Complete Works of Laurence Sterne

by Laurence Sterne

  There is a time and circumstance of life, and that period and circumstance are now yours, when nothing but the easy, society, and little tender friendships of an accomplished woman are wanting to render a character complete: — and without saying a word more than I think on the business, — I cannot but express my satisfaction that you are in such hands as will probably produce the very effects which so sincere a friend as myself can wish and desire.

  It has ever been a maxim with me, since I knew any thing of the world, that we are all of us as much in want of a Schoolmistress at the finish, as we do at the commencement of our education. And as you are so fortunate as to have Lady — to teach you the Horn-book of high life, you will bid fair to spell it and put it together, so as to become the charm of all society: — and you will lose, what I so much wish you to lose, the attention to one, and the neglect of the many; which though there may be something amiable in the principle, is not adapted to the general intercourse of life.

  Lady M — F — might forward business, and Lady C — I am sure is ready to do it — so that in such a soil, in such a season, and with such cultivations, what has not partial friendship a right to expect. And now what can I do better than leave you in such good and excellent company, and desire you, in return to present my respectful compliments to them all, — and to receive yourself the most cordial regard of

  your very sincere and affectionate L. STERNE.

  LETTER XVIII. TO ——

  Coxwould, Wednesday Noon.

  I UNDERSTAND, from Mr. Phipps, that you are absolutely engaged to pass the Summer, or rather the Autumn, with him at Mulgrave-Hall; so that I now consider a previous visit to me as a matter on which I may depend, and to which believe me, I look with real satisfaction. We will while away a month or six weeks at my vicarage in a manner which, I trust, will not be unpleasing or unprofitable to you.

  However, in saying this, or rather writing it, I address myself to the excellence of your heart, which I cannot enough admire, and that cultivated understanding of which I have the greatest hopes. — I know the pleasures you will quit, and the societies you must sacrifice, to come and pass any part of the Summer with me; but, at the same time, I do not doubt of your visit, — and that a Shande an Tête á Tête has its charms for you

  I remember a circumstance, which I shall never think of without the utmost pride in my own heart, and the most sincere affection for yours; — but, besides that it flattered me in the highest degree, it proved that you possessed a source of sentiment which, whatever may befall you in life, must preserve you in honour and happiness: — with such a delicious quality, misfortune will never be able to bear you down; nor will folly, passion, or even vice, though they may for a time obscure or lessen the excellence of your character, possess the power of destroying it. — I allude to a little delicate touch of sentiment that escaped you last winter, — which though I have mentioned it with every possible eulogium to others, again and again, I have never before hinted it even to you; the moment, however, is now come, when my spirit urges me to speak of it; and I do it with those dispositions which are congenial to the subject, and, I trust, natural to myself.

  You cannot absolutely have forgotten an evening visit which you paid me last January, in Bond Street, when I was ill in bed; — nor ought it to escape your occasional reflection that you sat by my bed-side the whole night, performing every act of the most friendly and pious attention. — I then thought that the scare-crow death was at my heels; — nay, I thought the villain had got me by the throat, — and I told you as much. — However, it pleased Heaven, that I should not be snatched from the world at that moment; though I spoke my own honest opinion when I vaticinated my destiny by expressing little hopes of getting to the winter’s end — I believe, my dear friend, said I, that I shall soon be off. — I hope not, you replied, with a squeeze of my hand and a sigh of your heart, which went to the very bottom of mine: — but, — you were pleased to add lest that should be the case, I hope you will do me the favour to let me be always with you, that I may have every atom of advantage and comfort your society may afford me, while Heaven permits it to last. —

  I spoke no reply, for I could not, — but my heart made one then, and will continue to do so, — till it is become a clod of the Valley.

  Hence it is, that I do not doubt but you will quit the ring of pleasure without regret, to come and sit with me beneath my Honey-Suckle, which is now flaunting like a Ranelagh beauty, and accompany me in paying my nuns their pensive evening visit. — We can go to vespers with them, and return home to our curds and cream with more delicious sentiments than all the pleasures of the world, and the beauties thereof, in their vainest moments, can truly afford.

  I am busy about another couple of volumes to amuse, and, as I hope, to instruct a gouty and a splenetic world; — in which, I solemnly declare, I have no Ambition to remain, but for the love I bear to such friends as you; and, perhaps, the vanity, which I am vain enough not to call an idle one, of adding a few more leaves to the wreath which I have been able to weave for my own little glory.

  Come, then, and let me read the pages to you as they fall from my pen; and be a Mentor to Tristram, as you have been to Yorick. — At all events, — I am sure you cannot come to York without coming to me; and I shall triumph completely over Lady Lepel, &c. if I draw you for a month from the bright centre to which you are so naturally attracted. So God bless you, — and believe me, with all sincerity, to be

  Most affectionately your’s, L. STERNE.

  LETTER XIX. TO ——

  Bishopthorp, Thursday night.

