The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne (short novels to read .txt) 📖

too, before he goes abroad⁠⸺⁠and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way⁠⸺⁠

—But mine, indeed, is a particular case⁠⸺⁠

So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o’ Becket, or anyone else⁠—I skip’d into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.

Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by Death in this passage?

Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he⁠⸺⁠What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already⁠⸺⁠what a brain!⁠⸺⁠upside down!⁠⸺⁠heyday! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix’d and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass⁠⸺⁠good G⁠⸺! everything turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools⁠⸺⁠I’d give a shilling to know if I shan’t write the clearer for it⁠⸺⁠

Sick! sick! sick! sick!⁠⸺⁠

—When shall we get to land? captain⁠—they have hearts like stones⁠⸺⁠O I am deadly sick!⁠⸺⁠reach me that thing, boy⁠⸺’tis the most discomfiting sickness⁠⸺⁠I wish I was at the bottom⁠—Madam! how is it with you? Undone! undone! un⁠⸺⁠O! undone! sir⁠⸺⁠What the first time?⁠⸺⁠No, ’tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, sir,⁠⸺⁠heyday!⁠—what a trampling over head!⁠—hollo! cabin boy! what’s the matter?⁠—

The wind chopp’d about! s’Death!⁠—then I shall meet him full in the face.

What luck!⁠—’tis chopp’d about again, master⁠⸺⁠O the devil chop it⁠⸺⁠

Captain, quoth she, for heaven’s sake, let us get ashore.

III

It is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between Calais and Paris, in behalf of which there is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll take.

First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the most about⁠⸺⁠but most interesting and instructing.

The second, that by Amiens, which you may go, if you would see Chantilly⁠⸺⁠

And that by Beauvais, which you may go, if you will.

For this reason a great many choose to go by Beauvais.

IV

“Now before I quit Calais,” a travel-writer would say, “it would not be amiss to give some account of it.”⁠—Now I think it very much amiss⁠—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely o’ my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have wrote and gallop’d⁠—or who have gallop’d and wrote, which is a different way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, have wrote galloping, which is the way I do at present⁠⸺⁠from the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a⁠⸺, and galling his beast’s crupper at every stroke⁠—there is not a gallopper of us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dryshod, as well as not.

For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make my last appeal⁠—I know no more of Calais (except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor), than I do this moment of Grand Cairo; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark as pitch in the morning when I set out, and yet by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting this and that together in another⁠—I would lay any travelling odds, that I this moment write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which is worth a stranger’s curiosity in the town⁠—that you would take me for the town-clerk of Calais itself⁠—and where, sir, would be the wonder? was not Democritus, who laughed ten times more than I⁠—town-clerk of Abdera? and was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, town-clerk of Ephesus?⁠⸺⁠it should be penn’d moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and precision⁠⸺⁠

—Nay⁠—if you don’t believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains.

V

Calais, Calatium, Calusium, Calesium.

This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see no reason to call in question in this place⁠—was once no more than a small village belonging to one of the first Counts de Guignes; and as it boasts at present of no less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of four hundred and twenty distinct families in the basse ville, or suburbs⁠⸺⁠it must have grown up by little and little, I suppose, to its present size.

Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial church in the whole town; I had not an opportunity of taking its exact dimensions, but it is pretty easy to make a tolerable conjecture of ’em⁠—for as there are fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all it must be considerably large⁠—and if it will not⁠—’tis a very great pity they have not another⁠—it is built in form of a cross, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary; the steeple, which has a spire to it, is placed in the middle of the church, and stands upon four pillars elegant and light enough, but sufficiently strong at the same time⁠—it is decorated with eleven altars, most of which are rather fine than beautiful. The great altar is a masterpiece in its kind; ’tis of white marble, and, as I was told, near sixty feet