be seen who have done their duties in
this world and who have not; and we shall be advanced, Trim,
accordingly. ” — "I hope we shall,” said Trim. — "It is in the
Scripture,” said my Uncle Toby, “and I will show it thee to-
morrow; in the mean time we may depend upon it, Trim, for our
comfort,” said my Uncle Toby, “that God Almighty is so good
and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our
duties in it, it will never be inquired into whether we have done
them in a red coat or a black one. ” — "I hope not,” said the
Corporal. — “But go on, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, “with thy
story. ”
“When I went up,” continued the Corporal, “into the lieuten-
ant's room, which I did not do until the expiration of the ten
minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head raised upon his
hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric
handkerchief beside it. The youth was just stooping down to
»
»
((
»
## p. 13909 (#95) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13909
(
take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneel.
ing; the book was laid upon the bed; and as he rose, in taking
up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take
it away at the same time. “Let it remain there, my dear,' said
the lieutenant.
“He did not offer to speak to me till I had walked up close
to his bedside. 'If you are Captain Shandy's servant,' said he,
'you must present my thanks to your master, with my little
boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me: if he was
of Leven's,' said the lieutenant- I told him your Honor was —
'then,' said he, 'I served three campaigns with him in Flan-
ders, and remember him; but 'tis most likely, as I had not the
honor of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of
me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good-nature
has laid under obligations to him is one Le Fevre, a lieutenant
in Angus's — but he knows me not,' said he a second time, mus-
ing. Possibly he may my story,' added he. Pray tell the
captain I was the ensign at Breda whose wife was most unfor-
tunately killed with a musket-shot as she lay in my arms in my
tent. '-'I remember the story, an' please your Honor,' said I,
'very well. '-'Do you so ? ' said he, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief; (then well may 1. In saying this he drew a little
ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribbon
about his neck, and kissed it twice. 'Here, Billy,' said he. The
boy flew across the room to the bedside, and falling down upon
his knee, took the ring in his hand and kissed it too, then kissed
his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept. ”
“I wish,” said my Uncle Toby with a deep sigh, "I wish,
Trim, I was asleep. ”
“Your Honor,” replied the Corporal, “is too much concerned.
Shall I pour your Honor out a glass of sack to your pipe ? »
"Do, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby.
"I remember,” said my Uncle Toby, sighing again, «the
(
story of the ensign and his wife; and particularly well, that he,
as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what), was
universally pitied by the whole regiment. But finish the story
thou art upon. ” — “ 'Tis finished already,” said the Corporal, “for
I could stay no longer, so wished his Honor a good night: young
Le Fevre rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of
the stairs; and as we went down together, told me they had
come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment
>
(
(
»
## p. 13910 (#96) ###########################################
13910
LAURENCE STERNE
»
(
in Flanders. “But alas! ” said the Corporal, “the lieutenant's
last day's march is over. ” — «Then what is to become of his
poor boy? ” cried my Uncle Toby.
It was to my Uncle Toby's eternal honor - though I tell it
only for the sake of those who, when cooped in betwixt a nat.
ural and a positive law, know not for their souls which way
in the world to turn themselves — that notwithstanding my Uncle
Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege
of Dendermond parallel with the Allies, who pressed theirs on so
vigorously that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner,
that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already
made a lodgment upon the counterscarp, and bent his whole
thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except
that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he
might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a
blockade, he left Dendermond to itself, to be relieved or not by
the French king as the French king thought good; and only con-
sidered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his
son.
That kind Being who is a friend to the friendless shall recom-
pense thee for this.
« Thou hast left this matter short,” said my Uncle Toby to
the Corporal as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee
in what, Trim. In the first place, when thou madest an offer
of my services to Le Fevre, as sickness and traveling are both
expensive, and thou knewest he was but a poor lieutenant,
with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that
thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had
he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to
it as myself. ” — «Your Honor knows,” said the Corporal, “I
“
"
had no orders. ” — «True, quoth my Uncle Toby: "thou didst
"
very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a
man. ”
“In the second place, for which indeed thou hast the same
excuse," continued my Uncle Toby, “when thou offeredst him
whatever was in my house, thou shouldst have offered him my
house too. A sick brother officer should have the best quarters,
Trim; and if we had him with us, we could tend and look to
him. Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim; and what with
thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine
((
a
1
>
## p. 13911 (#97) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13911
c
»
together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon
his legs.
«In a fortnight or three weeks,” added my Uncle Toby, smil-
ing, he might march. ” — “He will never march, an' please your
"– «
Honor, in this world,” said the Corporal. He will march,”
said my Uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with
one shoe off. —"An' please your Honor," said the Corporal, "he
will never march but to his grave. ” — “He shall march,” cried my
Uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though
without advancing an inch, "he shall march to his regiment. ”
“He cannot stand it,” said the Corporal. — "He shall be sup-
ported,” said my Uncle Toby. — “He'll drop at last,” said the
Corporal, “and what will become of his boy ? ” — “He shall not
drop," said my Uncle Toby firmly. - "Ah, well-a-day, do what
we can for him," said Trim, maintaining his point, “the poor soul
will die. ” – “He shall not die, by G-,” cried my Uncle Toby.
