affectionately your’s, L. STERNE.
LETTER II.
Coxwould, July 17, 1764.
AND so you have been at the seats of the learned. — If I could have guessed at such an intention, I would have contrived that something in an epistolary shape should have met you there, with half a dozen lines recommending you to the care of the Master of Jesus. — He was my tutor when I was at College, and a very good kind of man. He used to let me have my way, when I was under his direction, and that shewed his sense, for I was born to travel out of the common road, and to get aside from the highway path, and he had sense enough to see it, and not to trouble me with trammels. I was neither made to be a thill-horse, nor a fore-horse; in short I was not made to go in a team, but to amble along as I liked; and so that I do not kick, or splash, or run over any one, who in the name of common sense has a right to interrupt me? — Let the good folks laugh if they will, and much good may it do them. Indeed, I am persuaded, and I think I could prove, nay, and I would do it, if I were writing a book instead of a letter, the truth of what I once told a very great statesman, orator, politician, and as much more as you please — that every time a man smiles — much more so — when he laughs — it adds something to the fragment of life.
But the staying five days at Cambridge does not come within the immediate reach of my crazy comprehension, and you might have employed your time much, much better, in urging your mettlesome tits to wards Coxwould.
I may suppose that you have been picking a hole in the skirts of Gibb’s cumbrous architecture, or measuring the façade of Trinity College Library, or peering about the gothic perfections of King’s College Chapel, or, which was doing a better thing, sipping tea and talking sentimentally with the Miss Cookes, or disturbing Mr. Gray with one of your enthusiastic visits — I say disturbing him, for with all your own agreeableness, and all your admiration of him, he would rather have your room than your company. But mark me, I do not say this to his glory, but to his shame. For I would be content with any room, so I had your company.
But tell me, I beseech you, what you did with S — all this time. The looking at the heavy walls of muzzing Colleges, and gazing at the mouldy pictures of their founders, is not altogether in his way; nor did he wander where I have whilom wandered, on Cam’s all verdant banks with willows crowned, and call the muse: Alas, he’d rather call a waiter — and how such a milksop as you could travel — I mean be suffered to travel, two leagues in the same chaise with him, I know not — but from that admirable and kind pliability of spirit which you possess whenever you please, but which you do not always please to possess. I do not mean that a man should wear a court dress when he is going to a puppet-show; but, on the other hand, to keep the best suit of embroidery for those only whom he loves, though there is something noble in it, will never do. The world, my dear friend, will not let it do. For while there are such qualities in the human mind as ingratitude and duplicity, unlimited confidence and this patriotism of friendship, which I have heard you rave and rant about, is a very dangerous business.
I could preach a sermon on the subject — to say the truth, I am got as grave as if I were in my pulpit. Thus are the projects of this life destroyed. When I took up my pen, my humour was gay, frisky, and fanciful — and now I am sliding into all the see-saw gravity of solemn councils. I want nothing but an ass to look over my pales and set up a braying to keep me in countenance.
Leave, leave your Lincolnshire seats, and come to my dale; S — , I know, is heartily tired of you. Besides I want a nurse, for I am not quite well, and have taken to milk-coffee. Remember me, however, to him kindly, and to yourself cordially, for
I am yours, most truly, L. STERNE.
LETTER III. TO W. C. ESQ.
Coxwould, Aug. 5, 1764.
AND so you sit in S— ‘s temple and drink tea, and converse classically: — now I should like to know what is the nature of this disorder which you call classicality; — if it consists in a rage to converse on ancient subjects in a modern manner; or on modern subjects in an antient one; — or are you both out of your senses, and do you fancy yourselves with Virgil and Horace at Sinuessa, or with Tully and Atticus at Tusculum? Oh how it would delight me to peep at you from behind a laurel bush, and see you surrounded with columns and covered by a dome, quaffing the extract of a Chinese weed, and talking of men who boasted the inspiration of the Falernian grape!
