“ the soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth'd at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him—so that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself. ”
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759). copy citation
| Author | Laurence Sterne |
|---|---|
| Source | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman |
| Topic | imagination writing |
| Date | 1759 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1079/1079-h/1079-h.htm |
Context
“and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity—How Homer could write with so long a beard, I don't know—and as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little care—But let us return to the Toilet.
Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body (Greek) as he calls it—but he is deceived: the soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth'd at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him—so that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself.
For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I writ clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by looking into my Laundress's bill, as my book: there is one single month in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty shirts with clean writing;”
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