A Sentimental Journey - Laurence Sterne - Bog

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...grisettes1 pockets?--The old French officer smiled, and, whispering in my ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.--Good God, said I, turning pale with astonishment, --is it possible that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves?--Quelle grossiereti! added I.--The French officer told me it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in it, by Moliere: --but like other remains of Gothic manners, was declining.--Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and grossihrete's, in which they take the lead, and lose it of one another by turns;--that he had been in most countries, but never in one but where he found some delicacies, which others seemed to want. Le pour et le contre se trouvent e"n chaque nation; there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but knowing it is so can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: --that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the savoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mutual love. The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and good sense as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his character: --I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the object: --'twas my own way of thinking, --the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast--if the latter goes pricking up his ears and starting all the way At every object which he never saw before.--I have as little torment of this kind..