but mutual
indifference must, it is clear, have reached a pretty advanced stage
before such a remark could, even half in jest, be possible. And with
one more longing, lingering look at the scenes which he had quitted
for a lot like that of the Duke of Buckingham's dog, upon whom his
master pronounced the maledictory wish that "he were married and lived
in the country," this characteristic letter concludes:

"Oh, Lord! now are you going to Ranelagh to-night, and I am sitting
sorrowful as the prophet was when the voice cried out to him
and said, 'What do'st thou here, Elijah?' 'Tis well that the spirit
does not make the same at Coxwold, for unless for the few sheep
left me to take care of in the wilderness, I might as well, nay, better,
be at Mecca. When we find we can, by a shifting of places, run
away from ourselves, what think you of a jaunt there before we
finally pay a visit to the Vale of Jehoshaphat? As ill a fame as we
have, I trust I shall one day or other see you face to face, so tell the
two colonels if they love good company to live righteously and soberly,
_as you do_, and then they will have no doubts or dangers within
or without them. Present my best and warmest wishes to them,
and advise the eldest to prop up his spirits, and get a rich dowager
before the conclusion of the peace. Why will not the advice suit
both, _par nobile fratrum?_"

[Footnote 1: It is curious to note, as a point in the chronology of
language, how exclusive is Sterne's employment of the words "humour,"
"humourists," in their older sense of "whimsicality," "an eccentric."
The later change in its meaning gives to the word "though" in the
above passage an almost comic effect.]

In conclusion, he tells his friend that the next morning, if Heaven
permit, he begins the fifth volume of _Shandy_, and adds, defiantly,
that he "cares not a curse for the critics," but "will load my vehicle
with what goods He sends me, and they may take 'em off my hands or let
'em alone."

The allusions to foreign travel in this letter were made with,
something more than a jesting intent. Sterne had already begun to be
seriously alarmed, and not without reason, about the condition of his
health. He shrank from facing another English winter, and meditated
a southward flight so soon as he should have finished his fifth
and sixth volumes, and seen them safe in the printer's hands. His
publisher he had changed, for what reason is not