  I SAW the charming Mrs. Vesey but for a moment, and she contrived with her voice and her thousand other graces to dis — order me; and what she will have to answer for on the occasion, I shall not employ my casuistry to determine; — nor shall I ask my good friend the Archbishop, from whose house, and amidst whose kindness and hospitality I address this to you.

  I envy, however, your saunter together round an empty Ranelagh, though I should have liked it the better, because it was empty, and would give the imagination and every delicious feeling, opportunity to make one forget there was another being in the room — but ourselves.

  You will, I am sure, more than understand me when I mention that sense of female perfection, — I mean, however, when the female is sitting or walking beside you, — which so possesses the mind that the whole Globe seems to be occupied by none but two. — When your hearts, in perfect unison, or, I should rather say, harmony with each other, produce the same chords, — and blossom with the same flowers of thought and sentiment.

  These hours, — which virtuous, tender minds have the power of separating from the melancholy seasons of life, — make ample amends for the weight of cares and disappointments, which the happiest of us are doomed to bear. — They cast the brightest sunshine on the dreary landscape, — and form a kind of refuge from the stormy wind and tempest.

  With such a companion, is not the primrose bank and the cottage, which humble virtue has raised on its side, superior to all that splendour and wealth has formed in the palaces of monarchs — The scented heath is then the Perfumed Araby, and, though the Nightingale should refuse to lodge among the branches of the poor solitary tree that overshadows us, — if my fair minstrel did but pour forth the melting strain, I would not look to the musick of the spheres for ravishment.

  There is something, my dear friend, most wonderfully pleasant in the idea of getting away from the world; — and though I have ever found it a great comfort, yet I have been more vain of the business, when I have done it in the midst of the world. — But this aberration from the crowd, while you are surrounded and pressed by it, is only to be accomplished by the magic of female perfection. — Friendship, with all its powers, — mere friendship, cannot do it. — A more refined sentiment must employ its influence to wrap the heart in this delicious oblivion. — It is too pleasing to last long, — for envious, sleepless care is ever on the watch to awake us from the bewitching tra
nce.

  You, my friend, possess something of the reality of it: and I, while I enjoy your happiness, apply to fancy for the purpose of creating a copy of it. — So I sit myself down upon the turf, and place a lovely fair one by my side, — as lovely, if possible, as Mrs. V — , and having plucked a sprig of blossoms from the Maybush, I place it in her bosom, and then address some tender tale to her heart, — and if she weeps at my story, I take the white handkerchief she holds in her hand and wipe the tears from off her cheek: and then I dry my own with it: — and thus the delightful vision gives wing to a lazy hour, calms my spirits, and composes me for my pillow.

  To wish that care may never plant a thorn upon yours, would be an idle employment of votive regard; — but that you may preserve the virtue which will blunt their points, and continue to possess the feelings which will, sometimes, pluck them away, is a wish not unworthy of that friendship, with which

  I am, your most affectionate, L. STERNE.

  P.S. Lydia writes me word she has got a lover. — Poor dear Girl! —

  LETTER XX. TO —— .

  Sunday Evening.

  DO not imagine, my dear Boy — and do not suffer, I beseech you any pedantic, cold-hearted fellow to persuade you — that sensibility is an evil. You may take my word on this subject, as you have been pleased to do on many others — that sensibility is one of the first blessings of life — as well as the brightest ornament of the human character.

  You do not explain matters to me, which, by the bye, is not fair; but I suppose, from the tenor of your letter, which is now beside me, that you have been made a dupe of by some artful person — who, I am disposed to think, is some cunning baggage — and that, under the impressions of this game that has been played you, your vanity is alarmed, and your understanding piqued; and then, you lay all this dire grievance, in a very pettish manner, let me tell you, at the door of your sensibility. And, which is worse than all the rest, you write to me as if you really believed yourself to be in earnest, in all the see-saw observations you have written to me on the subject.

  Be assured, my dear friend, if I thought the sentiments of your last letter were not the sentiments of a sickly moment — if I could be made to believe, for an instant, that they proceeded from you, in a sober, reflecting condition of your mind — I should give you over as incurable, and banish all my hopes of your rising into that proud honour, and brilliant reputation, which, I trust, you will one day possess.

  I was almost going to write — and wherefore should I not — that there is an amiable kind of cullibility, which is as superior to the slow precaution of worldly wisdom, as the sound of Abel’s Viol di Gamba, to the braying of an ass on the other side of my paling.

  If I should, at any time, hear a man pique himself upon never having been a dupe — I should grievously suspect that such an one will, some time or other, give cause to be thought, at best, a mean-spirited, dirty rascal.

  You may think this a strange doctrine — but, be that as it may — I am not ashamed to adopt it. — What would you say of any character, who had neither humanity, generosity, nor confidence? — Why you would say — I know you would — such a man

  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils —

  And yet imposition — dupery — deception — call it by what name you will — attends upon these virtues like their shadow. For virtue, my dear friend, like every other possession in this world, though it is the most valuable of all — is of a mixed nature; and the very inconveniences of it, if they deserve that name, form the basis on which its importance and natural excellence is established.

