第81章

The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes.The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English.He is certainly one of the very greatest.Yet nowadays he is generally unknown.His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect.Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy" appeared."A most unclerical clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.

Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree.Plot concerned him least of all authors of fiction.

For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages.He used to declare that he never intended anything--he never knew whither his pen was leading--the rash implement, once in hand, was likely to fly with him from Yorkshire to Italy--or to Paris--or across the road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the helpless author do but improve each occasion?

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.No less a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied that "his works consist only of brilliant passages."And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an "Application" of worldly wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness--they have felt emboldened to ascribe the passage "A Mystery with a Moral."As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote.He sought the South of France for health in 1762, and was run after and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs.

This foreign sojourn failed to cure his lung complaint, but suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental Journey." Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18, 1768, Sterne died alone in his London lodgings.

Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1live, if only for the exquisite literary art which ever made great things out of little.--The EDITOR.

Laurence SterneA Mystery with a Moral Parisian Experience of Parson Yorick, on his "Sentimental Journey"A RIDDLE

I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at everyone who passed by, and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed upon a single object, which confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.

It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious adult look, which passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel.The man was about fifty-two, had a small cane under his arm, was dressed in a dark drab-colored coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seemed to have seen some years' service.They were still clean, and there was a little air of frugal propriete throughout him.By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking charity; so I got a sous or two out of my pocket, ready to give him as he took me in his turn.He passed by me without asking anything, and yet he did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman.I was much more likely to have given of the two.He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the same way.An ancient gentleman came slowly, and after him a young smart one.He let them both pass and asked nothing.I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backward and forward, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.

There were two things very singular in this which set my brain to work, and to no purpose; the first was, why the man should only tell his story to the sex; and secondly, what kind of a story it was and what species of eloquence it could be which softened the hearts of the women which he knew it was to no purpose to practice upon the men.

There were two other circumstances which entangled this mystery.

The one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition;the other was, it was always successful--he never stopped a woman but she pulled out her purse and immediately gave him something.

I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.

I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening, so Iwalked upstairs to my chamber.

OVERHEARD

The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent, good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a sentimental traveler.I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets;Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobservable corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together; and yet they are ABSOLUTELY fine, and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of them, and for the text, "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia," is as good as anyone in the Bible.

There is a long, dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a narrow street.It is trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done.

At the end of it, toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway down, but near the door--it is more for ornament than use--you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns, but does little good to the world that we know of.

*Hackney coach.