The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery with
the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel, as
he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it
out forever.
(
-
(
My Uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his
breeches pocket, and having ordered the Corporal to go early in
the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep.
The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the
village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death
pressed heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly could the wheel of
the cistern turn round its circle, when my Uncle Toby, who had
rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieuten-
ant's room, and without preface or apology sat himself down upon
the chair by the bedside, and independently of all modes and
customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and
brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did,
how he had rested in the night, what was his complaint, where
was his pain, and what he could do to help him ? And without
giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and
told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the
Corporal the night before for him.
“But you shall go home directly, Le Fevre,” said my Uncle
Toby, “to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's
»
## p. 13912 (#98) ###########################################
13912
LAURENCE STERNE
the matter, and we'll have an apothecary, and the Corporal shall
be your nurse, and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre. ”
There was a frankness in my Uncle Toby — not the effect of
familiarity, but the cause of it - which let you at once into his
soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this there
was something in his looks and voice and manner superadded,
which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take
shelter under him. So that before my Uncle Toby had half
finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the
son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold
of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The
blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow
within him, and were retreating to the last citadel, the heart, ral-
lied back. The film forsook his eyes for a moment.
He looked
up wistfully in my Uncle Toby's face, then cast a look upon his
boy; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.
Nature instantly ebbed again. The film returned to its place;
the pulse fluttered, stopped, went on — throbbed, stopped again
moved, stopped - Shall I go on? No.
I AM
so impatient to return to my own story that what
remains of young Le Fevre's — that is, from this turn of his
fortune to the time my Uncle Toby recommended him for my
preceptor — shall be told in a very few words in the next chapter.
All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as follows:--
That my Uncle Toby, with young Le Fevre in his hand,
attended the poor lieutenant as chief mourners to his grave.
THE START
From A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy)
(
'THEY
"
(
HEY order,” said I, “this matter better in France - »
“You have been in France ? ” said my gentleman, turn-
ing quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the
world.
« Strange !
knew you would laugh at me; but the next woman that makes
me ridiculous shall be a young one. ”
ON FLOGGING AT SCHOOLS
From the Spectator
I
AM very much at a loss to express by any word that occurs to
me in our language, that which is understood by indoles in
Latin. The natural disposition to any particular art, science,
profession, or trade, is very much to be consulted in the care
of youth, and studied by men for their own conduct when they
form to themselves any scheme of life. It is wonderfully hard,
indeed, for a man to judge of his own capacity impartially. That
may look great to me which may appear little to another; and I
may be carried by fondness towards myself so far as to attempt
## p. 13895 (#77) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13895
things too high for my talents and accomplishments. But it is
not, methinks, so very difficult a matter to make a judgment
of the abilities of others, especially of those who are in their
infancy.
My commonplace-book directs me on this occasion to men-
tion the dawning of greatness in Alexander, who, being asked in
his youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic games, answered
he would, if he had kings to run against him. Cassius, who
was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof
of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a playfellow, the
son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman peo-
ple. Scipio is reported to have answered, when some flatterers at
supper were asking him what the Romans should do for a gen-
eral arter his death, “Take Marius. ” Marius was then a very
boy, and had given no instances of his valor; but it was visible
to Scipio, from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul
formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings.
I must confess I have very often, with much sorrow, bewailed
the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider
the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmas-
ters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for
the long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors, to which our
childhood is exposed in going through a grammar-school. Many
of these stupid tyrants exercise their cruelty without any man-
ner of distinction of the capacities of children, or the intention
of parents in their behalf. There are many excellent tempers
which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible
diligence and care, that were never designed to be acquainted
with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have
capacities for understanding every word those great persons have
writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings.
For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who
have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable
creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are
for ever near a right understanding and will never arrive at it.
These are the scandal of letters, and these are generally the men
who are to teach others.
The sense of shame and honor is enough to keep the world
itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train
the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. It happens, I
doubt not, more than once in a year, that a lad is chastised for
## p. 13896 (#78) ###########################################
13896
SIR RICHARD STEELE
a blockhead, when it is good apprehension that makes him inca-
pable of knowing what his teacher means. A brisk imagination
very often may suggest an error, which a lad could not have
fallen into if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his mas-
ter in explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong
interpretation of his meaning: the sufferings of the scholar's body
are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.
I am confident that no boy who will not be allured to let-
ters without blows, will ever be brought to anything with them.
A great or good mind must necessarily be the worse for such
indignities; and it is a sad change, to lose of its virtue for the
improvement of its knowledge. No one who has gone through
what they call a great school, but must remember to have seen
children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards
appeared in their manhood),- I say no man has passed through
this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature,
expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and
silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and kneel on its tender
knees to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quan-
tity of a word in making a Latin verse. The child is punished,
and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a third with
the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man
whether this lad, in the simplicity of his native innocence, full
of shame, and capable of any impression from that grace of soul,
was not fitter for any purpose in this life, than after that spark
of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write
twenty verses in an evening?
