But
there are, nevertheless, plenty of passages, both in _Tristram Shandy_
and the _Sentimental Journey_, where the intention is wholly and
unmixedly pathetic--where the smile is not for a moment meant to
compete with the tear--which are, nevertheless, it must be owned,
complete failures, and failures traceable with much certainty, or so
it seems to me, to the artistic error above-mentioned.
[Footnote 1: Surely it was not so meant, for instance, in the passage
about the _desobligeante_, which had been "standing so many months
unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessien's coach-yard. Much, indeed,
was not to be said for it, but something might; and, when a few words
will rescue Misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be
a churl of them." "Does anybody," asks Thackeray in a strangely
matter-of-fact fashion, "believe that this is a real sentiment? That
this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery--out of an
old cab--is genuine feeling?" Nobody, we should say. But, on the other
hand, does anybody--or did anybody before Thackeray--suggest that it
was meant to pass for genuine feeling? Is it not an obvious piece of
mock pathetic?]
In one famous case, indeed, the failure can hardly be described as
other than ludicrous.
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