Shandy and his brother, and the Corporal, in apparent concession to
the popular prejudice in favour of some sort of coherence between
the various parts of a narrative. The first seventeen chapters are,
perhaps, as freshly delightful reading as anything in Sterne. They are
literally filled and brimming over with the exhilaration of travel:
written, or at least prepared for writing, we can clearly see, under
the full intoxicant effect which a bewildering succession of new
sights and sounds will produce, in a certain measure, upon the coolest
of us, and which would set a head like Sterne's in an absolute whirl.
The contagion of his high spirits is, however, irresistible; and,
putting aside all other and more solid qualities in them, these
chapters are, for mere fun--for that kind of clever nonsense which
only wins by perfect spontaneity, and which so promptly makes ashamed
the moment spontaneity fails--unsurpassed by anything of the same kind
from the same hand. How strange, then, that, with so keen an eye for
the humorous, so sound and true a judgment in the highest qualities of
humour, Sterne should think it possible for any one who has outgrown
what may be called the dirty stage of boyhood to smile at the story
which begins a few chapters afterwards--that of the Abbess and Novice
of the Convent of Andouillets! The adult male person is not so much
shocked at the coarseness of this story as astounded at the bathos of
its introduction.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138