Seneca says, after his exalted way of talking, “As the immor-
tal gods never learnt any virtue, though they are endued with
all that is good, so there are some men who have so natural a
propensity to what they should follow, that they learn it almost
as soon as they hear it. ” Plants and vegetables are cultivated
into the production of finer fruits than they would yield with-
out that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing
a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same
methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece
of stone.
It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a
certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally
educated, carry about them in all their behavior. To be bred
like a gentleman and punished like a malefactor must, as we see
## p. 13897 (#79) ###########################################
SIR RICHARD STEELE
13897
it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes
in men of letters.
The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen
and hid under his coat) to eat into his bowels, I daresay had
not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools
among us; but the glorious sense of honor, or rather fear of
shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the
learning in the world without it.
It is, methinks, a very melancholy consideration, that a lit-
tle negligence can spoil us, but great industry is necessary to
improve us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but
evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits.
To help this by punishments is the same thing as killing a
man to cure him of a distemper: when he comes to suffer pun-
ishment in that one circumstance, he is brought below the exist-
ence of a rational creature, and is in the state of a brute that
moves only by the admonition of stripes. But since this custom
of educating by the lash is suffered by the gentry of Great Brit-
ain, I would prevail only that honest heavy lads may be dismissed
from slavery sooner than they are at present, and not whipped
on to their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether they expect any
progress from them or not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith
examined, and he sent to some mechanic way of life, without
respect to his birth, if nature designed him for nothing higher;
let him go before he has innocently suffered, and is debased into
a dereliction of mind for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain
man. I would not here be supposed to have said that our learned
men of either robe who have been whipped at school are not
still men of noble and liberal minds; but I am sure they would
have been much more so than they are, had they never suffered
that infamy.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING
From the Guardian
.
.
I
HAVE often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a
poet. It is, I think, certain that some men have such a pe-
culiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light
than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination
and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in
the same
manner as they themselves were affected with them;
## p. 13898 (#80) ###########################################
13898
SIR RICHARD STEELE
and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted
at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same
occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the
disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only
which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is there-
fore not an art, but what we call a “knack”; it does not so
much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add that it is
not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which nat-
urally attend such merry emotions of the mind.
I know very
well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off
to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end:
but this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently con-
venient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agita-
tions. I will go yet further; and affirm that the success of a
story very often depends upon the make of the body, and forma-
tion of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this
opinion ever since I criticized upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I
very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his
conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the
coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor
could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, though
upon examination I thought most of them very fat and insipid.
I found, after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded
upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair
of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness which robbed him
of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months
before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his
floridity.
He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good
constitution for wit.
Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature are apt
to show their parts with too much ostentation: I would there-
fore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but
as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conver-
sation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that
are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly intro-
duced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of
allusion. Those that are altogether new should never be ushered
in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons
concerned, because by that means you make the company ac-
quainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and
trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us administer more
mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.
## p. 13898 (#81) ###########################################
## p. 13898 (#82) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNEK
## p. 13898 (#83) ###########################################
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## p. 13898 (#84) ###########################################
## p. 13899 (#85) ###########################################
13899
LAURENCE STERNE
(1713-1768)
enue
He life of the Reverend Laurence Sterne was as inconsistent
with his profession as with his writings. Reading these, no
one would for a moment believe that he was a clergyman.
Such a career as his would not be possible to-day; but to a Church
of England parson of the eighteenth century, extraordinary moral
latitude was allowed, and toward him extraordinary tolerance was
exercised. Although Sterne's sermons were clever, they were very
peculiar. His contemporaries thought of him only as a literary man,
and it is doubtful if he took himself seriously as a cleric.
He was a
humorist to the marrow, and had all the vagaries of his natural
predilection. Although in his day the English Church was chosen
for a calling, like the army, the navy, or the law, and the re
from a benefice was fitly named a living, it is not likely that he vol-
untarily selected his profession.
He was the great-grandson of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of
York; and the recollection of his distinguished ancestor, with consid-
erations of family influence, must have decided his vocation. His
father, a younger son, was an ensign of the 34th Regiment, with
which he served in Flanders, taking part in the sieges of Lisle and
Douay. His mother was Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of good
connections. The ensign and his wife went to Clonmel, in Ireland,
at the close of the war; and there, in barracks, Laurence was born,
November 24th, 1713; his parents and all his progenitors being Eng-
lish. His father having been recalled into active service, the child
was carried from barracks to transport, from Ireland to England, and
was familiar with the shifts, hardships, and vulgarities of a vagabond
military life, until he reached his tenth year. This happy-go-lucky
existence, with its fun, its extravagance, and its pinching poverty, no
doubt influenced his character, and affected his ways of thinking.
