The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [217]
VEXATION
upon
VEXATION.
I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee together—otherwise ’tis only coffee and milk)—and as it was no more than eight in the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had time to see enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all the friends I had in the world with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list, and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock of Lippius of Basil,1 in the first place——
Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism——I have neither genius, or taste, or fancy—and have a brain so entirely unapt for every thing of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet able to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or a common knife-grinder’s wheel—tho’ I have many an hour of my life look’d up with great devotion at the one—and stood by with as much patience as any christian ever could do, at the other——
I’ll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very first thing I do: and then I will pay a visit to the great library of the Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the general history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarian but) in the Chinese language, and in the Chinese character too.
Now I almost know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the mechanism of Lippius’s clock-work; so, why these should have jostled themselves into the two first articles of my list——I leave to the curious as a problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her ladyship’s obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her humour as much as I.
When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my valet de place,2 who stood behind me——’twill be no hurt if WE go to the church of St. Ireneus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tied——and after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived3——’twas at the next town, said the valet de place—at Vienne; I am glad of it, said I, rising briskly from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as my usual pace——“for so much the sooner shall I be at the Tomb of the two lovers.”4
What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in uttering this——I might leave to the curious too; but as no principle of clock-work is concern’d in it——’twill be as well for the reader if I explain it myself.
CHAP. XXXI
O! There is a sweet æra in the life of man, when, (the brain being tender and fibrillous,1 and more like pap than any thing else)——a story read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more cruel destiny——
Amandus——He
Amanda2——She——
each ignorant of the other’s course,
He——east
She——west
Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the emperor of Morocco’s court, where the princess of Morocco falling in love with him, keeps him twenty years in prison, for the love of his Amanda——
She—(Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell’d hair, o’er rocks and mountains enquiring for Amandus——Amandus! Amandus!—making every hill and vally to echo back his name——
Amandus! Amandus!
at every town and city sitting down forlorn at the gate——Has Amandus!—has my Amandus enter’d?——till,——going round, and round, and round the world——chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by different ways, to the gate of Lyons their native city, and each in well known accents calling out aloud,
Is Amandus
Is my Amanda
still alive?
they fly into each others arms, and both drop down dead for joy.
There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story affords more pabulum to the brain, than