July 14. dining & feasting all day at Mr Turner’s — his Lady a fine Woman herself, in love wth your picture — O my dear Lady, cried I, did you but know the Original — but what is she to you, Tristram — nothing; but that I am in Love with her — et cætera — said She — no I have given over dashes — replied! I verily think my Eliza I shall get this Picture set, so as to wear it, as I first purposed — abt my neck — I do not like the place tis in — it shall be nearer my heart — Thou art ever in its centre — good night —
July 15 — From home. (Skelton Castle) from 8 in the morning till late at Supper — I seldom have put thee off, my dear Girl — & yet to morrow will be as bad —
July 16. for Mr Hall has this Day left his Crasy Castle to come and sojourn with me at Shandy Hall for a few days — for so they have long christend our retired Cottage — we are just arrived at it & whilst he is admiring the premisses — I have stole away to converse a few minutes with thee, and in thy own dressing room — for I make every thing thine & call it so, before hand, that thou art to be mistress of hereafter. This Hereafter, Eliza, is but a melancholly term — but the Certainty of its coming to us, brightens it up — pray do not forget my prophecy in the Dedication of the Almanack — I have the utmost faith in it myself — but by what impulse my mind was struck with 3 Years — heaven whom I believe it’s author, best knows — but I shall see yr face before — but that I leave to You — & to the Influence such a Being must have over all inferior ones — We are going to dine with the Arch Bishop to morrow — & from thence to Harrogate for three days, whilst thou dear Soul art pent up in sultry Nastiness — without Variety or change of face or Conversation — Thou shalt have enough of both when I cater for thy happiness Eliza — & if an Affectionate husband & 400 pds a year in a sweeter Vally than that of Jehosophat will do — less thou shalt never have — but I hope more — & were it millions tis the same — twould be laid at thy feet — Hall is come in in raptures with every thing — & so I shut up my Journal for to day & to morrow for I shall not be able to open it where I go — adieu my dear Girl-
18 — was yesterday all the day with our A. Bishop — this good Prelate who is one of our most refined Wits & the most of a gentleman of our order — oppresses me with his kindness — he shews in his treatment of me, what he told me upon taking my Leave — that he loves me, & has a high Value for me — his Chaplains tell me, he is perpetually talking of me — & has such an opinion of my head & heart that he begs to stand Godfather for my next Literary production — so has done me the honr of putting his name in a List which I am most proud of because my Eliza’s name is in it. I have just a moment to scrawl this to thee, being at York — where I want to be employd in taking you a little house, where the prophet may be accommodated with a Chamber in the Wall apart with a stool a Candlestick” — where his Soul can be at rest from the distractions of the world, & lean only upon his kind hostesse. & repose all his Cares, & melt them along with hers on her sympathetic bosom.
July 19. Harrogate Spaws. — drinking the waters here till the 26th — to no effect, but a cold dislike of every one of your sex — I did nothing, but make comparisons betwixt thee my Eliza, & every woman I saw and talk’d to — thou hast made me so unfit for every one else — than I am thine as much from necessity, as Love — I am thine by a thousand sweet ties, the least of which shall never be relax’d — be assured my dear Bramine of this — & repay me in so doing, the Confidence I repose in thee — yr absence, yr distresses, your sufferings; your conflicts, all make me rely but the more upon that fund in you, wch is able to sustain so much weight — Providence I know will relieve you from one part of it — and it shall be the pleasure of my days to ease, my dear friend of the other — ! Love thee Eliza, more than the heart of Man ever loved Woman’s — I even love thee more than I did, the day thou badest me farewel! — Farewell! — Farewell! to thee again — I’m going from hence to York Races. —
July 27. arrived at York. — where I had not been 2 hours before My heart was overset with a pleasure, wch beggard every other, that fate could give me — save thyself — It was thy dear Packets from I ago — I cannot give vent to all the emotions I felt even before I opend them — for I knew thy hand — & my seal — wch was only in thy possession — O tis from my Eliza, said I. — I instantly shut the door of my Bed-chamber, & orderd myself to be denied — & spent the whole evening, and till dinner the next day, in reading over and over again the most interesting Acc — & the most endearing one that ever tried the tenderness of man — I read & wept — and wept and read till I was blind — then grew sick, & went to bed — & in an hour calld again for the Candle — to read it once more — as for my dear Girls pains & her dangers I cannot write ab* them — because I cannot write my feelings or express them any how to my mind —
O Eliza! but I will talk them over with thee with a sympathy that shall woo thee, so much better than I have ever done — That we will both be gainers in the end — I’ll love thee for the dangers thou hast past — and thy Affection shall go hand in hand wth me, because I’ll pity thee — as no man ever pitied Woman — but Love like mine is never satisfied — else yr 2d Letter from Iago — is a Letter so warm, so simple, so tender!