At the age of ten he was fortunately rescued from it by a good-
natured cousin, Squire Sterne, and sent first to school at Halifax,
and then to Jesus College, Cambridge, of which the archiepiscopal
great-grandfather had been master. He was entered as a sizar; and
in exchange for his free commons and free tuition, had to render
such services as Goldsmith gave a few years later,- sweeping the
courts, carrying up the dishes to the fellows' dining-hall, and pour-
ing the ale. The position involved some mortifications, and the little
-
## p. 13900 (#86) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13900
beneficiary, already half an invalid, was unequal to much hard work.
But he seems to have accepted all the conditions of life with a good-
natured philosophy that made him popular.
After ordination he procured, through another kinsman, Dr. Jaques
Sterne, the vicarage of Sutton in Yorkshire, and in time a prebendal
stall in York Cathedral. Marrying at twenty-eight, he received from
a friend of his wife the living of Stillington, in the immediate neigh-
borhood of Sutton. The churchman had been fortunate from his
boyhood; and that supposed good luck continued which led to phys-
ical and moral deterioration, and his premature death at fifty-four.
For nearly twenty years he led a free-and-easy life in the country,
reading, painting, fiddling, fishing, shooting, dining, but writing nothing
save his regular sermons, with occasional political squibs and para-
graphs for a Whig newspaper. He had gained, however, a local rep-
utation for wit and story-telling, and was much quoted in York for
smart sayings, not at all sacerdotal. His disposition was extremely
gay, and the kind of gayety he preferred was expensive. His income
proving inadequate, he began to run in debt,- a habit which increased
with his years. He had published a few sermons which found ad-
mirers; but on the first day of January, 1760, being then forty-six years
of age, he burst on an astonished world with two volumes of "The
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. '
Though printed in the provincial town of York, the story gave
him instantaneous renown. York was immensely scandalized at the
satirical levity of its prebend; but London was taken captive by. the
cleverness and the unconventionality of the new free-lance. The book
was republished under the pen-name of Yorick; Yorick being a char-
acter in "Tristram Shandy,'— a sporting parson, who claims descent
from the king's jester in Hamlet. ' Everybody, however, soon knew
the author to be no other than Laurence Sterne. Eager to enjoy
his triumph, he visited London, and was received with an enthusiasm
wholly beyond his fondest anticipations. He was honored and flat-
tered as few authors have been; he was feasted, courted, caressed;
he became at once the talk and the lion of the town. It was a dis-
tinction to have seen, much more to have spoken to, Laurence Sterne.
He was classed with Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett as a master
of prose fiction. Praise was exhausted on his humor, his invention,
his learning, his originality. Lord Falconbridge conferred on him the
living of Coxwould; the arrogant Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester,
presented him with a purse of gold; Reynolds painted his portrait;
Dodsley offered him seven hundred pounds for two more volumes of
(Tristram Shandy,' and a second edition. He was invited to dine
with the most noted men of the metropolis, three weeks in advance;
and the most fashionable game of cards was named after his hero.
## p. 13901 (#87) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13901
Such incense, as welcome as intoxicating to Sterne, turned his head,
ruined his fragile constitution, and undermined such moral principles
as he still professed. Having once enjoyed the stimulus, the diver-
sity, the delightful adulation of London, he could not content himself
in the provinces. He took a house in York for his wife and daugh-
ter Lydia, to whom he was much attached; but passed most of his
own time in the capital, or on the Continent.
The third and fourth volumes of (Tristram Shandy) appeared
in 1761; the fifth and sixth in 1762. Sterne was “fully determined
to write as hard as could be,” and was sure that he could give the
public “two volumes of Shandyism every year for forty years to
come. ”
Too much feasting, however, too late hours, and perhaps too
constant application, wore him out. From birth he had been delicate,
-a tendency to consumption sapping his nervous energies, para-
lyzing his will, and vitiating perhaps his moral impulses. A hemor-
rhage, a cough, and increasing weakness drove him to France for a
sojourn of more than two years. There he met the warmest recep-
tion from literary and fashionable circles, and wrote to Garrick from
Paris:— «'Tis comme à Londres. I have just now a fortnight's dinners
and suppers on my hands. Be it known I Shandy it away fifty times
more than I was ever wont,- talk more nonsense than ever you
heard me talk in all your days, and to more sorts of people. ” When
society would let him, he still worked at the history of the Shandy
family, and in 1765, after his return to England (very little better
for the sort of health journey he had undertaken), he brought out
the fourth installment of two volumes. The later issues only deep-
ened and intensified the impression made by the first two.
He was
universally regarded not only as a writer of rare genius, but as one
of the most original of humorists, and compared with Rabelais and
Cervantes. His novel was accepted on its face in that uncritical
age, and not impartially judged till after his death. But in Dr.
Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne,' published in 1812, that ingenious
gentleman took pains to track the humorist's phrases and inventions
to their source in Rabelais and other old French authors; to Bur-
ton, from whose (Anatomy of Melancholy, much of his erudition is
«lifted”; to Bishop Hall, Dr. Donne, Dr. Arbuthnot, and many more.
