Now! Then! Far from the metropolis, the Rev Laurence Sterne finds happiness at Coxwold

7 June 1767: Far from the metropolis, the Rev Laurence Sterne finds happiness at Coxwold

Laurence Sterne. 1823. The Works of Laurence Sterne, in Six Volumes, Vol. 4/6. London: Samuel Richards and Company. Get it:

Excerpt

I am as happy as a prince, at Coxwold; and I wish you could see in how princely a manner I live: ’tis a land of plenty, I sit down alone to venison, fish, and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls or ducks, with curds, and strawberries, and cream, and all the simple plenty which a rich valley (under Hambleton Hills) can produce; with a clean cloth on my table, and a bottle of wine on my right hand to drink your health. I have a hundred hens and chickens about my yard, and not a parishioner catches a hare or a rabbit or a trout, but he brings it as an offering to me.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Original

LETTER XCVII.

L. STERNE.

TO A. L____E, ESQ.

DEAR L____E,

Coxwould, June 7, 1767.

I had not been many days at this peaceful cottage before your letter greeted me with the seal of friendship: and most cordially do I thank you for so kind a proof of your good-will. I was truly anxious to hear of the recovery of my sentimental friend, – but I would not write to enquire after her, unless I could have sent her the testimony without the tax; even how d’yes to invalids, or those that have lately been so, either call to mind what is past or what may return; at least I find it so. I am as happy as a prince, at Coxwould; and I wish you could see in how princely a manner I live: ’tis a land of plenty, I sit down alone to venison, fish, and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls or ducks, with curds, and strawberries, and cream, and all the simple plenty which a rich valley (under Hamilton Hills) can produce; with a clean cloth on my table, and a bottle of wine on my right hand to drink your health. I have a hundred hens and chickens about my yard, and not a parishioner catches a hare or a rabbit or a trout, but he brings it as an offering to me. If solitude would cure a lovesick heart, I would give you an invitation; but absence and time lessen no attachment which virtue inspires. I am in high spirits; care never enters this cottage. – I take the air every day in my post-chaise, with two long-tailed horses, – they turn out good ones; and as to myself, I think I am better upon the whole for the medicines and regimen I submitted to in town.-May you, dear L____E want neither the one nor the other!

Yours truly,

L. STERNE.

333 words.