A Sentimental Journey

by

Laurence Sterne

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Count de B**** is an Anglophile French aristocrat—he loves Shakespeare, English literature, and English people. Yorick first learns of the Count when he attempts to buy the Count’s copy of Shakespeare’s complete works, which the Count has sent to a Paris bookstore to be bound. After Yorick has gotten in trouble with the French police for traveling without a passport, he remembers the Count’s fondness for English people and appeals to him for help. The Count not only obtains a passport for Yorick but also introduces him into Parisian high society. As an Anglophile Frenchman, the Count represents the humanizing effects of learning about other countries and caring about foreigners.

Count de B**** Quotes in A Sentimental Journey

The A Sentimental Journey quotes below are all either spoken by Count de B**** or refer to Count de B****. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Sentimentality Theme Icon
).
Volume 2 Quotes

There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better account of than of myself; and I have often wish’d I could do it in a single word—and have an end of it.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

But there is nothing unmixt in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh—and that the greatest they knew of, terminated in a general way, in little better than a convulsion.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

I told Madame de V*** it might be her principle; but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world, than for a beauty to be a deist—that it was a debt I owed my creed, not to conceal it from her—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sopha besides her, but I had begun to form designs—and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in her breast, which could have check’d them as they rose up.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
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Count de B**** Quotes in A Sentimental Journey

The A Sentimental Journey quotes below are all either spoken by Count de B**** or refer to Count de B****. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Sentimentality Theme Icon
).
Volume 2 Quotes

There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better account of than of myself; and I have often wish’d I could do it in a single word—and have an end of it.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

But there is nothing unmixt in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh—and that the greatest they knew of, terminated in a general way, in little better than a convulsion.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

I told Madame de V*** it might be her principle; but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world, than for a beauty to be a deist—that it was a debt I owed my creed, not to conceal it from her—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sopha besides her, but I had begun to form designs—and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in her breast, which could have check’d them as they rose up.

Related Characters: Yorick (The Narrator) (speaker), Count de B****
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis: