The Lock and Key Library Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English by Rudyard Kipling & Julian Hawthorne

Author:Rudyard Kipling & Julian Hawthorne [Kipling, Rudyard & Hawthorne, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781393086
Google: EnvCMgEACAAJ
Amazon: 1781393087
Publisher: Benediction Classics
Published: 2012-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

A Mystery with a Moral

*

By Laurence Sterne (1713-68)

Introduction to "A Mystery with a Moral"

The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy" appeared. "A most unclerical clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.

Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree. Plot concerned him least of all authors of fiction.

For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages. He used to declare that he never intended anything—he never knew whither his pen was leading—the rash implement, once in hand, was likely to fly with him from Yorkshire to Italy—or to Paris—or across the road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the helpless author do but improve each occasion?

So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequels—heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of this random philosopher.

Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration. No less a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied that "his works consist only of brilliant passages."

And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an "Application" of worldly wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness— they have felt emboldened to ascribe the passage "A Mystery with a Moral."

As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote. He sought the South of France for health in 1762, and was run after and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs. This foreign sojourn failed to cure his lung complaint, but suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental Journey." Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18, 1768, Sterne died alone in his London lodgings.

Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1 live, if only for the exquisite literary art which ever made great things out of little.—The EDITOR.

A Mystery with a Moral

Parisian Experience of Parson Yorick, on his "Sentimental Journey"

A Riddle

I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at everyone who passed by, and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed upon a single object, which confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.

It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious adult look, which passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel. The man was about fifty-two, had a small cane under his arm,

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