(A year will tire us all out I trow) but thank heaven the post brings me a letter from my Anthony — I felicitate you upon what Messrs. the Reviewers allow you — they have too much judgement themselves not to allow you what you are actually possess’d of,
“talents, wit and humour.”
— Well, write on my dear cousin, and be guided by thy own fancy. — Oh! how I envy you all at Crazy Castle! — I could like to spend a month with you — and should return back again for the vintage. — I honour the man that has given the world an idea of our parental seat— ’tis well done — I look at it ten times a day with a quando te aspiciam? — Now farewell — remember me to my beloved Col. — greet Panty most lovingly on my behalf, and if Mrs. C... and Miss C... &c. are at G.. greet them likewise with a holy kiss — So God bless you.
LETTER XXX. TO MR. F. — , AT PARIS.
Toulouse, August 14, 1762.
My dear F.
AFTER many turnings (alias digressions) to say nothing of downright overthrows, stops, and delays, we have arrived in three weeks at Toulouse, and are now settled in our houses with servants, &c. about us, and look as composed as if we had been here seven years. — In our journey we suffered so much from the heats, it gives me pain to remember it — I never saw a cloud from Paris to Nismes half as broad as a twentyfour sols piece. — Good God! we were toasted, roasted, grill’d, stew’d and carbonaded on one side or other all the way — and being all done enough (assez cuits) in the day, we were eat up at night by bugs, and other unswept out vermin, the legal inhabitants (if length of possession gives right) of every inn we lay at. — Can you conceive a worse accident than that in such a journey, in the hottest day and hour of it, four miles from either tree or shrub which could cast a shade of the size of one of Eve’s fig leaves — that we should break a hind wheel into ten thousand pieces, and be obliged in consequence to sit five hours on a gravelly road, without one drop of water or possibility of getting any — To mend the matter, my two postillions were two dough-hearted fools, and fell a crying — Nothing was to be done! By heaven, quoth I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, something shall be done, for I’ll thrash you both within an inch of your lives — and then make you take each of you a horse, and ride like two devils to the next post for a cart to carry my baggage, and a wheel to carry ourselves — Our luggage weighed ten quintals— ’twas the fair of Baucaire — all the world was going, or returning — we were ask’d by every soul who pass’d by us, if we were going to the fair of Baucaire — No wonder, quoth I, we have goods enough! vous avez raison mes amis —
Well! here we are after all, my dear friend — and most deliciously placed at the extremity of the town, in an excellent house well furnish’d, and elegant beyond any thing I look’d for— ’Tis built in the form of a hotel, with a pretty court towards the town — and behind, the best gardens in Toulouse, laid out in serpentine walks, and so large that the company in our quarter usually come to walk there in the evenings, for which they have my consent —
“the more the merrier.”
— The house consists of a good salle à manger above stairs joining to the very great salle à compagnie as large as the Baron D’Holbach’s; three handsome bed-chambers with dressing rooms to them — below stairs two very good rooms for myself, one to study in, the other to see company. — I have moreover cellars round the court, and all other offices — Of the same landlord I have bargained to have the use of a country-house which he has two miles out of town, so that myself and all my family have nothing more to do than to take our hats and remove from the one to the other — My landlord is moreover to keep the gardens in order — and what do you think I am to pay for all this? neither more or less than thirty pounds a year — all things are cheap in proportion — so we shall live for very very little. — I dined yesterday with Mr. H — he is most pleasantly situated, and they are all well. — As for the books you have received for D — , the bookseller was a fool not to send the bill along with them — I will write to him about it. — I wish you was with me for two months; it would cure you of all evils ghostly and bodily — but this, like many other wishes both for you and myself, must have its completion elsewhere — Adieu my kind friend, and believe that I love you as much from inclination as reason, for
I am most truly yours, L. STERNE.
My wife and girl join in compliments to you — my best respects to my worthy Baron d’Holbach and all that society — remember me to my friend Mr. Panchaud.
