But the letters of Sterne's courtship
maintain the pseudo-poetic, shepherd-and-shepherdess strain
throughout; or, if the lover ever abandons it, it is only to make
somewhat maudlin record of those "tears" which flowed a little too
easily at all times throughout his life. These letters, however, have
a certain critical interest in their bearing upon those sensibilities
which Sterne afterwards learned to cultivate in a forcing-frame, with
a view to the application of their produce to the purposes of an
art of pathetic writing which simulates nature with such admirable
fidelity at its best, and descends to such singular bathos at its
worst.
The marriage preluded by this courtship did not take place till
Sterne had already been three years Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, the
benefice which had been procured for him by his uncle the Archdeacon;
through whose interest also he was appointed successively to two
prebends--preferments which were less valuable to him for their
emolument than for the ecclesiastical status which they conferred upon
him, for the excuse which they gave him for periodical visits to the
cathedral city to fulfil the residential conditions of his offices,
and for the opportunity thus afforded him of mixing in and studying
the society of the Close.
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