— To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care is, — who live here in the service of two of the best of masters — (bating in my own case his majesty King William the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both in Ireland and Flanders) — I own it, that from Whitsuntide to within three weeks of Christmas,— ’tis not long— ’tis like nothing; — but to those, Jonathan, who know what death is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can well wheel about,— ’tis like a whole age. — O Jonathan! ‘twould make a good-natured man’s heart bleed, to consider, continued the Corporal, (standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time! — And trust me, Susy, added the Corporal, turning to Susannah, whose eyes were swimming in water, — before that time comes round again, — many a bright eye will be dim. — Susannah placed it to the right side of the page — she wept — but she curt’sied too. — Are we not, continued Trim, looking still at Susannah, — are we not like a flower of the field — a tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation — else no tongue could have described Susannah’s affliction — is not all flesh grass?— ’Tis clay,— ’tis dirt. — They all look’d directly at the scullion, — the scullion, had just been scouring a fish-kettle — It was not fair. —
— What is the finest face that ever man looked at! — I could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried Susannah, — what is it! (Susannah laid her hand upon Trim’s shoulder) — but corruption? — Susannah took it off.
— Now I love you for this — and ’tis this delicious mixture within you, which makes you dear creatures what you are — and he who hates you for it — all I can say of the matter is — That he has either a pumpkin for his head — or a pippen for his heart, — and whenever he is dissected ‘twill be found so.
For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at all: — not this . . added the Corporal, snapping his fingers, — but with an air which no one but the Corporal could have given to the sentiment. — in battle, I value death not this. . . and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbins, in scouring his gun. — What is he? A pull of a trigger — a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that — makes the difference. — Look along the line — to the right — see! Jack’s down! well,— ’tis worth a regiment of horse to him. — No— ’tis Dick, Then Jack’s no worse. Never mind which, — we pass on, — in hot pursuit the wound itself which brings him is not felt, — the best way is to stand up to him, — the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws. — I’ve look’d him, added the Corporal, an hundred times in the face, — and know what he is — He’s nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field. — But he’s very frightful in a house, quoth Obadiah. — I never mind it myself, said Jonathan, upon a coach-box.
I pity my mistress. — She will never get the better of it, cried Susannah. — Now I pity the Captain the most of any one in the family, answered Trim. — Madam will get ease of heart in weeping, — and the Squire in talking about it, — but my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself. — I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for Lieutenant Le Fever. An’ please your honour, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid beside him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would say,— ’tis so melancholy an accident — I cannot get it off my heart. — Your honour fears not death yourself. — I hope, Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a wrong thing. — Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fever’s boy. — And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour would sall asleep.
I like to hear Trim’s stories about the Captain, said Susannah. — He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said Obadiah, as ever lived. — Aye, — and as brave a one too, said the Corporal, as ever stept before a platoon. There never was a better officer in the king’s army, — or a better man in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole, — and yet, for all that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people. — He would not hurt a chicken. — I would sooner, quoth Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year — than some for eight. — Thank thee, Jonathan! for thy twenty shillings, — as much, Jonathan, said the Corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into my own pocket. — I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. He is a friend and a brother to me, — and could I be sure my poor brother Tom was dead, — continued the Corporal, taking out his handkerchief, — was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the Captain. — Trim could not refrain from tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master. — The whole kitchen was affected.
TRIS. SHANDY, VOL. III. C. 7.
MR. SHANDY’S RESIGNATION FOR THE LOSS OF HIS SON.
PHILOSOPHY has a fine saying for every thing — For Death it has an entire set.
“’Tis an inevitable chance — the first statute in Magna Charta — it is an everlasting act of parliament — All must die.”
“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.”
“ — To die, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller’s horizon. — Kingdoms and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them together, have performed their several Revolutions, they fall back.— “
“Where is Troy, and Mycenae, and Thebes, and Delos, and Persepolis, and Agrigentum? — What is become of Nineveh and Babylon, of Cyzicum, and Mitylenae? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more: the names only are left, and those [for many of them are wrong spelt] are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night: the world itself — must must come to an end.”
“Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara, I began to view the country round about. Aegina was behind me, Megara was before, Pyraeus on the right hand, Corinth on the left. — What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his presence. — Remember, said I to myself again — remember thou art a man.— “
“My son is dead! — so much the better;— ’tis a shame in such a tempest to have but one anchor.”
“But he is gone for ever from us! — be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was bald — he is, but risen from a feast before he was surfeited — from a banquet before he had got drunken.”
“The Thracians wept when a child was born — and feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world; and with reason. Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it, — it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands.”
“Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll shew thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.”
THE END
The Biographies
Shandy Hall in Coxwold, where Sterne lived from 1760 until his death. The house is named after Tristram Shandy’s family home, in Sterne’s novel
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REVEREND MR. LAURENCE STERNE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
ROGER STERNE, (grandson to Archbishop Sterne) Lieutenant in Hand aside’s regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family: her family name was (I believe) Nuttle — though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Ann’s wars, where my father married his wife’s daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in September 25, 1711, Old Stile. — This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother — a fine person of a man but a graceless whelp �
� what became of him I know not. — The family (if any left), live now at Clomwel in the south of Ireland, at which town I was born November 24th, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk. — My birth-day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers broke, and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife and two children — the elder of which was Mary; she was born in Lisle in French Flanders, July the tenth, one thousand seven hundred and twelve, New Stile. — This child was most unfortunate — she married one Weemans in Dublin — who used her most unmercifully — spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself, — which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend’s house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman — of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.
