But she may talk; I will go my own way,
and she will acquiesce without a word of debate on the subject. Who
can say so much in praise of his wife? Few, I trow." The tone of
contemptuous amiability shows pretty clearly that the relations
between husband and wife had in nowise improved. But wives do not
always lose all their influence over husbands' wills along with the
power over their affections; and it will be seen that Sterne did _not_
make his projected winter trip to Bagneres, and that he did remain
at Toulouse for a considerable part of the second year for which Mrs.
Sterne desired to prolong their stay. The place, however, was not to
his taste; and he was not the first traveller in France who, delighted
with the gaiety of Paris, has been disappointed at finding that French
provincial towns can be as dull as dulness itself could require. It is
in the somewhat unjust mood which is commonly begotten of disillusion
that Sterne discovers the cause of his _ennui_ in "the eternal
platitude of the French character," with its "little variety and no
originality at all." "They are very civil," he admits, "but civility
itself so thus uniform wearies and bothers me to death.
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