  Sensibility is oftentimes betrayed into a foolish thing; — but its folly is amiable, and some one or other is the better for it. I am not for its excesses — or a blind submission to its impulse, which produces them; — yet, some how or other, I should be strongly disposed to hug the being, who would take the rag off his back — to place it on the shivering wretch who had nought to cover him.

  Discretion is a cold quality — but I have no objection to the possessing as much of it — as will direct your finer feelings to their proper objects; — but here let its office finish; if it proceeds a step further there may be mischief; — it may cool that currrent which is the life-blood of all virtue, and will, I trust, warm your heart, till it is become a clod of the valley.

  Sensibility is the source of those delicious feelings which give a brighter colour to our joys, and turn our tears to rapture. — Though it may, now and then, lead us into a serape, as we pass through life — you may be assured, my dear friend, it will get us out of them all, at the end of it; — and that is a matter which wiser men than myself will tell you is well worth thinking about.

  So leaving you to your contemplations — and wishing them, and every thing you do, an happy issue — I remain, with great truth,

  your affectionate, L. STERNE.

  LETTER XXI. TO —— .

  Bond Street, Thursday Morning.

  So, my dear friend, you are pleased to be very angry with the Reviewers; — so am not I. — but as your displeasure proceeds from your regard for me, — I thank you, as I ought to do, — again and again.

  I really do not know to whom I am personally indebted for so much obliging illiberality. — Nor can I tell whether it is the society at large, or a splenetic Individual, to whom I am to acknowledge my obligation. — I have never enquired who it is or who they are: — and if I knew him or them, — what would it signify? — and wherefore should I give their names immortality in my writings, which they will never find in their own. — Let the Asses bray as they like; — I shall treat their worships as they deserve, in my own way and manner, — and in a way and manner that they will like less than any other.

  There is a certain race of people, who are ever aiming to treat their betters in some scurvy way or other — but it has ever been a practice with me, not to mind a little dirt thrown upon my coat, — so that I keep my lining unrumpled. — And so much for that envy, ignorance and ill-nature, for which, what I have written, is far too much.

  I am rejoiced, however, for twenty good reasons, which I will tell you hereafter, that London lies in your way between Oxforshire and Suffolk, and one of them I will tell you now — which is, that you can be of very great service to me; so I would desire you to prepare yourself to do me a kindness; if I did not know that you are always in such a state of preparation.

  The town is so empty, that though I have been in it, full four and twenty hours, I have seen only three people I know — Foote on the stage — Sir Charles Davers at St. James’s Coffee-house, and Williams, who was an hasty bird of passage, on his flight to Brigthelmstone, where I am told he is making love in right earnest, to a very fine woman, and with all the success his friends can wish him. Our races at York were every thing we could desire them to be in the ball-room, and every thing we did not desire them to be on the ground. The rain said nay, with a vengeance, to the sports of the course, for all the water-spouts of the heavens seemed to be let loose upon it. However in the amusements under cover, we were all as merry as heart could wish. I had promised a certain person that you should be there, and was obliged to parry a score or two of reproaches on your account.

  But though I forgot to tell it you before, I am by no means well, and if I do not get away from this climate before winter sets in, I shall never see another spring in this world; and it is to forward my journey to the South, that I request you to make haste to me from the West.

  Alas, alas, my friend! I begin to feel that I lose strength in these annual struggles and encounters with that miserable scare-crow, who knows as well as I do, that, do what I can he will finally get the better of me, and all of us. Indeed, he has already beat the vizard from my helmet, and the point of my spear is not as it was wont to be. But while it pleases heaven to grant me life, it will, I trust, grant me spirits to bear up against the sawey circumstances of it, and preserve to my last separating sigh, that sensibility to whatever is kind and gracious, which, when once it
possesses the heart, makes, I trust, ample amends for a large portion of human error.

  You may, indeed, believe, that while I am sensible of any thing, I shall be sensible of your friendship; and I have every reason to think, that should my term be drawing nigh to its period, you will continue to love me while I live, and when I am no more, to cherish the memory of

  Your ever faithful and affectionate L. STERNE.

  LETTER XXII. TO ——

  Sunday Morning.

  IF you wish to have the representation of my spare, meagre-form — which, by the bye, is not worth the canvas it must be painted on — you shall be most welcome to it; and I am happy in the reflection, that when my bones shall be laid low, there may be any resemblance of me, which may recall my image to your friendly and sympathizing recollection.

  But you must mention the business to Reynolds yourself; for I will tell you why I cannot. He has already painted a very excellent portrait of me, which, when I went to pay him for, he desired me to accept, as a tribute, to use his own elegant and flattering expression, that his heart wished to pay to my genius. That man’s way of thinking and manners, are at least equal to his pencil.

  You see therefore the delicacy of my situation, as well as the necessity, if the genius of Reynolds is to be employed in the business, of your taking it entirely upon yourself. Or if your friendly impatience which you express with so much kindness, will let you wait till we make our tour to Bath, your favorite Gainshorough may do the deed.