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A Sentimental Journey

L >> Laurence Sterne >> A Sentimental Journey



Transcribed from the 1892 George Bell and Son edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY




They order, said I, this matter better in France.--You have been in
France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most
civil triumph in the world.--Strange! quoth I, debating the matter
with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely
no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: --
I'll look into them: so, giving up the argument,--I went straight
to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk
breeches,--"the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve,
"will do;"--took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing
at nine the next morning,--by three I had got sat down to my dinner
upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I
died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have
suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine;--my shirts, and
black pair of silk breeches,--portmanteau and all, must have gone
to the King of France;--even the little picture which I have so
long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with
me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck!--Ungenerous!
to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects
had beckoned to their coast!--By heaven! Sire, it is not well
done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch of a people so
civilized and courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine
feelings, that I have to reason with! -

But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -


CALAIS.


When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health,
to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary,
high honour for the humanity of his temper,--I rose up an inch
taller for the accommodation.

- No--said I--the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be
misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.
As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my
cheek--more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least
of two livres a bottle, which was such as I had been drinking)
could have produced.

- Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in
this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so
many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by
the way?

When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is
the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and
holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he
sought for an object to share it with.--In doing this, I felt every
vessel in my frame dilate,--the arteries beat all cheerily
together, and every power which sustained life, performed it with
so little friction, that 'twould have confounded the most physical
precieuse in France; with all her materialism, she could scarce
have called me a machine. -

I'm confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her creed.

The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as
she could go;--I was at peace with the world before, and this
finish'd the treaty with myself. -

- Now, was I King of France, cried I--what a moment for an orphan
to have begg'd his father's portmanteau of me!


THE MONK. CALAIS.


I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of
St. Francis came into the room to beg something for a his convent.
No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies--or one
man may be generous, as another is puissant;--sed non quoad hanc--
or be it as it may,--for there is no regular reasoning upon the
ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same
causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves:
'twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I'm sure
at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly
satisfied, to have it said by the world, "I had had an affair with
the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame," than have it
pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
of both.

- But, be this as it may,--the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I
was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly,
I put my purse into my pocket--buttoned it--set myself a little
more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was
something, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this
moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which
deserved better.

The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might
be about seventy;--but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which
was in them, which seemed more temper'd by courtesy than years,
could be no more than sixty: --Truth might lie between--He was
certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance,
notwithstanding something seem'd to have been planting-wrinkles in
it before their time, agreed to the account.

It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted,--mild,
pale--penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
ignorance looking downwards upon the earth;--it look'd forwards;
but look'd as if it look'd at something beyond this world.--How one
of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a
monk's shoulders best knows: but it would have suited a Bramin,
and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.

The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither
elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so:
it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it
lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure,--but it
was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my
imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.

When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and
laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with
which he journey'd being in his right)--when I had got close up to
him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of
his convent, and the poverty of his order;--and did it with so
simple a grace,--and such an air of deprecation was there in the
whole cast of his look and figure,--I was bewitch'd not to have
been struck with it.

- A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single
sous.


THE MONK. CALAIS.


- 'Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes,
with which he had concluded his address;--'tis very true,--and
heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the
world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the
many GREAT CLAIMS which are hourly made upon it.

As I pronounced the words GREAT CLAIMS, he gave a slight glance
with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic: --I felt the
full force of the appeal--I acknowledge it, said I: --a coarse
habit, and that but once in three years with meagre diet,--are no
great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn'd
in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish
to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of
the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm;--the captive who lies
down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the ORDER
OF MERCY, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am,
continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it
have been open'd to you, for the ransom of the unfortunate.--The
monk made me a bow.--But of all others, resumed I, the unfortunate
of our own country, surely, have the first rights; and I have left
thousands in distress upon our own shore.--The monk gave a cordial
wave with his head,--as much as to say, No doubt there is misery
enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent-
-But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his
tunic, in return for his appeal--we distinguish, my good father!
betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour--
and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other
plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, FOR THE
LOVE OF GOD.

