LAURENCE STERNE (1713-1768)

From TRISTRAM SHANDY

The Story of Le Fever

Lieutenant Le Fever is a poor officer, dying from want and sickness, one of the many recipients of kindness from good Uncle Toby, the central figure in Tristram Shandy.

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,

-though I tell it only

for the sake of those, who, when coop'd in betwixt a natural and a positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves- -That notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp; and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a blockade,- -he left Dendermond to itself to be relieved or not by the French king, as the French king thought good; and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.

-That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence thee for this.

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee in what, Trim.In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fever, -as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself. Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;—True, quoth my uncle Toby,-thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,but certainly very wrong as a man.

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby, when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house,thou shouldst have offered him my house too:-A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,-we could tend and look to him:- -Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim,—and what with thy care of him, and the old

woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs.

In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, -he might march. He will never march; an' please your honour, in this world, said the corporal:He will march; said my uncle Toby, rising up, from the side of the bed, with one shoe off:-An' please your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave:He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, he shall march to his regiment. He cannot stand it, said the corporal; He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby;-He'll drop at last, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy?- -He shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.- A-well-o'-day, Trim, maintaining his point,

die, by G-, cried my uncle Toby.

do what we can for him, said -the poor soul will die:He shall not

The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in;-and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

-My uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician,- -he went to bed, and fell asleep.

The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death press'd heavy upon his eye-lids, and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle,—when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did, how he had rested in the night,what was his complaint, -where was his pain,and what he could do to help him:-and without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him.

You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter,and we'll have an apothecary,--and the corporal shall be your nurse; -and I'll be your servant, Le Fever.

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby,not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it,—which let you at once into his soul, and

shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him.The blood and spirits of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart-rallied back,the film forsook his eyes for a moment he looked up wish-then cast a look upon his boy,-and -was never broken.—

fully in my uncle Toby's face,

that ligament, fine as it was,

Nature instantly ebb'd again,—the film returned to its place,—the pulse fluttered- -stopp'd- -went on- -throbb'd

-stopp'd again

-moved―stopp'd.

Tristram and the Ass

Tristram was setting forth from his inn at Lyons, to visit "the tomb of the lovers," when he was stopped at the gate by the poor ass that figures in the following narration.

'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike -there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him on the contrary, meet him where I will—whether in town or country—in cart or under panniers—whether in liberty or bondage—I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I)—I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his countenance—and where those carry me not deep enough-in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots, jackdaws, &c. --I never exchange a word with them-nor with the apes, &c., for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my cat, though I value them

both (and for my dog he would speak if he could)—yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation—I can make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the proposition, the reply, and rejoinder, which terminated my father's and my mother's conversations, in his beds of justice and those utter'd-there's an end. of the dialogue—

-But with an ass, I can commune forever.

Come, Honesty! said I,-seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate-art thou for coming in, or going out? The ass twisted his head round to look up the streetWell-replied I--we'll wait a minute for thy driver:

-He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way—————

I understand thee perfectly, answered I—If thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death-Well! a minute is but a minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again-God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't--and many a bitter day's labour,and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages-'tis all-all bitterness to thee, whatever life is to others.And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot-(for he had cast aside the stem) and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will give thee a macaroon.

-In saying this, I. pull'd out a paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave him one— and at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit, of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon-than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.

When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press'd him to come inthe poor beast was heavy loaded his legs seem'd to tremble under him he hung rather backwards, and as I pull'd at his halter, it broke short in my hand-he look'd up pensive in my face-"Don't thrash me with it—but if you will, you may”—If I do, said, I, I'll be d-d.

The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of Andouillets(so there was no sin in it) when a person coming in, let fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end to the ceremony.