Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Laurence Sterne. (1713–1768). A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.

The Grace

WHEN supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife—to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair—and the young men to the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin.—The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle—and, at the age he was then of, touch’d it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune—then intermitted—and join’d her old man again as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seem’d to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance—but as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have look’d upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon the dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay—

—Or a learned prelate either, said I.