[xv]
Under the disguise of a surgeon, lawyer, apothecary, undertaker, and the president who loved an hypothesis better than his life, he probably drew little portraits of the members—their mannerisms and favorite gestures, and their vehemence in the expression of their opinions. What kind of men they were further than this or what names they bore—we may never know, except, to be sure, that the Vicar of Sutton is among them. He is the parson of the parish, smart in repartee and ready to defend by a counter-jest an attack upon the cloth, just as was related in many an anecdote of Sterne once current and as may be seen in the character he drew of himself in Parson Yorick.
To these obscure associates Sterne had been long known for his overpowering sense of humor. "He loved a jest in his heart." He had contributed political paragraphs to York and London newspapers, and had read to his friends his quaint verses occasioned by hearing the great bell of the Cathedral toll for the dead; but it was really A Political Romance that first revealed to the author and his club that he could write "so as to make his reader laugh." Having once discovered his talent, Sterne immediately sat down to Tristram Shandy, and within a year entered upon his fame.
August 20, 1914.