I defy the world to produce such another — by all thats kind & gracious! I will entreat thee Eliza so kndly — that thou shalt say, I merit much of it — nay all — for my merit to thee, is my truth.
I now want to have this week of nonsensical Festivity over — that I may get back, with my picture wch I ever carry abt me — to my retreat and to Cordelia — when the days of our Afflictions are over, I oft amuse my fancy, wth an Idea, that thou wilt come down to me by Stealth, & hearing where I have walk’d out to — surprize me some sweet Shiney night at Cordelia’s grave, & catch me in thy Arms over it — O my Bramin! my Bramin! —
July 31 — am tired to death with the hurrying pleasures of these Races — I want still &c silent ones — so return home to morrow, in search of them — I shall find them as I sit contemplating over thy passive picture; sweet Shadow! of what is to come! for tis all I can now grasp — first and best of woman kind! remember me, as I remember thee — tis asking a great deal my Bramine! — but I cannot be satisfied with less — farwell — fare — happy till fate will let me cherish thee myself. — O my Eliza! thou writest to me with an Angels pen — & thou wouldst win me by thy Letters, had I never seen thy face or known thy heart.
Augst 1. what a sad Story thou hast told me of thy Sufferings & Despondences from St Iago, till thy meeting wth the Dutch Ship — twas a sympathy above Tears — I trembled every Nerve as I went from line to line — & every moment the Acct comes across me — I suffer all I felt, over & over again — will providence suffer all this anguish without end — & without pity?— “it no can be” — I am tried my dear Bramine in the furnace of Affliction as much as thou — by the time we meet, We shall be fit only for each other — & should cast away upon any other Harbour.
Aug3t 2. my wife uses me most unmercifully — every Soul advises me to fly from her — but where can I fly If I fly not to thee? The Bishop of Cork & Ross has made me great offers in Ireland — but I will take no step without thee — & till heaven opens us some track — He is the best of feeling tender hearted men — knows our Story — sends You his Blessing — and says if the Ship you return in touches at Cork (wch many India men do) — he will take you to his palace, till he can send for me to join You — he only hopes, he says, to join us together for ever — but more of this good man, and his attachment to me — hereafter and of and [sic] couple of Ladies in the family &c — &c.
Augt 3. I have had an offer of exchanging two pieces of preferment I hold here (but sweet Cordelia’s Parish is not one of ‘em) for a living of 350 pd s a year in Surry abt 30 miles from London — & retaining Coxwould my Prebendaryship — wch are half as much more — the Country also is sweet — but I will not — I cannot take any step unless I had thee my Eliza for whose sake I live, to consult with — & till the road is open for
me as my heart wishes to advance — with thy sweet light Burden in my Arms, I could get up fast the hill of preferment, if I chose it — but without thee I feel Lifeless — and if a Mitre was offer’d me, I would not have it, till I could have thee too, to make it sit easy upon my brow — I want kindly to smooth thine, & not only wipe away thy tears but dry up the Sourse of them for ever —
Augst 4. Hurried backwards & forwards ab* the arrival of Madame, this whole week — & then farewel I fear to this journal — till I get up to London — & can pursue it as I wish — at present all I can write would be but the History of my miserable feelings — She will be ever present — & if I take up my pen for thee — something will jarr within me as I do it — that I must lay it down again — I will give you one gen. Acct of all my sufferings together — but not in Journals — I shall set my wounds a-bleeding every day afresh by it — & the Story cannot be too short — so worthiest best, kindest & affecte of Souls farewell — every Moment will I have thee present — & sooth my sufferings with the looks my fancy shall cloath thee in — Thou shalt lye down & rise up with me — abt my bed & abt my paths, & shalt see out all my Ways. — adieu — adieu — & remember one eternal truth, My dear Bramine, wch is not the worse, because I have told it thee a thousand times before — That I am thine — & thine only, & for ever.