LETTER XXXI. TO J. H. S. ESQ.
Toulouse, Oct. 19, 1762.
My dear H.
I Received your letter yesterday — so it has been travelling from Crazy Castle to Toulouse full eighteen days — If I had nothing to stop me I would engage to set out this morning, and knock at Crazy Castle gates in three days less time — by which time I should find you and the colonel, Panty, &c. all alone — the season I most wish and like to be with you — I rejoice from my heart, down to my reins, that you have snatch’d so many happy and sunshiny days out of the hands of the blue devils — If we live to meet and join our forces as heretofore we will give these gentry a drubbing — and turn them for ever out of their usurped citadel — some legions of them have been put to flight already by your operations this last campaign — and I hope to have a hand in dispersing the remainder the first time my dear cousin sets up his banners again under the square tower — But what art thou meditating with axes and hammers? —
“I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart,”
and thou lovest the sweet visions of architraves, friezes and pediments with their tympanums, and thou hast found out a pretence, à raison de cinq cent livres sterling to be laid out in four years, &c. &c. (so as not to be felt, which is always added by the D — as a bait) to justify thyself unto thyself — It may be very wise to do this — but ’tis wiser to keep one’s money in one’s pocket, whilst there are wars without and rumours of wars within. — St. — advises his disciples to sell both coat and waistcoat — and go rather without shirt or sword, than leave no money in their scrip, to go to Jerusalem with — Now those quatre ans consecutifs, my dear Anthony, are the most precious morsels of thy life to come (in this world) and thou wilt do well to enjoy that morsel without cares, calculations, and curses, and damns, and debts — for as sure as stone is stone, and mortar is mortar, &c. ‘twill be one of the many works of thy repentance — But after all, if the Fates have decreed it, as you and I have some time supposed it on account of your generosity,
“that you are never to be a monied man,”
the decree will be fulfilled whether you adorn your castle and line it with cedar, and paint it within side and without side with vermilion, or not — et cela etant (having a bottle of Frontiniac and glass at my right hand) I drink, dear Anthony, to thy health and happiness, and to the final accomplishments of all thy lunary and sublunary projects. — For six weeks together, after I wrote my last letter to you, my projects were many stories higher, for I was all that time, as I thought, journeying on to the other world — I fell ill of an epidemic vile fever which killed hundreds about me — The physicians here are the errantest charlatans in Europe, or the most ignorant of all pretending fools — I withdrew what was left of me out of their hands, and recommended my affairs entirely to Dame Nature — She (dear goddess) has saved me in fifty different pinching bouts, and I begin to have a kind of enthusiasm now in her favour, and in my own, That one or two more escapes will make me believe I shall leave you all at last by translation, and not by fair death. I am now stout and foolish again as a happy man can wish to be — and am busy playing the fool with my uncle Toby, who I have got soused over head and ears in love. — I have many hints and projects for other works; all will go on I trust as I wish in this matter. — When I have reaped the benefit of this winter at Toulouse — I cannot see I have any thing more to do with it, therefore after having gone with my wife and girl to Bagnieres, I shall return from whence I came — Now my wife wants to stay another year to save mone
y, and this opposition of wishes, tho’ it will not be as sour as lemon, yet ‘twill not be as sweet as sugar candy. — I wish T — would lead Sir Charles to Toulouse; ’tis as good as any town in the South of France — for my own part, ’tis not to my taste — but I believe, the ground work of my ennui is more to the eternal platitude of the French characters — little variety, no originality in it at all — than to any other cause — for they are very civil — but civility itself, in that uniform, wearies and bodders one to death — If I do not mind, I shall grow most stupid and sententious — Miss Shandy is hard at it with musick, dancing, and French speaking, in the last of which she does à marveille, and speaks it with an excellent accent, considering she practices within sight of the Pyrenean Mountains. — If the snows will suffer me, I propose to spend two or three months at Barege, or Bagnieres, but my dear wife is against all schemes of additional expences — which wicked propensity (tho’ not of despotick power) yet I cannot suffer — tho’ by the bye laudable enough — But she may talk — I will do my own way, and she will acquiesce without a word of debate on the subject. — Who can say so much in praise of his wife? Few I trow. — M — is out of town vintaging — so write to me, Monsieur Sterne gentilhomme Anglois— ‘twill find me. — We are as much out of the road of all intelligence here as at the Cape of Good Hope — so write a long nonsensical letter like this, now and then to me — in which say nothing but what may be shewn, (tho’ I love every paragraph and spirited stroke of your pen, others might not) for you must know a letter no sooner arrives from England, but curiosity is upon her knees to know the contents. — Adieu dear H. believe me,
Your affectionate, L. STERNE.
