Part 6 (2/2)

But that was not Thackeray's way Charlotte Bronte found ”a finished taste and ease” in the Lectures, a ”so,” and their h-bred audiences” Mr Marzials quotes this expression ”hovering” as admirably descriptive It is By judicious selection, by innuendo, here a pitying aposiopesis, there an indignant outburst, the charges are heaped up Sas a toady at heart, and used Stella vilely for the sake of that hussy Vanessa

Congreve had captivating ! And we all knohat that meant in those days dick Steele drank and failed to pay his creditors Sterne--now really I knohat Club life is, ladies and gentle or two if I would: but really, speaking as a gentleainst Sterne

I do not suppose for a moment that Thackeray consciously defamed these men The weaknesses, the pettinesses of huusto, even as he spares us nothing of that horrible scene between Mrs Mackenzie and Colonel Newcome And of course poor Sterne was the easiest victim The felloas so full of his confounded senti a choice few of these on the counter and prove the is of equal value You ”go one better” than Sir Peter Teazle and damn all senti jester, whose antics you can expose till hed and wept as hehih _Tristram Shandy_ continues one of the e, nobody dares to confess his debt to Sterne except in discreet tery

But the fellorote the book You can't deny _that_, though Thackeray et it (What proportion does my Uncle Toby hold in that amiable Lecture?) The truth is that the elemental simplicity of Captain Shandy and Corporal Trim did not appeal to the author of _The Book of Snobs_ in the saree as the pettiness of the man Sterne appealed to him: and his business in Willis's Rooms was to talk, not of Captain Shandy, but of the man Sterne, to whom his hearers were to feel themselves superior as members of society I submit that this was not a worthy task for a enius I submit that it was an inversion of the true critical method to wreck Sterne's _Senti Sterne's life to pieces, holding up the shreds and warning the reader that any nobility apparent in his book will be nothing better than a sham Sterne is scarcely arrived at Calais and in conversation with the Monk before you are cautioned how you listen to the impostor ”Watch now,” says the critic; ”he'll be at his tricks in a moment Hey, _paillasse_! There!--didn't I tell you?” And yet I aes of the _Senti as I am that if Jonathan Swift had entered the roo forward, he would have eaten William Makepeace Goliath, white waistcoat and all

Frenchmen, who either are less awed than we by lecturers in white waistcoats, or understand the methods of criticism somewhat better, cherish the _Sentimental Journey_ (in spite of its indifferent French) and believe in the genius that created it But the Briton reads it with shyness, and the British critic speaks of Sterne with bated breath, since Thackeray told it in Gath that Sterne was a bad hters of Philistia triumphed

October 6, 1894 Mr Whibley's Edition of ”Tristraeneration, with a New Hu by-products; but a new _Tristra our achievements So Messrs Henley and Whibley have iven us a new edition of the old _Tristraes, fair type, and an Introduction

Mr Whibley supplies the Introduction, and that he writes lucidly and forcibly needs not to be said His position is neither that so unfairly taken up by Thackeray; nor that of Allibone, riting for Heaven kno many of Allibone'sreproach to the profession which he disgraced, grovelling in his tastes, indiscreet, if not licentious, in his habits, he lived unhonoured and died unlamented, save by those who found amusement in his wit or countenance in his ih he avoids these particular excesses; though he goes straight for the book, as a critic should; Mr Whibley cannot get quit of the bad tradition of patronizing Sterne:--

”He failed, as only a sentimentalist can fail, in the province of pathos There is no trifle, animate or inanimate, he will not bewail, if he be but in the aze those poor shreds of sensibility he calls his feelings Though he seldom deceives the reader into syony without a thrill of disgust The _Sentimental Journey_, despite its interludes of tacit huance of irrelevant grief Genuine sentie to Sterne the writer as to Sterne the ure that is not stuffed with sawdust and tricked out in the rags of the green-room Fortunately, there is scant opportunity for idle tears in _Tristram Shandy_ Yet no occasion is lost Yorick's death is false alike to nature and art The vapid emotion is properly matched with commonness of expression, and the bad taste is none the estion of self-defence Even the huraded by the oft-quoted platitude: 'Go, poor devil,' says he, to an overgrown fly which had buzzed about his nose; 'get thee gone Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is big enough to hold both thee and me'”