Yet Dr. Ferriar admitted that these appropriations were of material
only; that Sterne, like Shakespeare, bettered what he took, and that
his reputation as a great literary artist is not in the least affected by
this habit of spoliation. Indeed, he was strikingly original,- as such
characters as Walter Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr.
Slop,
and the Widow Wadman abundantly testify.
“Tristram Shandy' is in no strict sense a novel. Such story as
there is is constantly interrupted by episodes, digressions, absurdities,
affectations, and incongruities. In more than one volume the whole
## p. 13902 (#88) ###########################################
13902
LAURENCE STERNE
(
(
>
movement is suspended while the author introduces a discourse, a
journey, or any other irrelevant personal experience. But he knew
his own tendencies, and declared that he had reconciled digressive
motion with progressive. ”
Longing to spin out the tawdry life of excitement and pleasure
that seemed so fine to him, yet racked by his cough and hampered by
weakness, Sterne went to Italy in 1765, hoping to improve in a milder
climate. Again he gained little in health; but he managed to bring
out the concluding volume of Tristram Shandy) in 1767. This was
received with hardly diminished favor, and edition after edition of
the coinpleted story was sold. To the taste of to-day it makes lit-
tle appeal,-- its premeditated quaintness, its pervading coarseness, and
its archaisms repel the general reader; yet for its higher qualities it
retains almost unequaled charm to a minority of cultivated minds,
and even children can fall under its spell with a lasting enchantment.
The “Sentimental Journey through France and Italy) was projected
as a long story, but Sterne's strength was unequal to his resolution.
In 1767 he brought out the first part — and the last; full of fine
description and admirable pathos. This work was partly undertaken
to ridicule Smollett's Travels through France and Italy' (1766): one
of its most quoted phrases, “I pity the man who can travel from Dan
to Beersheba, and cry 'Tis all barren, ” is directly aimed at the too
sincere Scotchman, whom he patently nicknames Smelfungus.
At the height of his fame, just after the publication of the 'Senti-
mental Journey,' Sterne died in lodgings, “at the sign of the Silk
Bag” in Old Bond Street, alone but for the presence of a hired nurse.
He had desired to end his life at an inn, and his desire was fulfilled.
Although he had earned much money, he died in debt; and a collec-
tion of eight hundred pounds was made at the York races for his wife
and daughter.
Sterne has been accused of gross vices. He has been called a
man overflowing with sentiment on paper, but devoid of real feeling;
a weeper over dead asses, and a discarder of the common ties of
humanity. His late biographers have defended him stoutly, declaring
his memory to have been maligned. But his own correspondence,
published posthumously, convicts him of many offenses. It has been
said by one of his fairest critics that though in any just estimation
of him, censure must be lost in pity, yet the fact remains that Sterne
is one of the very few men of real genius, who, however faulty in
their lives, have in their writings not sought to be faithful to the
highest truth they knew. Concerning his work there is but one ver-
dict: that whatever its superficial defects, and however unattractive
its quality to modern taste, its art is exquisite; and that by reason
of this its author is entitled to a place with the great masters of
literature.
## p. 13903 (#89) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13903
THE WIDOW WADMAN LAYS SIEGE TO UNCLE TOBY'S HEART
From "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
"I
-
)
Am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, hold-
ing up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she
approached the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry-box. "A
mote, or sand, or something — I know not what — has got into
this eye of mine; do look into it—it is not in the white. ”
In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside
my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of
his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without
rising up.
“Do look into it,” said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as inuch innocence
of heart as ever child looked into a raree-show box; and 'twere
as much a sin to have hurt thee.
If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of
that nature, I've nothing to say to it.
My Uncle Toby never did; and I will answer for him that he
would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January (which,
you know, takes in both the hot and cold months) with an eye
as fine as the Thracian Rhodope's beside him, without being able
to tell whether it was a black or a blue one.
The difficulty was to get my Uncle Toby to look at one
at all.
'Tis surmounted. And -
I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and
the ashes falling out of it, looking and looking, then rubbing his
eyes and looking again, with twice the good-nature that ever
Galileo looked for a spot in the sun.
In vain! for by all the powers which animate the organ,
Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her
right: there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor
speck, nor particle of opaque matter floating in it; there is
nothing, my dear paternal uncle, but one lambent delicious fire,
furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all directions, into
thine.
If thou lookest, Uncle Toby, in search of this mote one mo-
ment longer, thou art undone.
1
## p. 13904 (#90) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13904
THE STORY OF LE FEVRE
From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy)
>
I"
T WAS some time in the summer of that year in which Den-
dermond was taken by the Allies, which was about seven
years before my father came into the country, and about as
many after the time that my Uncle Toby and Trim had pri-
vately decamped from my father's house in town in order to lay
some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in
Europe, - when my Uncle Toby was one evening getting his
supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard: I say
sitting, for in consideration of the Corporal's lame knee (which
sometimes gave him exquisite pain), when my Uncle Toby dined
or supped alone he would never suffer the Corporal to stand;
and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that
with a proper artillery my Uncle Toby could have taken Den-
dermond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain this
point over him: for many a time when my Uncle Toby supposed
the Corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back and detect
him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect; this
bred more little squabbles betwixt them than all other causes
for five-and-twenty years together.