We have had bitter cold weather here these fourteen days — which has obliged us to sit with whole pagells of wood lighted up to our noses— ’tis a dear article — but every thing else being extreme cheap, Madame keeps an excellent good house, with soupe, boulli, roti — &c. &c. for two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
LETTER. XXXII. TO MR. F. AT PARIS.
Toulouse, November 9, 1762.
My dear F.
I Have had this week your letter on my table, and hope you will forgive my not answering it sooner — and even to day I can but write you ten lines, being engaged at Mrs. M— ‘s. I would not omit one post more acknowledging the favour — In a few posts I will write you a long one gratis, that is for love — Thank you for having done what I desired you — and for the future direct to me under cover at Monsieur Brousse’s — I receive all letters through him, more punctual and sooner than when left at the post-house —
H— ‘s family greet you with mine — we are much together and never forget you — forget me not to the baron — and all the circle — nor to your domestic circle —
I am got pretty well, and sport much with my uncle Toby in the volume I am now fabricating for the laughing part of the world — for the melancholy part of it, I have nothing but my prayers — so God help them. — I shall hear from you in a post or two at least after you receive this — in the mean time dear F — adieu, and believe no man wishes or esteems you more than your
L. STERNE.
LETTER XXXIII. TO THE SAME.
Toulouse, Dec. 17, 1762.
My dear F —
THE post after I wrote last — I received yours with the inclosed draught upon the receiver, for which I return you all thanks — I have received this day likewise the box and tea all safe and sound — so we shall all of us be in our cups this Christmas, and drink without fear or stint — We begin to live extremely happy, and are all together every night — fiddling, laughing and singing, and cracking jokes. You will scarce believe the news I tell you — There are a company of English strollers arrived here, who are to act comedies all the Christmas, and are now busy in making dresses and preparing some of our best comedies — Your wonder will cease, when I inform you these strollers are your friends with the rest of our society, to whom I proposed this scheme soulagement — and I assure you we do well. — The next week, with a grand orchestra — we play the Busy Body — and the Journey to London the week after, but I have some thoughts of adapting it to our situation — and making it the Journey to Toulouse, which, with the change of half a dozen scenes, may be easily done. — Thus my dear F. for want of something better we have recourse to ourselves, and strike out the best amusements we can from such materials. — My kind love and friendship to all my true friends — My service to the rest. H— ‘s family have just left me, having been this last week with us — they will be with me all the holidays. — In summer we shall visit them, and so balance hospitalities.
Adieu,
Yours most truly, L. STERNE.
LETTER XXXIV. TO THE SAME.
Toulouse, Wednesday, Dec. 4. 1762.
