Читать книгу The Journal to Eliza and Various letters by Laurence Sterne and Elizabeth Draper онлайн

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There was then living in Gerrard Street, Soho, a retired Indian commodore named William James. After making a fortune in the Bombay Marine Service, he returned to England, married an attractive wife, and soon won a place in the “best” London society. Early in 1767, Sterne began going to the Jameses for dinner, especially of a Sunday; and the friendship quickly became intimate. Under date of February 23, Sterne wrote to his daughter Lydia: “I wish I had you with me—and I would introduce you to one of the most amiable and gentlest of beings, whom I have just been with— * * * a Mrs. James, the wife of as worthy a man as I ever met with—I esteem them both.” It was no doubt at the house of these “kind friends in Gerrard Street” that Sterne made the acquaintance of Mrs. Draper—and most likely on his arrival in London at the very beginning of January, 1767. Half in love on first sight, Sterne soon became completely engrossed with his new passion. And well he might, for though Eliza may not have been handsome, she was young, good looking at least, and most agreeable in manner. “Your eyes,” Sterne wrote to her, “and the shape of your face (the latter the most perfect oval I ever saw) * * * are equal to any of God’s works in a similar way, and finer than any I beheld in all my travels.” Mrs. Draper was then called by her London friends, says one of her letters, the Belle Indian. Sterne saw much of her at the Jameses; she visited his lodgings in Old Bond Street; they made excursions together in and about London; and when separated from her, Sterne communed with her “sweet sentimental picture.” As the time was approaching for her to return to India—she sailed on April 3, 1767—he addressed to her the extraordinary epistles that all the world knows, and for months afterwards he recorded his sensations in a journal which he hoped some day to place in her hands.