But this is neither here nor
there: why do I mention it? Ask my pen: it governs me-I
govern not it.
He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the land.
lord of a little inn in the village came into the parlor with an
empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack: «'Tis for
a poor gentleman, I think of the army,” said the landlord, “who
has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never
held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything till just
now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast:
I think,' says he, taking his hand from his forehead, it would
comfort me. ' If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a
thing,” added the landlord, “I would almost steal it for the poor
gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will still mend,” con-
tinued he: « we are all of us concerned for him. ”
“Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee,” cried
my Uncle Toby; "and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's
health in a glass of sack thyself, and take a couple of bottles,
with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them,
and to a dozen more if they will do him good.
>
## p. 13905 (#91) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13905
-
of age:
“Though I am persuaded,” said my Uncle Toby as the land-
lord shut the door, he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet
I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there
must be something more than common in him, that in so short
a time should win so much upon the affections of his host. ”
"And of his whole family,” added the Corporal, "for they are all
,
concerned for him. ” — "Step after him," said my Uncle Toby;
“"
do, Trim, and ask if he knows his name. ”
“I have quite forgot it, truly," said the landlord, coming back
into the parlor with the Corporal, “but I can ask his son again. ”
-«Has he a son with him, then? ” said my Uncle Toby. -
"A boy,” replied the landlord, “of about eleven or twelve years
but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his
father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night
and day.
He has not stirred from the bedside these two days. ”
My Uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his
plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account;
and Trim, without being ordered, took it away without saying
one word, and in a few minutes after brought him his pipe and
tobacco.
“Stay in the room a little,” said my Uncle Toby.
« Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, after he had lighted his pipe
and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in front of his
master and made his bow; my Uncle Toby smoked on and said
« Corporal,” said my Uncle Toby. The Corporal made
his bow. My Uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished his
pipe.
« Trim," said my Uncle Toby, "I have a project in my head,
as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roque-
laure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman. ” — “Your Hon-
or's roquelaure,” replied the Corporal, “has not once been had
on since the night before your Honor received your wound, when
we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicolas;
and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the
roquelaure and what with the weather, 'twill be enough to give
your Honor your death, and bring on your Honor's torment
in your groin. ”—“I fear so,” replied my Uncle Toby; “but I am
not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord
has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair,”
added my Uncle Toby, “or that I had known more of it. How
shall we manage it ? ” — "Leave it, an' please your Honor, to me,”
XXIV-870
»
no more.
## p. 13906 (#92) ###########################################
13906
LAURENCE STERNE
quoth the Corporal: "I'll take my hat and stick and go to the
house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your
Honor a full account in an hour. ” - « Thou shalt go, Trim," said
my Uncle Toby; "and here's a shilling for thee to drink with
his servant. ” — "I shall get it all out of him," said the Corporal,
shutting the door.
My Uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been
that he now and then wandered from the point with considering
whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tenaile
a straight line as a crooked one, he might be said to have thought
of nothing else but poor Le Fevre and his boy the whole time
he smoked it.
»
((
»
It was not till my Uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of
his third pipe that Corporal Trim returned from the inn, and
gave him the following account:
"I despaired at first,” said the Corporal, of being able to
bring back to your Honor any kind of intelligence concerning
the poor sick lieutenant. ” — “Is he in the army, then ? ” said my
Uncle Toby. — "He is,” said the Corporal. — “And in what regi-
ment ? " said my Uncle Toby. — “I'll tell your Honor,” replied the
Corporal, "everything straightforwards as I learnt it. ” — «Then,
Trim, I'll fill another pipe,” said my Uncle Toby, “and not inter-
rupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in
the window-seat, and begin thy story again. ” — The Corporal
made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could
speak it, “Your Honor is good. ” And having done that, he sat
down as he was ordered, and began the story to my Uncle Toby
over again, in pretty near the same words.
"I despaired at first,” said the Corporal, "of being able to
bring back any intelligence to your Honor about the lieutenant
and his son; for when I asked where his servant was, from
whom I made myself sure of knowing everything which was
proper to be asked — [“That's a right distinction, Trim,” said my
Uncle Toby. ]-"I was answered, an' please your Honor, that he
had no servant with him; that he had come to the inn with hired
horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I
suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he
came. If I get better, my dear,' said he, as he gave his purse
to his son to pay the man, we can hire horses from hence. )
But, alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said
(
## p. 13907 (#93) ###########################################
LAURENCE STERNE
13907
>>
)
>>
the landlady to me, for I heard the death-watch all night long;
and when he dies, the youth his son will certainly die with him,
for he is broken-hearted already. '
“I was hearing this account, continued the Corporal, “when
the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the land-
lord spoke of. But I will do it for my father myself,' said the
.
