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"All that the heart wishes": Changing Views toward Sentimentality Reflected in Visualizations of Sterne's Maria, 1773-1888 W.B. GERARD Shortly after sharing in the sorrows of Maria in Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey1, Yorick attempts to vary his emotional diet by plunging into the local festivities of the French countryside, but finds himself hampered by the indelibility of the young woman's doleful image: There was nothing from which I had painted out for myself so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but... in every scene of festivity I saw Maria in the back-ground of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her— (ASJ 155.2-8) The haunting picture of Maria, in effect, acts as a counterweight to Yorick's tendency toward buoyant emotion, a reminder of the melancholy lurking beneath the surface of his own character. The passage also reflexively exploits visual conventions and, through Yorick's confession of the impact of Maria's image on him, simultaneously suggests the effectiveness of visual language. When this verbal pictorialism is conjoined with pathos, the visual sense (evoked by words) acts as a conduit to the object of 231 232 / GERARD pity—a technique Sterne brings to bear repeatedly and effectively throughout his work.2 This is only one of several instances in Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey when Sterne describes the character of Maria using compelling visual language, creating a strong sense of both her identity and location; the pictorial quality of the text augments her depiction, a depiction which in turn inspired many additional verbal and pictorial renderings for over a hundred years beyond its initial publication. This visual technique is especially evident on Tristram's, and later Yorick's, arrival, when Maria is "framed" by scenic elements that serve to isolate and emphasize her as a lone figure who magnetically attracts the attention, and consequently the sympathy, of the viewer/narrator (and thus of the reader). Approaching Maria, Tristram is struck by her appearance, which he describes simply, directly, and with earnest feeling: We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk net, with a few oliveleaves twisted a little fantastically on one side—she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heartache , it was the moment I saw her—3 Maria's first scene in A Sentimental Journey; though portraying a changed character, continues the tone of the initial description: When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar—she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand—a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. . . . She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net.—She had, superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green ribband which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. (ASJ 150.12-16, 1923 ) The elements of the later scene—the specific aspects of Maria's dress, in addition to the tree and brook, were to become standard, instantly recognizable features in the visual portrayals of Maria, traits that immediately identify a rendition of a seated young woman as Sterne's character. In "All that the heart wishes" / 233 both instances, the verbal picture helps to forge a sympathetic bond between the character and the reader. Edward Mangin, an Anglican minister and accomplished amateur critic, was an early observer of Sterne's visual cues and, in his discussion of A Sentimental Journey, is inspired to describe a variant portrait of Maria himself. He notes that Sterne's . . . portrait of the forlorn and gentle Maria is complete in all the...

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