Complete Works of Laurence Sterne

by Laurence Sterne

  “That this was so far from lessening his trouble — that it was the very circumstance which occasioned it.”

  So that upon the whole — when the true value of these, and many more of their current arguments have been weighed and brought to the test — one is led to doubt, whether the greatest part of their heroes, the most renowned for constancy, were not much more indebted to good nerves and spirits, or the natural happy frame of their tempers, for behaving well, than to any extraordinary helps, which they could be supposed to receive from their instructors. And therefore I should make no scruple to assert, that one such instance of patience and resignation as this, which the scripture gives us in the person of Job, of one not pompously declaiming upon the contempt of pain and poverty, but of a man sunk in the lowest condition of humanity, to behold him when stripped of his estate, — his wealth, his friends, his children, — chearfully holding up his head, and entertaining his hard fortune with firmness and serenity, — and this, not from a stoical stupidity, but a just sense of God’s providence, and a persuasion of his justice and goodness in all his dealings. — Such an example, I say, as this, is of more universal use, speaks truer to the heart, than all the heroic precepts, which the pedantry of philosophy have to offer.

  This leads me to the point I aim at in this discourse; — namely, that there are no principles but those of religion to be depended on in cases of real stress, and that these are able to encounter the worst emergencies; and to bear us up under all the changes and chances to which our life is subject.

  Consider then what virtue the very first principle of religion has, and how wonderfully it is conducive to this end. That there is a God, a powerful, a wise and good being, who first made the world and continues to govern it; — by whose goodness all things are designed — and by whose providence all things are conducted to bring about the greatest and best ends. The sorrowful and pensive wretch that was giving way to his misfortunes, and mournfully sinking under them, the moment this doctrine comes in to his aid, hushes all his complaints — and thus speaks comfort to his soul, —

  “It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good, — without his direction I know that no evil can befall me, — without his permission that no power can hurt me, — it is impossible a being so wise should mistake my happiness — or that a being so good should contradict it. If he has denied me riches or other advantages — perhaps he foresees the gratifying my wishes would undo me, and by my own abuse of them be perverted to my ruin. — If he has denied me the request of children, — or in his providence has thought fit to take them from me — how can I say — whether he has not dealt kindly with me, and only taken that away which he foresaw would embitter and shorten my days. — It does so, to thousands, where the disobedience of a thankless child has brought down the parents grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Has he visited me with sickness, poverty, or other disappointments? — can I say, but these are blessings in disguise? — so many different expressions of his care and concern to disintangle my thoughts from this world, and fix them upon another, — another, a better world beyond this!”

  — This thought opens a new scene of hope and consolation to the unfortunate; — and as the persuasion of a providence reconciles him to the evils he has suffered, — this prospect of a future life gives him strength to despise them, and esteem the light afflictions of his life as they are — not worthy to be compared to what is reserved for him hereafter.

  Things are great or small by comparison — and he who looks no further than this world, and ballances the accounts of his joys and sufferings from that consideration, finds all his sorrows enlarged, and at the close of them will be apt to look back, and cast the same sad reflection upon the whole, which the patriarch did to Pharaoh, —

  “That few and evil had been the days of his pilgrimage.”

  But let him lift up his eyes towards heaven, and stedfastly behold the life and immortality of a future state, — he then wipes away all tears from off his eyes for ever and ever; — like the exiled captive, big with the hopes that he is returning home; — he feels not the weight of his chains, or counts the days of his captivity; but looks forward with rapture towards the country where his heart is fled before.