youth. '— 'Pray let me save you the trouble, young gentleman,'
said I, taking up a fork for that purpose, and offering him my
chair to sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. - I believe,
sir,' said he very modestly, I can please him best myself. '-
I am sure,' said I, his Honor will not like the toast the worse
for being toasted by an old soldier. The youth took hold of my
hand, and instantly burst into tears. " — "Poor youth! ” said my
Uncle Toby: (he has been bred up from an infant in the army,
and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the
name of a friend. I wish I had him here. ”
"I never in the longest march,” said the Corporal, had so
great a mind to my dinner as I had to cry with him for
company. What could be the matter with me, an' please your
Honor? ” – "Nothing in the world, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby,
blowing his nose, but that thou art a good-natured fellow. ”
“
“When I gave him the toast, continued the Corporal, "I
thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain Shandy's serv-
ant, and that your Honor (though a stranger) was extremely
concerned for his father, and that if there was anything in your
house or cellar” – ["And thou mightest have added my purse,
too,” said my Uncle Toby. ] - "he was heartily welcome to it.
He made a very low bow (which was meant to your Honor), but
no answer, for his heart was full; so he went up-stairs with the
toast. 'I warrant you, my dear,' said I as I opened the kitchen
door, 'your father will be well again. ' Mr. Yorick's curate was
smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire; but said not a word, good or
bad, to comfort the youth. I thought it wrong," added the Cor-
poral. — “I think so too,” said my Uncle Toby.
“When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast,
he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen
to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if
I would step up-stairs. I believe,' said the landlord, 'he is going
to say his prayers; for there was a book laid upon the chair
by his bedside, and as I shut the door I saw his son take up a
cushion.
»
»
»
## p. 13908 (#94) ###########################################
13908
LAURENCE STERNE
-
:! ;*
(c
“I thought,' said the curate, that you gentlemen of the
army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all. ' - 'I heard the
poor gentleman say his prayers last night,' said the landlady,
'very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have be.
lieved it. '— 'Are you sure of it ? ' replied the curate. — A soldier,
an' please your Reverence,' said I, 'prays as often (of his own
accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king and
for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to
pray to God of any one in the whole world. ) » « 'Twas well said
of thee, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby. - « But when a soldier,'
said I, “an' please your Reverence, has been standing for twelve
hours together in the trenches up to his knees in cold water,
or engaged,said I, 'for months together in long and dangerous
marches,- harassed perhaps in his rear to-day, harassing others
to-morrow; detached here, countermanded there; resting this night
out upon his arms, beat up in his shirt the next, benumbed in
his joints, perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on,- must
say his prayers how and when he can, I believe,' said I - for I
was piqued,” quoth the Corporal, for the reputation of the
army-'I believe, an' please your Reverence,' said I, that when
a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson,
though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. ) » — «Thou shouldst
not have said that, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, "for God only
knows who is a hypocrite and who is not. At the great and
general review of us all, Corporal, at the Day of Judgment
(and not till then), it will be seen who have done their duties in
this world and who have not; and we shall be advanced, Trim,
accordingly. ” — "I hope we shall,” said Trim. — "It is in the
Scripture,” said my Uncle Toby, “and I will show it thee to-
morrow; in the mean time we may depend upon it, Trim, for our
comfort,” said my Uncle Toby, “that God Almighty is so good
and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our
duties in it, it will never be inquired into whether we have done
them in a red coat or a black one. ” — "I hope not,” said the
Corporal. — “But go on, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby, “with thy
story. ”
“When I went up,” continued the Corporal, “into the lieuten-
ant's room, which I did not do until the expiration of the ten
minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head raised upon his
hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric
handkerchief beside it. The youth was just stooping down to
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take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneel.
ing; the book was laid upon the bed; and as he rose, in taking
up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take
it away at the same time. “Let it remain there, my dear,' said
the lieutenant.
“He did not offer to speak to me till I had walked up close
to his bedside. 'If you are Captain Shandy's servant,' said he,
'you must present my thanks to your master, with my little
boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me: if he was
of Leven's,' said the lieutenant- I told him your Honor was —
'then,' said he, 'I served three campaigns with him in Flan-
ders, and remember him; but 'tis most likely, as I had not the
honor of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of
me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good-nature
has laid under obligations to him is one Le Fevre, a lieutenant
in Angus's — but he knows me not,' said he a second time, mus-
ing. Possibly he may my story,' added he. Pray tell the
captain I was the ensign at Breda whose wife was most unfor-
tunately killed with a musket-shot as she lay in my arms in my
tent. '-'I remember the story, an' please your Honor,' said I,
'very well. '-'Do you so ? ' said he, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief; (then well may 1. In saying this he drew a little
ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribbon
about his neck, and kissed it twice. 'Here, Billy,' said he. The
boy flew across the room to the bedside, and falling down upon
his knee, took the ring in his hand and kissed it too, then kissed
his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept. ”
“I wish,” said my Uncle Toby with a deep sigh, "I wish,
Trim, I was asleep. ”
“Your Honor,” replied the Corporal, “is too much concerned.
