In itself, however, the urchin's freak was only
too unhappily characteristic of the man. The trick of befouling what
was clean (and because it was clean) clung to him most tenaciously all
his days; and many a fair white surface--of humour, of fancy, or of
sentiment--was to be disfigured by him in after-years with stains
and splotches in which we can all too plainly decipher the literary
signature of Laurence Sterne.
At Halifax School the boy, as has been said, remained for about eight
years; that is, until he was nearly nineteen, and for some months
after his father's death at Port Antonio, which occurred in March,
1731. "In the year '32," says the Memoir, "my cousin sent me to the
University, where I stayed some time." In the course of his first year
he read for and obtained a sizarship, to which the college records
show that he was duly admitted on the 6th of July, 1733. The selection
of Jesus College was a natural one: Sterne's great-grandfather,
the afterwards Archbishop, had been its Master, and had founded
scholarships there, to one of which the young sizar was, a year after
his admission, elected. No inference can, of course, be drawn from
this as to Sterne's proficiency, or even industry, in his academical
studies: it is scarcely more than a testimony to the fact of decent
and regular behaviour.
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