  These are the aids which religion offers us towards the regulation of our spirit under the evils of life, — but like great cordials, — they are seldom used but on greater occurrences. — In the lesser evils of life we seem to stand unguarded — and our peace and contentment are overthrown, and our happiness broke in upon by a little impatience of spirit, under the cross and untoward accidents we meet with. — These stand unprovided for, and we neglect them as we do the slighter indispositions of the body — which we think not worth treating seriously — and so leave them to nature. In good habits of the body, this may do, — and I would gladly believe, there are such good habits of the temper, — such a complexional ease and health of heart, as may often save the patient much medicine. — We are still to consider — that however such good frames of mind are got — they are worth preserving by all rules; — patience and contentment, — which like the treasure hid in the field for which a man sold all he had to purchase — is of that price that it cannot be had at too great a purchase, since without it, the best condition in life cannot make us happy, — and with it, it is impossible we should be miserable even in the worst. — Give me leave therefore to close this discourse with some reflections upon the subject of a contented mind — and the duty in man of regulating his spirit, in our way through life; — a subject in every body’s mouth — preached upon daily to our friends and kindred — but too oft in such a style, as to convince the party lectured, only of this truth; — that we bear the misfortunes of others with excellent tranquility.

  I believe there are thousands so extravagant in their ideas of contentment, as to imagine that it must consist in having every thing in this world turn out the way they wish; — that they are to sit down in happiness, and feel themselves so at ease at all points, as to desire nothing better, and nothing more. I own there are instances of some, who seem to pass through the world, as if all their paths had been strewed with rose buds of delight; — but a little experience will convince us, ’tis a fatal expectation to go upon. — We are born to trouble, and we may depend upon it whilst we live in this world we shall have it, though with intermissions — that is, in whatever state we are, we shall find a mixture of good and evil; and therefore the true way to contentment, is to know to receive these certain vicissitudes of life, — the returns of good and evil, so as neither to be exalted by the one, or overthrown by the other, but to bear ourselves towards every thing which happens, with such ease and indifference of mind, as to hazard as little as may be. This is the true temperate climate fitted for us by nature, and in which every wise man would wish to live. — God knows, we are perpetually straying out of it, and by giving wings to our imaginations in the transports we dream of, from such or such a situation in life, we are carried away alternately into all the extremes of hot and cold, for which as we are neither fitted by nature, or prepared by expectation, we feel them with all their violence, and with all their danger too.

  God, for wise reasons, has made our affairs in this world, almost as fickle and capricious as ourselves. — Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other; and he that knows how to accommodate himself to their periodical returns, can wisely extract the good from the evil, — knows only how to live: — this is true contentment, at least all that is to be had of it in this world, and for this every man must be indebted not to his fortune but to himself. — And indeed it would have been strange, if a duty so becoming us as dependent creatures — and so necessary besides to all our well beings, had been placed out of the reach of any in some measure to put in practice — and for this reason, there is scarce any lot so low, but there is something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befallen; providence having so ordered things, that in every man’s cup, how bitter soever, there are some cordial drops — some
good circumstances, which if wisely extracted are sufficient for the purpose he wants them, — that is, to make him contented, and if not happy, at least resigned. May God bless us all with this Spirit, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Amen.

  The Letters

  Hipperholme Grammar School near Halifax, which Sterne attended from 1724

  LETTERS FROM YORICK TO ELIZA

  This collection of letters was first published posthumously in 1775 and consists of the correspondence between Sterne and Elizabeth Draper, the young wife of an English government official posted in Bombay. Draper was twenty-two when she met Sterne on a visit to England, without her husband. She idolised the famous author and Sterne, whose marriage was far from being a happy one, became infatuated with her. They first met in London in December 1766, but the affair (by modern standards more of an intense flirtation) ended when Draper returned to India early in April 1767.

  Title page of the first edition

  Another of Alison Kauffman’s paintings based on ‘A Sentimental Journey’, showing Sterne’s alter ego, Parson Yorick

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE.

  LETTER I.

  LETTER II.

  LETTER III.

  LETTER IV.

  LETTER V.

  LETTER VI.

  LETTER VII.

  LETTER VIII.

  LETTER IX.

  LETTER X.

  TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

  LORD APSLEY, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND.