L. STERNE.
[Postscript.]
Nov:1st All my dearest Eliza has turnd out more favourable than my hopes — Mrs. — & my dear Girl have been 2 Months with me and they have this day left me to go to spend the Winter at York, after having settled every thing to their hearts content — Mrs Sterne retires into france, whence she purposes not to stir, till her death. — & never, has she vow’d, will give me another sorrowful or discontented hour — I have conquerd her, as! Wd every one else, by humanity & Generosity — & she leaves me, more than half in Love wth me — She goes into the South of france, her health being insupportable in England — & her age, as she now confesses ten Years more, than I thought being on the edge of sixty — so God bless — & make the remainder of her Life happy — in order to wch I am to remit her three hundred guineas a year — & give my dear Girl two thousand pds — wth wch all Joy, I agree to, — but tis to be sunk into an annuity in the french Loans —
— And now Eliza! Let me talk to thee — But What can I say, What can I write — But the Yearnings of heart wasted with looking & wishing for thy Return — Return —— Return! my dear Eliza! May heaven smooth the Way for thee to send thee safely to us, & joy for Ever.
The memorial to Eliza Draper in Bristol Cathedral
YORICK’S MEDITATIONS UPON VARIOUS INTERESTING AND IMPORTANT SUBJECTS
CONTENTS
MEDITATION UPON NOTHING.
MEDITATION UPON SOMETHING.
MEDITATION UPON THE THING.
MEDITATION UPON CONSTITUTION.
MEDITATION ON TOBACCO.
MEDITATION ON NOSES.
MEDITATION UPON QUACKS.
MEDITATION UPON MIDWIVES.
MEDITATION UPON THE HOMUNCULUS.
MEDITATION UPON HOBBY-HORSES.
MEDITATION UPON MOMUS’S GLASS.
MEDITATION UPON DIGRESSIONS.
MEDITATION ON OBSCURITY IN WRITING.
MEDITATION UPON NONSENSE.
MEDITATION UPON THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
MEDITATION UPON CUCKOLDS.
MEDITATION UPON THE MAN IN THE MOON.
MEDITATION UPON THE MONADES OF LEIBNITZ.
MEDITATION UPON VIRTÚ.
MEDITATION UPON CONSCIENCE.
MEDITATION UPON DRUNKENNESS.
MEDITATION UPON A CLOSE-STOOL.
MEDITATION THE LAST, OR A MEDITATION UPON MEDITATIONS.
Nec cum porticus aut, me lectica excipit, desum mihi.
HOR. Sat.
MEDITATION UPON NOTHING.
He hems, and is deliver’d of his mouse.
WRAPT up in reflection, I long profoundly meditated upon what every body speaks of, and no body understands — here some sneerer may perhaps ask me what I meditated upon — why I meditated upon the most obstruse object in nature, to deal plainly with you I meditated upon nothing. Nothing, said I to myself, is certainly the most unfathomable object in metaphysics, and yet it has a creative faculty; and if we may believe the philosophical poet of antiquity, is endowed with a power of producing itself.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
LUCRETIUS.
Nothing must come of nothing.