The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass'd
across his cheek, but could not tarry--Nature seemed to have done
with her resentments in him;--he showed none: --but letting his
staff fall within his arms, he pressed both his hands with
resignation upon his breast, and retired.


THE MONK. CALAIS.


My heart smote me the moment he shut the door--Psha! said I, with
an air of carelessness, three several times--but it would not do:
every ungracious syllable I had utter'd crowded back into my
imagination: I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan,
but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the
disappointed, without the addition of unkind language.--I
consider'd his gray hairs--his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter
and gently ask me what injury he had done me?--and why I could use
him thus?--I would have given twenty livres for an advocate.--I
have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just
set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
along.


THE DESOBLIGEANT. CALAIS.


When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage
however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for
making a bargain. Now there being no travelling through France and
Italy without a chaise,--and nature generally prompting us to the
thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy
or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old desobligeant
in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight,
so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony
with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein,
the master of the hotel: --but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
at the inn,--I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being
determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote
the preface to it in the desobligeant.


PREFACE. IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.


It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain
boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she
has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by
laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his
ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home. It is there only that
she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of
his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which in all
countries and ages has ever been too heavy for one pair of
shoulders. 'Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of
spreading our happiness sometimes beyond HER limits, but 'tis so
ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and
dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs, and
habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our
sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total
impossibility.

It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy
what he has little occasion for, at their own price;--his
conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a
large discount,--and this, by the by, eternally driving him into
the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he
can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his
party -

This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw
of this desobligeant will but let me get on) into the efficient as
well as final causes of travelling -

Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for
some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these
general causes:-


Infirmity of body,
Imbecility of mind, or
Inevitable necessity.


The first two include all those who travel by land or by water,
labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and
combined ad infinitum.

The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the
direction of governors recommended by the magistrate;--or young
gentlemen transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and
travelling under the direction of governors recommended by Oxford,
Aberdeen, and Glasgow.

There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they
would not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of
this nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid
a confusion of character. And these men I speak of, are such as
cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of
saving money for various reasons and upon various pretences: but
as they might also save themselves and others a great deal of
unnecessary trouble by saving their money at home,--and as their
reasons for travelling are the least complex of any other species
of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by the name of


Simple Travellers.


Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
HEADS:-


Idle Travellers,
Inquisitive Travellers,
Lying Travellers,
Proud Travellers,
Vain Travellers,
Splenetic Travellers.


Then follow:


The Travellers of Necessity,
The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,
The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
The Simple Traveller,


And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
thereby myself) who have travell'd, and of which I am now sitting
down to give an account,--as much out of NECESSITY, and the besoin
de Voyager, as any one in the class.

I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and
observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my
forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely
to myself;--but I should break in upon the confines of the VAIN
Traveller, in wishing to draw attention towards me, till I have
some better grounds for it than the mere NOVELTY OF MY VEHICLE.

It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself,
that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine
his own place and rank in the catalogue;--it will be one step
towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some
tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the
present hour.

The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of
Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the
same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French
mountains,--he was too phlegmatic for that--but undoubtedly he
expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or
bad, or indifferent,--he knew enough of this world to know, that it
did not depend upon his choice, but that what is generally called
CHOICE, was to decide his success: however, he hoped for the best;
and in these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude
of his head, and the depth of his discretion, Mynheer might
possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by discovering his
nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.

Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting
through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge
and improvements.

Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for
that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is
all a lottery;--and even where the adventurer is successful, the
acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to
any profit: --but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way,
both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a
man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live
contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements,
especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of
either;--and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time
cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive
Traveller has measured to see sights and look into discoveries; all
which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might have seen
dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of light, that there is
scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed
and interchanged with others.--Knowledge in most of its branches,
and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof
those may partake who pay nothing.--But there is no nation under
heaven--and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day
come and give an account of this work)--that I do not speak it
vauntingly,--but there is no nation under heaven abounding with
more variety of learning,--where the sciences may be more fitly
woo'd, or more surely won, than here,--where art is encouraged, and
will so soon rise high,--where Nature (take her altogether) has so
little to answer for,--and, to close all, where there is more wit
and variety of character to feed the mind with: --Where then, my
dear countrymen, are you going? -

We are only looking at this chaise, said they.--Your most obedient
servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat.--We
were wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an Inquisitive
Traveller,--what could occasion its motion.--'Twas the agitation,
said I, coolly, of writing a preface.--I never heard, said the
other, who was a Simple Traveller, of a preface wrote in a
desobligeant.--It would have been better, said I, in a vis-a-vis.