  MY LORD,

  THE Editor of the following Letters is so far from having tasted your Lordship’s bounty, that he is, and perhaps ever must remain, a stranger to your person, consequently no adulation is to be apprehended from him —

  He leaves it to the weak and oppressed, the widow and orphan, to proclaim your Lordship’s virtues in your public capacity; that which he would celebrate is of a private nature, namely, your filial affection, which is so conspicuous, that he flatters himself a Volume of Letters written by such a person as Mr. STERNE, in which your noble father is placed in a light so truly amiable, cannot fail of engaging your Lordship’s gracious acceptance and protection — in this hope, and upon this foundation, he presumes to dedicate these papers to your Lordship, and to have the honour of subscribing himself,

  My Lord, your Lordship’s most obedient, and most humble Servant,

  THE EDITOR.

  PREFACE.

  THE foul and infamous traffic, between dishonest booksellers, and profligate scribblers, which has subsisted for more than a century, has justly brought posthumous publications under suspicion, in England, France, and more especially in Holland: ministers of state in every European court, great generals, royal mistresses, authors of established reputation, in a word, all such as have had the misfortune to advance themselves to eminence, have been obliged to leave behind them parcels of letters, and other memoirs, of the most secret and important transactions of their times, in which, every fact beyond the information of a news-paper, or coffee-house chat, is so faithfully misrepresented, every character delineated with such punctual deviation from the truth, and causes and effects which have no possible relation, are with such amazing effrontery obtruded upon the public, that it is no wonder if men of sense, who read for instruction as well as entertainment, generally condemn them in the lump, never, or very rarely, affording them the honour of a perusal, — the publisher of these letters, however, has not the smallest apprehension that any part of this well grounded censure can fall to his share; he deals not in surprising events to astonish the reader, nor in characters (one excepted) which have figured on the great theatre of the world; he purposely waves all proofs which might be drawn concerning their authenticity, from the character of the gentleman who had the perusal of the originals, and, with Eliza’s permission, faithfully copied them at Bombay in the East Indies; from the testimony of many reputable families in this city, who knew and loved Eliza, caressed and admired Mr. Sterne, and were well acquainted with the tender friendship between them; from many curious anecdotes in the letters themselves, any one of which were fully sufficient to authenticate them, and submits his reputation to the taste and discernment of the commonest reader, who must, in one view, perceive that these letters are genuine, beyond any possibility of doubt, — as the public is unquestionably entitled to every kind of information concerning the characters contained in these letters, which consists with the duties of humanity and a good citizen, that is, a minute acquaintance with those of whom honourable mention is made, or the publisher is furnished with authorities to vindicate from Mr. Sterne’s censures, which as a man of warm temper and lively imagination, he was perhaps sometimes hurried into without due reflection, he persuades himself that no party concerned, will or can be offended with this publication, especially if it is considered that without such information it would be cold and unentertaining; that by publishing their merits he cannot be understood to intend them any injury, and without it, he would in himself fail in his duty to the public. — Eliza, the lady to whom these letters are addressed, is Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of Daniel Draper, Esq counsellor at Bombay, and at present chief of the English factory at Surat, a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe — she is by birth an East-Indian; but the circumstance of being born in the country not proving sufficient to defend her delicate frame against the heats of that burning climate, she came to England for the recovery of her health, when by accident she became acquainted with Mr. Sterne. He immediately discovered in her a mind so congenial with his own, so enlightened, so refined, and so tender, that their mutual attraction presently joined them in the closest union that purity could possibly admit of; he loved her as his friend, and prided in her as his pupil; all her concerns became presently his; her health, her circumstances, her reputation, her children, were his; his fortune, his time, his country, were at her disposal, so far as the sacrifice of all or any of these might, in his opinion, contribute to her real happiness. If