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LAURENCE STERNE

(1713-1768)

THE STORY OF LE FEVER

TRISTRAM SHANDY

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies, which was about seven years before my father came into the country, . . .my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard; . . . when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlour with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; 'tis for a poor gentleman,-I think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack, and a thin toast.... If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing-added the landlord-I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill.— I hope in God he will still mend, continued he; we are all of us concerned for him.

Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle Toby; and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself; and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more, if they will do him good.

Step after him, said my uncle Toby;-do, Trim, and ask if he knows his name.

I have quite forgot it, truly, said the landlord, coming back into the parlour with the corporal; but I can ask his son again. Has he a son with him, then? said my uncle Toby. A boy, replied the landlord, of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day:-He has not stirred from the bed-side these two days.

My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and Trim, without being ordered, took away without saying one word, and in a few minutes after brought him his pipe and tobacco.

-Stay in the room, a little, said my uncle Toby.- Trim! said my uncle Toby, I have a project in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman. honour's roquelaure, replied the corporal, has not once been had on since the night before

Your

your honour received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St Nicholas; and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, 'twill be enough to give your honour your death.

I fear so, replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair, -added my uncle Toby,-or that I had known more of it. How shall we manage it? Leave it, an't please your honour, to me, quoth the corporal; -I'll take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour. Thou shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby; and here's a shilling for thee to drink with his servant.-I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door.

It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe that corporal Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following account.

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant. Is he in the army then? said my uncle Toby. He is, said the corporal.-And in what regiment? said my uncle Toby.-I'll tell your honour, replied the corporal, everything straightforwards, as I learnt it.-Then, Trim, I'll fill another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in the window seat, and begin thy story again. The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke, as plain as a bow could speak it,-Your honour is good. And having done that, he sat down, as he was ordered:-and begun the story to my uncle Toby over again in pretty near the same words.

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his son; for when I asked where his servant was,

I was answered, an' please your honour, that he had no servant with him;-that he had come to the inn with hired horses. . . . If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man,--we can hire horses from hence.-But, alas! the poor gentle

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man will never go from hence, said the landlady to me, for I heard the death-watch all night long and when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him; for he is broken-hearted already.

ΠΙΟ I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of;-but I will do it for my father myself, said the youth.-Pray, let me save you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst I did it. I believe, sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best myself.-I am sure, said 120 I, his honour will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier.-The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly burst into

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[I never in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company:-What could be the matter with me, an' please your honour? Nothing in the world, Trim, said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose, but that 130 thou art a good-natured fellow.]

When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain Shandy's servant, and that your honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father. . I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the kitchen-door, your father will be well again. [Mr Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire, but said not a word good or bad to comfort 140 the youth.-I thought it wrong, added the corporal. I think so too, said my uncle

Toby.]

When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step upstairs.-I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers,for there was a book laid upon the chair by 150 his bedside; and as I shut the door I saw his son take up a cushion.

When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant's room, which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it :— The youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had 160 been kneeling,-the book was laid upon the bed, and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time.-Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant.

He did not offer to speak to me till I had walked up close to his bed-side:-If you are Captain Shandy's servant, said he, you must

present my thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me.-If he was of Leven's, said the lieutenant,-I told him your honour was.Then, said he, I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remember him,-but 'tis most likely, as I had not the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good-nature has laid under obliga. tions to him, is one Le Fever, a lieutenant in Angus's-but he knows me not,—said he, a second time, musing;-possibly he may know D my story,-added he,-pray tell the captain, I was the ensign at Breda, whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent.-I remember the story, an't please your honour, said I, very well. -Do you so? said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief,-then well may I.—In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black riband about his neck, and kissed it twice.

I wish, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh,-I wish, Trim, I was asleep.

Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned;-shall I pour your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe?-Do, Trim, said my uncle Toby.

But finish the story thou art upon.-'Tis finished already, said the corporal,-for I could stay no longer,-so wished his honour a good night; young Le Fever rose from off the a bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in Flanders.-But alas! said the corporal,-the lieutenant's last day's march is over. - - Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle Toby.

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee in what, Trim;-... that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself. Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;true, quoth my uncle Toby,-thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,-but certainly very wrong as a man. In a fortnight

or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he might march.-He will never march, an' please your honour, in this world, said the corporal:-He will march, said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off:-An' please your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave:-He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch-he shall march to his regiment.-He 20

cannot stand it, said the corporal;-He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby;-He'll drop at last, said the corporal; and what will become of his boy?-He shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.-A-well-o'-day, -do what we can for him, said Trim, maintaining his point, the poor soul will die. He shall not die, by G-, cried my uncle Toby.

-The ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to 240 heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

My uncle Toby went to his bureau,- put his purse into his breeches pocket; and having | ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed, and fell asleep.

The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his 250 afflicted son's; the hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids,-and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, -when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bedside, and independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did-how he had rested in the night-what was his com

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plaint where was his pain-and what he could do to help him:-And without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him. ...

There was a frankness in my uncle Tobynot the effect of familiarity,-but the cause of it-which let you at once into his soul, and 270 shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits of 280 Le Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart,-rallied back,-the film forsook his eyes for a moment, he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face,—then cast a look upon his boy,-and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.—

Nature instantly ebbed again,-the film returned to its place,-the pulse flutteredstopped-went on-throbbed-stopped again 290 -moved-stopped-shall I go on? No.

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MR PRESIDENT

DANIEL WEBSTER

(1782-1852)

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 7 March 1850

I hear with distress and anguish the word 'secession,' especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! . . Sir, he who sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter

impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, -is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir!.

Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate!... Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other House of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or

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is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? . . . I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there will be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that the idea has been 50 entertained, that, after the dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am sorry, Sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side and the free States to the other. . . . We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day, and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. [There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. . . . Here, Sir, are five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien Government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks Mississippi?] Sir, I am ashamed to e of remark. I dislike it, I have I would rather hear of lls, war, pestilence,

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no, Sir! There will be no secession! u men are not serious when they talk ΟΙ secession...

[And now, Mr President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the g fresh air of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. We 10 have a great, popular, constitutional Government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. In all its history it has been i beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honourable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic now extends with a vast breadth across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We 120 realise, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles:

Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;

In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole.]

FRENCH

THÉODORE DE BANVILLE

(1823-1891)

GRINGOIRE

LE ROI, OLIVIER-LE-DAIM, NICOLE ANDRY,
GRINGOIRE, LES ARCHERS.

La Scene est à Tours, chez Dame Nicole, au
Mois de Mars de l'Année 1469.

GRINGOIRE entre au milieu des archers, pâle,
grelottant, et comme ivre de faim.

Grin. Ah çà, messieurs les archers, où me conduisez-vous? (Aux archers) Pourquoi cette violence? (Les archers se taisent) Ce sont des gendarmes d'Écosse qui n'entendent pas le français. (Sur un signe d'Olivier-le-Daim, les archers lâchent Gringoire, et sortent, ainsi que les pages) Hein? Ils me lâchent à présent! (Apercevant le Roi et Olivier-le-Daim) Quels sont ces seigneurs? (Flairant le repas) O Dieu tout-puissant, quels parfums! On me menait donc souper? On me menait, de force, faire un bon repas ! La force était inutile. J'y serais venu de bonne volonté. (Admirant l'ordonnance du repas) Des pâtés, de la venaison, des grès pleins de bon vin pétillant? (Au Roi et à Olivier-le-Daim) Je devine, vous avez compris que messieurs les archers me conduisaient en prison sans que j'eusse soupé, et alors vous m'avez fait venir pour me tirer de leurs griffes . . de leurs mains, veux-je dire, et pour me donner l'hospitalité, comme les potiers de terre firent à Homérus!

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Oliv. (L'arrêtant du geste) Un instant! Serait-il honnête de vous attabler ainsi sans apporter votre écot et payer votre part du souper?

Grin. (Décontenance) Payer? Je n'ai pas un rouge liard.

Oliv. Si les Muses ne dispensent guère l'or et l'argent, elles ont su vous prodiguer d'autres trésors. Vous avez l'imagination, les nobles pensées, le don des rimes.

Grin. (Tristement) De pareils dons ne servent de rien quand on a grand'faim, et c'est ce qui m'arrive aujourd'hui. Que dis-je ? aujourd'hui ! Tous les jours.

Oliv. Comprenez-moi. Je veux dire qu' avant de satisfaire votre appétit, vous nous direz une de ces odes que les Muses vous ont inspirées.

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Grin. Oh! messire, mon appétit est plus 60 pressé que vos oreilles. (Il va pour s'ap procher de la table.) Oliv. (L'arrêtant) Non pas. Vos vers d'abord. Vous boirez et mangerez ensuite. Grin. Je vous assure que ma voix est bien malade.

Nic. (A Gringoire) Bon courage!

Grin. (A part) Allons, le parti le plus court est de céder, je le vois bien. (Haut) Voulez-vous que je vous dise quelque morceau tiré de mon poème des Folles Entreprises? Oliv. Non.

Grin. La Description de Procès et sa figure? Oliv. (L'interrompant) Non. Une ballade plutôt. Cela sent son terroir gaulois ! Grin. (Agréablement surpris) Eh bien, celle qui a pour refrain: Car Dieu bénit tous les miséricords!

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