What a couple of vapid, inert beings you must be! — I should really give you up for lost, if it were not for the confidence I have in the reinvigorating powers of my society, to which you must now have immediate recourse, if you wish for a restoration. Make haste then, my good friend, and seek the aid of your physician ere it be too late.
You know not the interest I take in your welfare. Have I not ordered all the linen to be taken out of the press, and rewashed before it was dirty, that you may have a clean table cloth every day, with a napkin into the bargain? And have I not ordered a kind of windmill, that makes my head ach again with its clatter, to be placed in my fine cherry-tree, that the fruit may be preserved from the birds, to furnish you a desert? And do you not know that you will have curds and cream for your supper? Think on these things, and let S — go to Lincoln sessions by himself, and talk classically with country justices. In the mean time we will philosophize and sentimentalize; — the last word is a bright invention of the moment in which it was written, for yours or Dr. Johnson’s service, — and you shall sit in my study and take a peep into the world as into a show-box, and amuse yourself as I present the pictures of it to your imagination. Thus will I teach you to laugh at its follies, to pity its errors, and despise its injustice; — and I will introduce you, among the rest, to some tender-hearted damsel, on whose cheeks some bitter affliction has placed a tear; — and having heard her story, you shall take a white handkerchief from your pocket to wipe the moisture from her eyes, and from your own: — and then you shall go to bed, not to the damsel, but with an heart conscious of those sentiments, and possessed of those feelings, which will give softness to your pillow, sweetness to your slumbers, and gladness to your waking moments.
You shall sit in my porch, and laugh at attic vestibules. I love the classics as well as any man ought to love them, — but among all their fine sayings, their fine writings, and their fine verses, their most enthusiastic admirer would not be able to find me half a dozen stories that have any sentiment in them, — and so much for that.
If you don’t come soon, I shall set about another volume of Tristram without you. So God bless you, for
I am your’s most truly, L. STERNE.
LETTER IV. TO —— .
Coxwould, near Easingwould, August 8, 1764.
I AM grieved for your downfall, though it was only out of a park-chair — May it be the last you will receive in this world; though, while I write this wish, my heart heaves a deep sigh, and I believe it will not be read by you, my friend, without a similar accompaniment.
Alas! alas! my dear boy, you are born with talents to soar aloft with; but you have an heart, which, my apprehensions tell me, will keep you low. — I do not mean, you know I do not, any thing base or grovelling; — but, instead of winging your way above the storm, I am afraid that you will calmly submit to its rigours, and house yourself afterwards in some humble shed, and there live contented, and chaunt away the time, and be lost to the world.
How the wind blows I know not; and I have not an inclination to walk to my window, where, perhaps, I might catch the course of a cloud and be satisfied, — but here I am up to my knees — I should rather say up to my heart, in a subject, which is ever accompanied with some afflicting vaticination or other. I am not afraid of your doing any wrong but to yourself. A secret knowledge of some circumstances which you have never communicated to me, have alarmed my affection for you — not from any immediate harm they can produce, but from the conviction they have forced upon me, concerning your disposition, and the nicer parts of your character. If you do not come soon to me, I sha
ll take the wings of some fine morning and fly to you; but I should rather have you here; for I wish to have you alone; and if you will let me be a Mentor to you for one little month, I will be content — and you shall be a Mentor to me the rest of the year; or, if you will, the rest of my days.
I long, most anxiously, my dear friend, to teach you — not to give an opiate to those sensibilities of your nature, which make me love you as I do; nor to check your glowing fancy, that gives such grace to polish’d youth; nor to yield the beverage of the fountain for the nectar of the cask; but to use the world no better, or to please you a very little better, than it deserves. — But think not, I beseech you, that I would introduce my young Telemachus to such a foul and squint-eyed piece of pollution as Suspicion. Avaunt to such a base ungenerous passion! I would sooner carry you to Calypso at once, and give you at least a little pleasure for your pains. But there is a certain little spot to be found somewhere in the mid-way between trusting every body and trusting nobody; and so well am I acquainted with the longitudes, latitudes, and bearings of this world of ours, that I could put my finger upon it, and direct you at once to it; and I think I could give you so many good reasons why you should go there, that you would not hesitate to set off immediately, and I would accompany you thither, and serve as a Cicerone to you. I wish therefore much, very much, to talk with you about that and other serious matters.