Dear F — ,
I HAVE for this last fortnight every post-day gone to Messrs. B — and sons, in expectation of the pleasure of a letter from you, with the remittance I desired you to send me here. — When a man has no more than half a dozen guineas in his pocket — and a thousand miles from home — and in a country, where he can as soon raise the d — l, as a six livres piece to go to market with, in case he has changed his last guinea — you will not envy my situation. — God bless you — remit me the balance due upon the receipt of this. — We are all at H— ‘s, practising a play we are to act here this Christmas holidays — all the Dramatis Personae are of the English, of which we have a happy society living together like brothers and sisters — Your banker here has just sent me word the tea Mr. H. wrote for is to be delivered into my hands— ’tis all one into whose hands the treasure falls — we shall pay Brousse for it the day we get it — We join in our most friendly, respects, and believe me, dear F — y, truly yours,
L. STERNE.
LETTER XXXV. TO THE SAME.
Toulouse, March 29, 1762.
Dear F — ,
— THO’ that’s a mistake! I mean the date of the place, for I write at Mr. H— ‘s in the country, and have been there with my people all the week — how does Tristram do? you say in yours to him — faith but so-so — the worst of human maladies is poverty — though that is a second lye — for poverty of spirit is worse than poverty of purse, by ten thousand per cent. — I inclose you a remedy for the one, a draught of a hundred and thirty pounds, for which I insist upon a rescription by the very return — or I will send you and all your commissaries to the d — l. — I do not hear they have tasted of one fleshy banquet all this Lent — you will make an excellent grillé — P — they can make nothing of him, but bouillon — I mean my other two friends no ill — so shall send them a reprieve, as they acted out of necessity — not choice — My kind respects to Baron D’ Holbach and all his houshold — Say all that’s kind for me to my other friends — you know how much, dear F — , I am yours,
L. STERNE.
I have not five Louis to vapour with in this land of coxcombs — My wife’s compliments.
LETTER XXXVI. TO THE SAME.
Toulouse, April 18, 1763.
Dear F — ,
I Thank you for your punctuality in sending me the rescription, and for your box by the courier, which came safe by last post. — I was not surprised much with your account of Lord ***** being obliged to give way — and for the rest, all follows in course. — I suppose you will endeavour to fish and catch something for yourself in these troubled waters — at least I wish you all a reasonable man can wish for himself — which is wishing enough for you — all the rest is in the brain. — Mr. Woodhouse (who you know) is also here — he is a most amiable worthy man, and I have the pleasure of having him much with me — in a short time he proceeds to Italy. — The first week in June I decamp like a patriarch with my whole houshold, to pitch our tents for three months at the foot of the Pyrenean Hills at Bagnieres, where I expect much health and much amusement from the concourse of adventurers from all corners of the earth. — Mrs. M — sets out at the same time, for another part of the Pyrenean Hills, at Coutray — from whence to Italy �
� This is the general plan of operation here — except that I have some thoughts of spending the winter at Florence, and crossing over with my family to Leghorn by water — and in April of returning by way of Paris home — but this is a sketch only, for in all things I am governed by circumstances — so that what is fit to be done on Monday, may be very unwise on Saturday — On all days of the week believe me yours,
With unfeigned truth, L. STERNE.
P.S. All compliments to my Parisian friends.
LETTER XXXVII. TO THE SAME.
Toulouse, April 29, 1763.
My dear F — ,
LAST post my agent wrote me word he would send up from York a bill for fourscore guineas, with orders to be paid into Mr. Selwin’s hands for me. This he said he would expedite immediately, so ’tis possible you may have had advice of it — and ’tis possible also the money may not be paid this fortnight, therefore as I set out for Bagnieres in that time, be so good as to give me credit for the money for a few posts or so, and send me either a rescription for the money, or a draught for it — at the receipt of which we shall decamp for ten or twelve weeks — You will receive twenty pounds more on my account, which send also — So much for that — as for pleasure — you have it all amongst you at Paris — we have nothing here which deserves the name. — I shall scarce be tempted to sojourn another winter at Toulouse — for I cannot say it suits my health, as I hoped— ’tis too moist — and I cannot keep clear of agues here — so that if I stay the next winter on this side of the water— ‘twill be either at Nice or Florence — and I shall return to England in April — Wherever I am, believe me, dear F — , that I am,
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 105
