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Graham might be equally objectionable, I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me—that’s certain—but if I find a little pleasure in her society I may surely be allowed to seek it; and if the star of her divinity be bright enough to dim the lustre of Eliza’s, so much the better, but I scarcely can think it.’
Even my conversation with Eliza had been enlivened by her presence, though I knew it not; and now that she was gone, Eliza’s playful nonsense ceased to amuse me—nay, grew wearisome to my soul, and I grew weary of amusing her: I felt myself drawn by an irresistible attraction to that distant point where the fair artist sat and plied her solitary task—and not long did I attempt to resist it: while my little neighbour was exchanging a few words with Miss Wilson, I rose and cannily slipped away.
To-morrow the children would be coming back from Aunt Eliza’s, where they had been sent safely out of the way for a few days, and the last things would arrive,—and he would come. Not later than three in the afternoon he ought to arrive, Kate had said, though there was a possibility that he might come in the morning, but Kate was not counting upon it.
Eliza’s figure was at once slight and plump, her face small, and nearly as round as my sister’s,—complexion, something similar to hers, but more delicate and less decidedly blooming,—nose, retroussé,—features, generally irregular; and, altogether, she was rather charming than pretty.
Naturally Sterne’s letters found readers in Germany, the Yorick-Eliza correspondence being especially calculated to awaken response. The English edition of the “Letters from Yorick to Eliza” was reviewed in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, with a hint that the warmth of the letters might easily lead to a suspicion of unseemly relationship, but the reviewer contends that virtue and rectitude are preserved in the midst of such extraordinary tenderness, so that one may interpret it as a Platonic rather than a sensual affection. Yet this review cannot be designated as distinctive of German opinion, for it contains no opinion not directly to be derived from the editor’s foreword, and that alone; indeed, the wording suggests decidedly that source. The Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitung for April 15, 1775, reviews the same English edition, but the notice consists of an introductory statement of Eliza’s identity and translation of parts of three letters, the “Lord Bathurst letter,” the letter involving the criticism of Eliza’s portraits, and the last letter to Eliza. The translation is very weak, abounding in elementary errors; for example, “She has got your picture and likes it” becomes “Sie hat Ihr Bildniss gemacht, es ist ähnlich,” and “I
‘No, I think not,’ observed Rose; ‘for she didn’t seem very disconsolate after all; and she’s excessively pretty—handsome rather—you must see her, Gilbert; you will call her a perfect beauty, though you could hardly pretend to discover a resemblance between her and Eliza Millward.’ ‘Well, I can imagine many faces more beautiful than Eliza’s, though not more charming.
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