As for your bodily infirmity, never mind it; you may come here by gentle stages, and without inconvenience; and I will be your surgeon, or your nurse; and warm your verjuice every evening, and bathe your sprain with it, and talk of these things. So tell me, I pray you, the day that I am to meet you at York. In the mean time, and always may a good Providence protect you — It is the sincere wish of
Your affectionate, L. STERNE:
LETTER V. TO W. C — . ESQ.
Wednesday Morning:
THIS letter will meet you at Hewit’s, instead of myself; for I have taken some how or other, and I know not how, a very violent cold, and cannot come; and as I would receive you with my best looks, if possible, as well as my best welcome, I am nursing myself into some sort of restoration against your arrival; though my cough torments me without mercy, and I am so hoarse at this moment, that I can scarce make myself heard across my table.
This phthisic of mine will sooner or later, and, perhaps, sooner than either I or you, my friend, may think, bear me to my last asylum from a splenetic world. You will say, perhaps, that I am splenetic also in my turn by writing thus gravely; — but as I well know this vile cough is the engine which that scare-crow death employs to shatter my poor frame, and bring it to his dominion, how can I be merry or satisfied? — It is true, I love laughing and merry-making, and all that, as well as any soul upon earth; nevertheless, I cannot think of piping and taboring it out of the world, like the figures in Holbein’s dance. Besides I have been so used to my own way, that I don’t like to be put out of it, by being made to cough so villainously as I do, more than half my time. It is most inurbane in him, — by Heaven, it is cowardly in the rascal, to rob me of those spirits, with which I have so often defeated him.
And this is not all, — for I have forty volumes more to write; nay, and have absolutely promised the world to do it; and I have my engagements to you as well as to the world — and to myself as well as to you both; and how shall I keep my word as an author and a gentleman, and what is of more consequence than either — as a friend, — if I cannot shake off this piece of anatomy: Besides, no one can do these things for me but myself; the business is beyond all power of attorney; for if I were to leave fifty executors to my last will and testament, and if they were to be joined by a regiment of administrators and assigns, they could not take up their pens and do as I would do.
But what a wayward fancy mine is! — and with what a seducing pen am I writing — for I am got leagues without number from the idea which danced before me, when I first began this letter. And here I am wrong again: — for what great distance can there be between the grave of my grandfather and my own; and it was to his tomb that I wished to conduct you!
I know full well, that all sprained your ancle may be, it will be wholly impossible for you to pass through York, without popping your head into its cathedral, and indulging your mind with a few of those reflections which such a building is calculated to inspire. Now, when you are there, tell a verger to conduct you to the tomb of Archbishop Sterne. He is the same whose picture you saw at Cambridge, and which you were pleased to say, bore so strong a resemblance to me. In the marble whole length figure which dignifies the monument, you will find the likeness still stronger: and if I drop in this corner of the world, I should like to be deposited in that corner of the church, and sleep out my last sleep beside my pious ancestor.
He was an excellent prelate and an honest man: — I have not half his virtues, if report speaks true of us both, which, for his sake, I hope it does — and for my own, I hope it does not. Though, to use an expression which dropped from the lips and at the table of a brother Arch-prelate of his, and one of his successors, “My ideas are sometimes rather too disorderly for a man in orders.” In his Grace’s Concio ad clerum, I do not find myself a very principal figure, but in his private hours, he is always most cordial to me.
