Vulgar words in Sterne (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 499 ~ ~ ~
"What the devil!" he exclaims, "is there no one learned blockhead throughout the schools of misapplied science in the Christian world to make a tutor of for my Tristram--are we so run out of stock that there is no one lumber-headed, muddle-headed, mortar-headed, pudding-head chap amongst our doctors...but I must disable my judgment by choosing a Warburton?"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 977 ~ ~ ~
How shall the youth make his father comprehend that he was cheated at Damascus by one of the best men in the world; that he had lent a part of his substance to a friend at Nineveh, who had fled off with it to the Ganges; that a whore of Babylon had swallowed his best pearl, and anointed the whole city with his balm of Gilead; that he had been sold by a man of honour for twenty shekels of silver to a worker in graven images; that the images he had purchased produced him nothing, that they could not be transported across the wilderness, and had been burnt with fire at Shusan; that the apes and peacocks which he had sent for from Tharsis lay dead upon his hands; that the mummies had not been dead long enough which he had brought from Egypt; that all had gone wrong from the day he forsook his father's house?"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,123 ~ ~ ~
"My girl has returned," he writes, in the language of playful affection, "an elegant, accomplished little slut.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,560 ~ ~ ~
"It is agreeably and skilfully done, that dead jackass," writes Thackeray; "like M. de Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender, and with a very piquante sauce.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,584 ~ ~ ~
It is by no means improbable, at any rate, that the dead ass of Nampont owes its presence in the _Sentimental Journey_ to the reception met with by the live ass of Lyons in the seventh volume of _Tristram Shandy_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,586 ~ ~ ~
"'Twas a poor ass, who had just turned in, with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious with his two fore-feet on the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he would go in or no.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,588 ~ ~ ~
There is a patient endurance of sufferings wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him that it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to him; on the contrary, meet him where I will, in town or country, in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and, as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I), I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his countenance--and where those carry me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and feeling what is natural for an ass to think, as well as a man, upon the occasion.... Come, Honesty!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,599 ~ ~ ~
In saying this I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave him one; and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon, than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.