Trifling, however, as this subject may appear, nothing has an importance in itself which the superficial are not aware of. If we may give credit to some of the most profound philosophers, the whole universe was made out of nothing. Nothing is, according to them, the source of all being, and in nothing all being must end. The greatest of all philosophers has declared himself for a vacuum, and a vacuum is certainly a down-right nothing. The more I meditate upon nothing, the more I am convinced of its importance. This same nothing has been of great service to many an author, I could mention one that has lately filled two whole volumes with nothing; the books vastly dear; but what does it contain? why just nothing, and that proves the author’s abilities, any blockhead could write if he had something to say for himself; but he that can write upon nothing must furely be a superlative genius. Well, but are not there such things as religion, virtue, and honour? no, I deny it; and if you wont take my ipse dixit, the church will shew you that there is nothing in the first; the court that there is nothing in the second; and the army and the navy will fully prove that there is nothing in the third. Well, some of my impertinent readers may perhaps ask me what I have in view in thus communicating my meditations to the public; why what should I have in view — nothing at all — do but read five or six pages more, and you’ll see I could have nothing in view. We all were created out of nothing, and in nothing we all must end, according to the system of those sagacious philosophers, the materialists who have discovered that the universe was made out of nothing, and that nothing presides over it.
MEDITATION UPON SOMETHING.
LET me now turn my eyes from the vast abyss of non-entity, and fix them a moment upon — something. Let metaphysicians say what they will, something now must certainly exist, therefore something must have existed from all eternity — pray every day don’t we receive convincing proofs of the existence of something. Perhaps my readers may here grow tired of my meditation, so much the worse for them, for I’ll maintain it in spight of the universe that there is something in it. Let the sagacious reader that may be tempted to think that this meditation turns upon the same subject with the former, read only to the end of the page, and then h’ll see the difference between something and nothing. Some of the malignant and censorious may perhaps here smell a rat — I think I hear some of them say, there must be something at the bottom of this — he has certainly an ill design against religion or government — Sir, my intentions are very good, but such readers as you always find something to carp at. How abstract and inexplicable is the nature of something — how hard is something to be defined? how hard is it often to be found out? For instance now, though every chapter of Tristram’s Life and Opinions teems with something new and extraordinary, many superficial readers have been known to say of it — there may be something in it, but for my part it escapes me — gentlemen, that may very well be; but what has been said of truth, may likewise be said of something, viz. that it lies at the bottom of a well — and there, gentlemen, it must lie till drawn from thence by the bucket of philosophy.
MEDITATION UPON THE THING.
I ASCEND still higher and higher in my meditations — stay awhile, sirs, and you shall see me ascend to the source where the dim speck of entity began — here, no doubt, some lady will interrupt me with a lord, sir, what do you mean? why no modest woman will read you — oh! fie the thing. So, madam, you think I mean country-matters, but I had no such stuff in my thoughts — The thing here meant is what every reader must find in a book, or else he throws it by, and declares the author to be a
damned dull-fellow. You’ll perhaps ask me in what it consists? why, faith I don’t know — suppose I was to ask you in what the smell of the violet consists — could you tell me — you’ll doubtless answer no — because you are no philosopher — well, but I am, and yet I really know as little of the matter as you do yourself. Here one of those blockheads who have usurped the name of philosopher, would advance with a supercilious air, that the smell of a violet proceeded from certain contexture of the small particles of the flower, which is of a nature to affect the organs of those that smell it just as it does, and no otherwise — But what is this but saying, that it consists just in the very thing in which it consists — but to return from this digression to the thing in question.
It has frequently happened, that a book has been by the public in general looked upon as the thing — and has notwithstanding been thought a very bad thing by judicious critics — but this has never happened to any thing of mine — whatever I write will by all the world be allowed to be the thing; and if any one should take upon him to assert, that this meditation is not the thing, I must beg leave to tell him that he has no taste — but this is a digression from my subject — no matter for that, a digression is quite the thing in a history, and surely it must be much more so in a meditation. What’s a meditation, but a collection of the reveries of a mind; and what is of a more moving nature than the mind — so far from thinking in train, it flies from one subject to another, with a rapidity inexpressible — from meditating upon the planetary system, it can with ease deviate into a meditation upon hobby-horses, tho’ there does not appear to be any considerable connexion between the ideas — and yet Hobbs has affirmed, that thoughts have always some connexion.
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 122
