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Passage Illustrated

"And this," said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet — "and this should have been thy portion," said he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me." I thought by the accent it had been an apostrophe to his child; but ’twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur’s misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’s lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass’s pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time — then laid them down — looked at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand,—then laid it upon the bit of his ass’s bridle — looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made — and then gave a sigh.

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads. ["Nampont. The Dead Ass," pp. 69-70]

Commentary

The whole community comes together outsider the village public house, Le Cheval Blanc, to comfort the owner of the dead ass, immersed in grief. Thus, Sterne demonstrates how shared sentiment is a harmonizing influence. Although Sterne cites the precedent of Sancho's dead ass in Don Quixote (I. iii. 167-168), later critics ridiculed Sterne for excessive sentimentality as the chapter often appeared in sentimental anthologies. As Turner explains in the Broadview edition,

When rumours began to circulate a couple of years after Sterne's death that he had neglected his aging mother, Horace Walpole marvelled that "A dead ass was more important to him than a living mother," and Byron later referred to "that dog Sterne, who preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother" (Howes, Yorick and the Critics, 89-90). [Note 2, p. 94]

As Yorick (upper right) looks upon the sentimental scene from the window of his post-chaise, the mourner seems paralyzed by grief, and almost oblivious to the sympathetic villagers of Nampont gathered around him. Although Sterne has provided some of the key elements for his illustrator — including the stone bench and the ass's pannel and bridle, Johannot has had to flesh out the scene with individualised bystanders, including La Fleur himself, standing next to the mourner. Moreover, since Sterne does not provide the name of the posting inn, the French illustrator has had to provide something plausible as an emblem (a prancing stallion) and a congruent sign.

Relevant illustrations from the 1792 and 1841 editions

The original Jacque and Fussell designs for this chapter: left, The mourner and the bridle (1841), which influenced Johannot's choice of subject; and, centre, Jacque and Fussell's interpretation of the owner separated from his ass in the Pyrenees, A Long Story of Mischance (1841). Right: Thomas Stothard's late 18th c. illustration of the mourner on the stone bench at Nampont, The Dead Ass.

Bibliography

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick. Illustrated by Thomas Stothard. London: J. Good, No. 159, New Bond Street; and E. and S. Harding, No. 102, Pall Mall, 1792.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.

Turner, Katherine. "Notes." Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768). Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2010.

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Last modified 22 September 2018