Shall I pour your Honor out a glass of sack to your pipe ? »
"Do, Trim,” said my Uncle Toby.
"I remember,” said my Uncle Toby, sighing again, «the
(
story of the ensign and his wife; and particularly well, that he,
as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what), was
universally pitied by the whole regiment. But finish the story
thou art upon. ” — “ 'Tis finished already,” said the Corporal, “for
I could stay no longer, so wished his Honor a good night: young
Le Fevre rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of
the stairs; and as we went down together, told me they had
come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment
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in Flanders. “But alas! ” said the Corporal, “the lieutenant's
last day's march is over. ” — «Then what is to become of his
poor boy? ” cried my Uncle Toby.
It was to my Uncle Toby's eternal honor - though I tell it
only for the sake of those who, when cooped in betwixt a nat.
ural and a positive law, know not for their souls which way
in the world to turn themselves — that notwithstanding my Uncle
Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege
of Dendermond parallel with the Allies, who pressed theirs on so
vigorously that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner,
that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already
made a lodgment upon the counterscarp, and bent his whole
thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except
that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he
might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a
blockade, he left Dendermond to itself, to be relieved or not by
the French king as the French king thought good; and only con-
sidered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his
son.
That kind Being who is a friend to the friendless shall recom-
pense thee for this.
« Thou hast left this matter short,” said my Uncle Toby to
the Corporal as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee
in what, Trim. In the first place, when thou madest an offer
of my services to Le Fevre, as sickness and traveling are both
expensive, and thou knewest he was but a poor lieutenant,
with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that
thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had
he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to
it as myself. ” — «Your Honor knows,” said the Corporal, “I
“
"
had no orders. ” — «True, quoth my Uncle Toby: "thou didst
"
very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a
man. ”
“In the second place, for which indeed thou hast the same
excuse," continued my Uncle Toby, “when thou offeredst him
whatever was in my house, thou shouldst have offered him my
house too. A sick brother officer should have the best quarters,
Trim; and if we had him with us, we could tend and look to
him. Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim; and what with
thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine
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together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon
his legs.
«In a fortnight or three weeks,” added my Uncle Toby, smil-
ing, he might march. ” — “He will never march, an' please your
"– «
Honor, in this world,” said the Corporal. He will march,”
said my Uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with
one shoe off. —"An' please your Honor," said the Corporal, "he
will never march but to his grave. ” — “He shall march,” cried my
Uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though
without advancing an inch, "he shall march to his regiment. ”
“He cannot stand it,” said the Corporal. — "He shall be sup-
ported,” said my Uncle Toby. — “He'll drop at last,” said the
Corporal, “and what will become of his boy ? ” — “He shall not
drop," said my Uncle Toby firmly. - "Ah, well-a-day, do what
we can for him," said Trim, maintaining his point, “the poor soul
will die. ” – “He shall not die, by G-,” cried my Uncle Toby.
The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery with
the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel, as
he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it
out forever.
(
-
(
My Uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his
breeches pocket, and having ordered the Corporal to go early in
the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep.
The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the
village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death
pressed heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly could the wheel of
the cistern turn round its circle, when my Uncle Toby, who had
rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieuten-
ant's room, and without preface or apology sat himself down upon
the chair by the bedside, and independently of all modes and
customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and
brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did,
how he had rested in the night, what was his complaint, where
was his pain, and what he could do to help him ? And without
giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and
told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the
Corporal the night before for him.
“But you shall go home directly, Le Fevre,” said my Uncle
Toby, “to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's
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the matter, and we'll have an apothecary, and the Corporal shall
be your nurse, and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre. ”
There was a frankness in my Uncle Toby — not the effect of
familiarity, but the cause of it - which let you at once into his
soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this there
was something in his looks and voice and manner superadded,
which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take
shelter under him. So that before my Uncle Toby had half
finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the
son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold
of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The
blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow
within him, and were retreating to the last citadel, the heart, ral-
lied back. The film forsook his eyes for a moment.
He looked
up wistfully in my Uncle Toby's face, then cast a look upon his
boy; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.
Nature instantly ebbed again. The film returned to its place;
the pulse fluttered, stopped, went on — throbbed, stopped again
moved, stopped - Shall I go on? No.
I AM
so impatient to return to my own story that what
remains of young Le Fevre's — that is, from this turn of his
fortune to the time my Uncle Toby recommended him for my
preceptor — shall be told in a very few words in the next chapter.
All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as follows:--
That my Uncle Toby, with young Le Fevre in his hand,
attended the poor lieutenant as chief mourners to his grave.
THE START
From A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy)
(
'THEY
"
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HEY order,” said I, “this matter better in France - »
“You have been in France ? ” said my gentleman, turn-
ing quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the
world.
« Strange !
