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

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In the Sterne curiosity-shop, where one strange thing lies hidden beneath another, nothing has been uncovered quite so curious as the draft of a letter to Daniel Draper, Esq., of Bombay. Sterne evidently found it difficult to explain to the husband of Eliza the kind of love he felt for her; for he begins a sentence, breaks it off, starts in anew, draws pen through word and phrase once more, and finally passes into chaos on arriving at the verge of a proposal that Mrs. Draper shall be permitted to return to England and live under his platonic protection. The letter bears no date, but as its substance is contained in the Journal for the second of June, it was probably written soon after Sterne’s coming to Coxwold in the early summer of 1767. That Sterne completed the sketch and sent it off to Draper may seem improbable. But Sterne was certainly corresponding with Draper at this time.^[11] A photograph of the letter is given here along with Mr. Gibbs’s own version.^[12]

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