But here Mr Whibley's notorious hatred of sentie has been over-quoted is no fault of Sterne's Of My Uncle Toby, if of any ht have been predicted that he would not hurt a fly To me this trivial action of his is more than merely sentimental But, be this as it may, I am sure it is honestly characteristic

Still, on the whole Mr Whibley has justice Sterne _is_ a sentimentalist Sterne _is_ indecent by reason of his reticence--more indecent than Rabelais, because he uses a hint where Rabelais would have said what he meant, and prints a dash where Rabelais would have pluh Sterne _is_ a convicted thief On a faiary and justifiable borrowing To draw eneous work--to found, for instance, the play of _Coriolanus_ upon Plutarch's _Life_--is justifiable: to take froeneous work--to enrich your draiary But even on this interpretation of the law Sterneout _Tristraing a hoeneous work Nor can it be pleaded in extenuation that he ih it can, I think, be pleaded that he s his own I do not think much of Mr Whibley's instance of Servius Sulpicius' letter No doubt Sterne took his translation of it from Burton; but the letter is a very well known one, and Burton's translation happened to be unco without acknowledgment was not, as far as I know, then forbidden by custoe is intended merely to lead up to the beautiful perplexity of My Uncle Toby And that is Sterne's own, and could never have been another man's ”After all,” says Mr Whibley, ”all the best in Sterne is still Sterne's own”

But the ree with Mr Whibley's strictures the more I desire to remove them from an Introduction to _Tristram Shandy_, and to read them in a volume of Mr Whibley's collected essays Were it not better, in reading _Tristrae) at his own valuation, or at least to accept the original postulates of the story? If only for the entertainment he provides e hih afterwards to turn to the cold judgment of this or that critic, or to the evidence of this or that thief-taker For the enius enough to make it worth our while to listen without prejudice; and the most lenient ”appreciation” of his sins, if we read it beforehand, is bound to raise prejudice and infect our enjoyment as we read And, as a corollary of this demand, let us ask that he shall be allowed to present his book to us exactly as he chooses Mr Whibley says, ”He set out upon the road of authorshi+p with a false ideal: 'Writing,' said he, 'when properly ed, is but a different name for conversation' It would be juster to assert that writing is never properly ed, unless it be removed from conversation as far as possible” Very true; or, at least, very likely But since Sterne _had_ this ideal, let us grant him full liberty to e afterwards concerning the result The faes (all omitted in this new edition) are part of Sterne's method They may seem to us trick-work and foolery; but, if we consider, they link on to his notion that writing is but a name for conversation; they are included in his deo cluttering away like hey-go mad” ”You may take my word”--it is Sterne who speaks, and in his very first chapter--

”You may take my word that nine parts in ten of a es in this world, depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put theht or wrong, 'tis not a halfpenny o ain, they presently arden walk, which, when once they are used to, the devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it”

This, at any rate, is Sterne's own postulate And I had rather judge hi the book than be prepared beforehand to make allowances

Nov 12, 1895 Sterne's Good-nature

Let one thing be recorded to the credit of this much-abused man He wrote two masterpieces of fiction (one of theth), and in neither will you find an ill-natured character or an ill-natured word On the admission of all critics My Father, My Mother, My Uncle Toby, Corporal Tri of theht They are essentially amiable: and the same may be said of all the minor characters and of the author's disquisitions

Sterne has given us a thousand occasions to laugh, but never an occasion to laugh on the wrong side of the ery or bitterness you will search his books in vain He is obscene, to be sure But who, pray, was ever the worse for having read him? Alas, poor Yorick! He had his obvious and deplorable failings I never heard that he co now for a hundred and fifty years

FOOTNOTES:

[A] But why ”elder”?

[B] ”Pan ot Such an Allibone ”

_Spenser (revised)_

SCOTT AND BURNS

Dec 9, 1893 Scott's Letters

”_All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf The new edition fifty voluram But for Scott the student will soon have to hire a room The novels and poems alone stretch away into just sixty volu At this very moment t editions (one of which, at least, is indispensable) are unfolding their ths, and report says that Messrs Hodder and Stoughton already project a third, with introductory essays by Mr Barrie Then the Miscellaneous Prose Works by that untiring hand extend to soht or thirty volumes