it is asked whether the glowing heat of Mr. Sterne’s affection never transported him to a flight beyond the limits of pure Platonism, the publisher will not take upon him absolutely to deny it; but this he thinks, so far from leaving any stain upon that gentleman’s memory, that it perhaps includes his fairest encomium; since to cherish the seeds of piety and chastity in a heart which the passions are interested to corrupt, must be allowed to be the noblest effort of a soul fraught and fortified with the justest sentiments of religion and virtue. — Mr and Mrs. James, so frequently and honourably mentioned in these letters, are the worthy heads of an opulent family in this city: their character is too well established to need the aid of the publisher in securing the estimation they so well deserve, and universally possess, yet he cannot restrain one observation; that to have been respected and beloved by Mr. Sterne and Mrs. Draper, is no inconsiderable testimony of their merit, and such as it cannot be displeasing to them to see published to the world. — Miss Light, now Mrs. Stratton, is on all accounts a very amiable young lady — she was accidentally a passenger in the same ship with Eliza, and instantly engaged her friendship and esteem; but being mentioned in one of Mrs. Draper’s letters to Mr. Sterne, in somewhat of a comparative manner with herself, his partiality for her, as she modestly expressed it, took the alarm, and betrayed him into some expressions, the coarseness of which cannot be excused. Mrs. Draper declares that this lady was entirely unknown to him, and infinitely superior to his idea of her: she has been lately married to George Stratton, Esq counsellor at Madrass. — The manner in which Mr. Sterne’s acquaintance with the celebrated Lord Bathurst, the friend and companion of Addison, Swift, Pope, Steele, and all the finest wits of the last age, commenced, cannot fail to attract the attention of the curious reader: here, that great man is social and unreserved, unshackled with that sedulity in supporting a feigned character which exposes most of his rank to the contempt of wise men, and the ridicule of their valets de chambre; here he appears the same as in his hours of festivity and happiness with Swift and Addis
on, superior to forms and ceremonies, and, in his eighty-fifth year, abounding in wit, vivacity, and humanity: methinks, the pleasure of such a gentleman’s acquaintance resembles that of conversing with superior beings; but it is not fit to dwell longer on this pleasing topic, lest it should anticipate the reader’s pleasure in perusing the letter itself. One remark however it suggests, which may be useful to old men in general, namely, that it appears by his Lordship’s example, the sour contracted spirit observable in old age, is not specifically an effect of years, altho’ they are commonly pleaded in its excuse. Old men would therefore do well to correct this odious quality in themselves; or, if that must not be, to invent a better apology for it. It is very much to be lamented, that Eliza’s modesty was invincible to all the publisher’s endeavours to obtain her answers to these letters: her wit, penetration, and judgment, her happiness in the epistolary style, so rapturously recommended by Mr. Sterne, could not fail to furnish a rich entertainment for the public. The publisher could not help telling her, that he wished to God she was really possessed of that vanity with which she was charged; to which she replied, that she was so far from acquitting herself of vanity, that she suspected that to be the cause why she could not prevail on herself to submit her letters to the public eye; for altho’ Mr. Sterne was partial to every thing of her’s, she could not hope that the world would be so too. With this answer he was obliged to be contented; yet cannot reflect without deep concern, that this elegant accomplishment, so peculiarly adapted to the refined and delicate understandings of ladies should be yet so rare, that we can boast of only one Lady Wortley Montagu among us; and that Eliza, in particular, could not be prevailed on to follow the example of that admired lady. — The reader will remark that these letters have various signatures; sometimes he signs Sterne, sometimes Yorick, and to one or two he signs Her Bramin. Altho’ it is pretty generally known who the Bramins are, yet lest any body should be at a loss, it may not be amiss to observe, that the principal cast or tribe among the idolatrous Indians are the Bramins, and out of the chief class of this cast comes the priests so famous for their austerities, and the shocking torments, and frequently death, they voluntarily expose themselves to, on a religious account. Now, as Mr. Sterne was a clergyman, and Eliza an Indian by birth, it was customary with her to call him her Bramin, which he accordingly, in his pleasant moods, uses as a signature. —