Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
and perhaps the next page melts us into tears by a pathos only equalled by that of Sterne's sick Lieutenant. He is Montaigne and Bacon under one hat. His varied qualities would suffice for the mental furnishing of half a dozen literary specialists. To those who have enjoyed the privilege of his intimate acquaintance, the man himself is more than the author.
So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequels heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of this random philosopher. Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration.
This, however, belongs more rightfully to the consideration of the creative and dramatic element in Sterne's genius; and an earlier place in the analysis is claimed by that power over the emotion of pity upon which Sterne, beyond question, prided himself more highly than upon any other of his gifts.
Sterne's first love affair an affair of which, unfortunately, the consequences were more lasting than the passion took place immediately upon his leaving Cambridge. To relate it as he relates it to his daughter: "At York I became acquainted with your mother, and courted her for two years. She owned she liked me, but thought herself not rich enough or me too poor to be joined together.
Adieu, dear S^r, I am most sincerely yours, TG: August 26, 1766, Pembroke College. Mr. Brown is gone to see his Brother near Margate. When is L^d Str: to be married? If M^r and M^rs Jonathan are with you, I desire my compliments. Anstey's referred to in the Introduction. By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson. Lord Strathmore.
Halloway bore her, unopposed, a pace or two in advance, and deposited her unconscious form on the fatal coffin. No language of ours can render justice to the trying character of the scene. All who witnessed it were painfully affected, and over the bronzed cheek of many a veteran coursed a tear, that, like that of Sterne's recording angel, might have blotted out a catalogue of sins.
Women are, perhaps, more inclined than men to forgive external roughness in consideration of the great charm of deep tenderness in a thoroughly masculine nature. A characteristic phrase was his remark to Miss Monckton. She had declared, in opposition to one of Johnson's prejudices, that Sterne's writings were pathetic: "I am sure," she said, "they have affected me."
"Au contraire, I think it rather disagreeable, for the sunshine cheats one into the belief of warmth, and we go forth less warmly clad in consequence, so return home chilled by the sharp cold air which always prevails at this season, and find, as never fails to be the case, that our stupid servants have let out the fires, because, truly, the sun was shining in the cold blue sky." reminds me of the man mentioned in Sterne's works, who, when his friend looking on a beautiful prospect, compared a green field with a flock of snowy-fleeced sheep on it, to a vast emerald studded with pearls, answered that he could see nothing in it but grass and mutton.
Sterne's matrimonial relations are the most famous of all: and though posterity has, with its usual charity, constructed a legend for the pair which is probably much worse than the reality, that reality is more than a little awkward. Mrs. Sterne was a Miss Lumley, of a good Yorkshire family, some, though small, fortune, and more friends who exerted themselves for her husband.
He paused an instant; then a light broke over his face, and his burst of quiet laughter was infinitely pleasant to hear. Rose got redder and redder. She realized dimly that she was hardly maintaining the spirit of their contract, and that he was studying her with eyes inconveniently bright and penetrating. 'Shall I quote to you, he said, 'a sentence of Sterne's?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking