Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.
This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Laurence Sterne, which is now, at last, again available to you.
Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy:
quoth I, debating the matter with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: - I'll look into them: so, giving up the argument, - I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches, - "the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve, "will do;" - took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning, - by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine; - my shirts, and black pair of silk breeches, - portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France; - even the little picture which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck! - Ungenerous!
...Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise, - and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old désobligeant in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel: - but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote the preface to it in the désobligeant.
...Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is all a lottery; - and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit: - but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of either; - and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of light, that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed and interchanged with others. - Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake who pay nothing. - But there is no nation under heaven - and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this work) - that I do not speak it vauntingly, - but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning, - where the sciences may be more fitly woo'd, or more surely won, than here, - where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high, - where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to answer for, - and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind with: - Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going?
