The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Laurence Sterne

Volume IV, Chapter 20

243 of 315 · 1 min of reading

ANS now for Lippius’s clock! said I, with the air of a man, who had got thro’ all his difficulties----nothing can prevent us seeing that, and the Chinese history, &c. except the time, said François----for ’tis almost eleven--then we must speed the faster, said I, striding it away to the cathedral.

I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by one of the minor canons, as I was entering the west door,--That Lippius’s great clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for some years----It will give me the more time, thought I, to peruse the Chinese history; and besides I shall be able to give the world a better account of the clock in its decay, than I could have done in its flourishing condition----

----And so away I posted to the college of the Jesuits.

Now it is with the project of getting a peep at the history of China in Chinese characters--as with many others I could mention, which strike the fancy only at a distance; for as I came nearer and nearer to the point--my blood cool’d--the freak gradually went off, till at length I would not have given a cherry-stone to have it gratified----The truth was, my time was short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the Lovers----I wish to God, said I, as I got the rapper in my hand, that the key of the library may be but lost; it fell out as well----

For all the JESUITS had got the cholic--and to that degree, as never was known in the memory of the oldest practitioner.

· · ·

End of part 243 of 315