low), "during our stay,
that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race,
whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt; the story
is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland,
where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me."--STERNE.

162 "My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at
Bagneres--I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in
Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having
things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the
best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst."--STERNE'S
_Letters_, 20th January, 1764.

163 In a collection of _Seven Letters by Sterne and His Friends_,
(printed for private circulation), in 1844, is a letter of M.
Tollot, who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here
is a paragraph:--

"Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, ou nous trouvames notre
ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres
Anglaises; j'eus, je vous l'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant
le bon et agreable Tristram.... Il avait ete assez longtemps a
Toulouse, ou il se serait amuse sans sa femme, qui le poursuivit
partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette
bonne dame, lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens; il supporte
tous ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange."

About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne
wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from his
letter we may extract a companion paragraph:--

"... All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smitten
with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish,
dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou canst without my
wishing it) how deliciously I canter'd away with it the first month,
two up, two down, always upon my _hanches_, along the streets from
my hotel to hers, at first once--then twice, then three times a day,
till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in
her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering how the
enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks
we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting--and thou mayest
conceive, dear co