- As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to
my room.


CALAIS.


I perceived that something darken'd the passage more than myself,
as I stepp'd along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein,
the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and
with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to
put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of
conceit with the desobligeant, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it,
with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck
my fancy that it belong'd to some Innocent Traveller, who, on his
return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein's honour to make the most
of. Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of
Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein's coach-yard; and having
sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,
though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had
not profited much by its adventures,--but by none so little as the
standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein's
coach-yard. Much indeed was not to be said for it,--but something
might;--and when a few words will rescue misery out of her
distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.

- Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of
my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a
point of getting rid of this unfortunate desobligeant;--it stands
swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.

Mon Dieu! said Mons. Dessein,--I have no interest--Except the
interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons.
Dessein, in their own sensations,--I'm persuaded, to a man who
feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night,
disguise it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits: --You
suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine -

I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a
compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within
himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never
is: Mons. Dessein made me a bow.

C'est bien vrai, said he.--But in this case I should only exchange
one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my
dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces
before you had got half-way to Paris,--figure to yourself how much
I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of
honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.

The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
not help tasting it,--and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without
more casuistry we walk'd together towards his Remise, to take a
view of his magazine of chaises.


IN THE STREET. CALAIS.


It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it
be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller
thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them,
but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his
conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along
with him to Hyde-park corner to fight a duel. For my own part,
being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur
Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to
which the situation is incident;--I looked at Monsieur Dessein
through and through--eyed him as he walk'd along in profile,--then,
en face;--thought like a Jew,--then a Turk,--disliked his wig,--
cursed him by my gods,--wished him at the devil. -

- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly
account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be
overreached in?--Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a
man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment,--base,
ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man's
hand against thee.--Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to
her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I
had seen in conference with the monk: --she had followed us
unperceived.--Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my own;--
she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two
fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve,--and I led her up to
the door of the Remise.

Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times before he
had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as
impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the
obstacle that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing
it: so that Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in
mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the Remise, and
said he would be back in five minutes.

Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one
of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the
latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;--
when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank,--you draw purely from
yourselves. A silence of a single moment upon Mons. Dessein's
leaving us, had been fatal to the situation--she had infallibly
turned about;--so I begun the conversation instantly. -

- But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for
the weaknesses of my heart in this tour,--but to give an account of
them)--shall be described with the same simplicity with which I
felt them.


THE REMISE DOOR. CALAIS.


When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with a
lady just arrived at the inn--I told him the truth,--but I did not
tell him the whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by
the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Suspicion
crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had passed:
something jarred upon it within me,--I wished him at his convent.

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the
judgment a world of pains.--I was certain she was of a better order
of beings;--however, I thought no more of her, but went on and
wrote my preface.

The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I
thought, her good education and her good sense; and as I led her
on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a
calmness over all my spirits -

- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
world with him! -

I had not yet seen her face--'twas not material: for the drawing
was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of
the Remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the
Tiber for it;--but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and
albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and
images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest
out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a
shame to break with thee.

When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
from across her forehead, and let me see the original: --it was a
face of about six-and-twenty,--of a clear transparent brown, simply
set off without rouge or powder;--it was not critically handsome,
but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in,
attached me much more to it,--it was interesting: I fancied it
wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its
declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and
was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;--but a
thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I
wish'd to know what they had been--and was ready to inquire, (had
the same bon ton of conversation permitted, as in the days of
Esdras)--"What ailelh thee? and why art thou disquieted? and why is
thy understanding troubled?"--In a word, I felt benevolence for
her; and resolv'd some way or other to throw in my mite of
courtesy,--if not of service.

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