The day after to-morrow, I shall hope to embrace you at my gate; till then, my dear friend, may God bless you — and always.
Your’s, most affectionately, L. STERNE.
LETTER VI. TO —— .
Coxwould, Monday Morning.
I SHALL forgive the tardiness of your passage hither, if it be true, as a still small voice of a York gossip has informed me, that you repose, with your infirm limb, on a sofa, in Mrs.— ‘s withdrawing room, and have your coffee and tea handed you by her two daughters, and one of them has charms enough for the three Graces — and that they play on their harpsichord, and, with voices stolen from heaven, sing duets to you, while you, stretched on damask, command, as it were, that little world of beauty and good sense which surrounds you.
You cannot, my good friend, have known the charming people, with whom you are so happy, more than eight and forty hours at most. Now I make this observation, merely to have the pleasure of making another, which is, that you have learned the art, and a very comfortable one it is, of setting yourself at ease with worthy spirits, when you have the good fortune to meet them. Indeed, I may claim the credit of having taught you the maxim, that life is too short to be long in forming the tender and happy connections of it. ’Tis a miserable waste of time, as well as a very base business, to be looking at each other, as an usurer looks at a security, to find a flaw in it. No: — if you meet a heart worth being admitted into, and you really feel yourself worthy of admission, the matter is arranged in five hours, as well as five years.
Hail, ye gentle sympathies, that can approach two amiable hearts to each other, and chase every discordant idea from an union that nature has designed by the same happy colouring of character that she has given them! — But lucus a non lucendo — I have received a kind of dish dash sort of letter from Garrick — out of which all my chemistry cannot extract a sympathetic atom. I am glad, however, to have an opportunity of writing a short answer to him, that I may address a long postscript to his cara sposa.
I love Garrick on the stage, better than any thing in the world, except Mrs. Garrick off it; and if there is any one heart in the world I should like to get a corner of — it would be hers. But I am too great a sinner to do more than approach the portal of so much excellence — there to bend one knee at least, and ejaculate at a distance from the altar.
I have often thought on what this spirit of idolatry, which is continually bearing me to the feet of some fair image or other, will do with me twenty years hence; and whether, after having had, during my younger days, a damsel to smooth my pillow — I should find one, in my age, to put on my slipper. However, I need not trouble myself or you about these conjectures; for I well know there is not life in me to make the experiment.
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This instant brings me a letter from your kind hostess, who is determined not to let you go till I come to fetch you. — Tomorrow, by noon, therefore, I shall embrace you, and her — and — the damsels.
I am, most cordially yours, L. STERNE.
LETTTER VII. TO —— , ESQ.
Crazy Castle.
THOUGH I hope and trust you believe that I am not only disposed to laugh with those who laugh, but to weep with those who weep; — yet it is most true, my dear friend, that I could not but smile as I read the account you sent me of your distress and disappointment; and when I gave your letter to Hall, for you see I am at Crazy Castle, he laughed the tears into his eyes.
Now you must not suppose, nor can you imagine, that either of us trifled with your sufferings, for you know I love you, and Hall says you are a lad of promise; but we were merry at the amiable simplicity of your nature, in wondering that there is ever any villainy in a villainous world; and at the idea, how little a time you were destined to possess that delicious — for I will call it with all its scrapes and duperies, a delicious sentiment. You have just opened the volume of life, and startle to find a blot in the first page; alas! alas! as you proceed, you will find whole pages so blotted and blurred, that you will scarce be able to distinguish the characters. ’Tis a sorry business I must confess, to plant suspicion in a breast that has never known it, and to check the glow of hope which animates the beginning of the journey, by pointing out the interruptions and dangers that will be necessarily encountered in the course of it: But this is the duty of friendship, and arises from the nature of our existence and the state of the world. If, however, after all, you can acquire an useful experience, and be taught to put yourself on your guard, at the expence of a few score guineas, you have made a good bargain: — so be content, and no more of your complainings.
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 93