The family tree tracing the descendents of Laurence Sterne
The regiment, in which my father served, being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our houshold decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin — within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool by land to Plymouth. (Melancholy description of this journey not necessary to be transmitted here). In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. — My mother, with three of us, (for she laid in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away by a leak springing up in the vessel. — At length, after many perils, and struggles, we got to Dublin. — There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half’s time spent a great deal of money. — In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhing’d again; the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and was driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol, from thence by land to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight — where I remember we stayed encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops — (in this expedition from Bristol to Hampshire we lost poor Joram — a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox), my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo Expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow in Ireland, from whence my father sent for us. — We had poor Joram’s loss supplied during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen. — This pretty blossom fell at the age of three years, in the Barracks of Dublin — she was, as I well remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last long, as were most of my father’s babes. — We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at length got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow, where my father had for some Weeks given us over for lost. — We lived in the barracks at Wicklow, one year, (one thousand seven hundred and twenty) when Devijeher (so called after Colonel Devijeher,) was born; from thence we decamped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow, who being a relation of my mother’s, invited us to his parsonage at Animo. — It was in this parish, during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt — the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland — where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me. — From hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the barracks a year. — In this year, one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one, I learned to write, &c. — The regiment, ordered in twenty-two, to Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland; we all decamped, but got no further than Drogheda, thence ordered to Mullengar, forty miles west, where by Providence we stumbled upon a kind relation, a collateral descendant from Archbishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle and kindly entreated us for a year — and sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, &c. — a most rueful and tedious journey had we all, in March, to Carrickfergus, where we arrived in six or seven days — little Devijeher here died, he was three years old — He had been left behind at nurse at a farmhouse near Wicklow, but was fetch’d to us by my father the summer after — another child sent to fill his place, Susan; this babe too left us behind in this weary journey — The autumn of that year, or the spring afterwards, (I forget which) my father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school — which he did near Halifax, with an able master; with whom I staid some time, ‘till by God’s care of me my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, and sent me to the university, &c. &c. To pursue the thread of our story, my father’s regiment was the year after ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was brought forth, Catherine, still living, but most unhappily estranged from me by my uncle’s wickedness, and her own folly — from this station the regiment was sent to defend Gibraltar, at the seige, where my father was run through the body by Captain Phillips, in a duel, (the quarrel begun about a goose) with much difficulty he survived — tho’ with an impaired constitution, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to — for he was sent to Jamaica, where he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made a child of him, and then, in a month or two, walking about continually without complaining, till the moment he sat down in an arm chair, and breathed his last — which was at Port Antonio, on the north of the island. — My father was a little smart man — active to the last degree, in all exercises — most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of which it pleased God to give him full measure — he was in his temper somewhat rapid, and hasty — but of a kindly, sweet disposition, void of all design; and so innocent in his own intentions, that he suspected no one; so that you might have cheated him ten times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose — my poor father died in March 1731 — I remained at Halifax ‘till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself, and school-master — He had had the cieling of the school-room new white-washed — the ladder remained there — I one unlucky day mounted it, and wrote with a brush in large capital letters, LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to preferment — this expression made me forget the stripes I had received — In the year thirty-two my cousin sent me to the university, where I staid some time. ’Twas there that I commenced a friendship with Mr. H... which has been most lasting on both sides — I then came to York, and my uncle got me the living of Sutton — and at York I become 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 — she went to her sister’s in S — , and I wrote to her often — I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but would not say so — at her return she fell into a consumption — and one evening that I was sitting by her with an almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said,
“my dear Lawrey, I can never be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live — but I have left you every shilling of my fortune;”
— upon that she shewed me her will — this generosity overpowered me. — It pleased God that she recovered, and I married her in the year 1741. My uncle and myself were then upon very good terms, for he soon got me the Prebendary of York — but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the newspapers — though he was a partyman, I was not, and detested such dirty work: thinking it beneath me — from that period, he became my bitterest enemy. — By my wife’s means I got t
he living of Stillington — a friend of her’s in the south had promised her, that if she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places — I had then very good health. — Books, painting, fiddling, and shooting were my amusements; as to the ‘Squire of the parish, I cannot say we were upon a very friendly footing — but at Stillington, the family of the C — s shewed us every kindness— ’twas most truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family, who were ever cordial friends — In the year 1760, I took a house at York for your mother and yourself, and went up to London to publish my two first volumes of Shandy. In that year Lord F — presented me with the curacy of Coxwold — a sweet retirement in comparison of Sutton. In sixty-two I went to France before the peace was concluded, and you both followed me. — I left you both in France, and in two years after I went to Italy for the recovery of my health — and when I called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return to England, with me — she and yourself are at length come — and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my girl every thing I wished her.
I have set down these particulars relating to my family, and self, for my Lydia, in case hereafter she might have a curiosity, or a kinder motive to know them.
IN justice to Mr. Sterne’s delicate feelings, I must here publish the following letters to Mrs. Sterne, before he married her, when she was in Staffordshire — A good heart breathes in every line of them.
STERNE by H.D. Traill
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 141