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The Chambermaid
Maria is a beautiful young “madwoman” who lives in the French countryside near Moulines. Yorick seeks her out after having heard about her from his friend Mr. Shandy (who encountered her in Laurence Sterne’s other novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman). Though Yorick seems genuinely moved by Maria’s suffering, his reaction to her also contains humorously overblown sentimentality—he keeps crying and mopping both their faces with his handkerchief—and sexuality. Thus, Maria betrays the mixture of genuine kindness, satirized sentiment, and base sexuality at play in Yorick’s reactions to women.
Maria Quotes in A Sentimental Journey
The A Sentimental Journey quotes below are all either spoken by Maria or refer to Maria. 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:
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Volume 2 Quotes
I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it with my own—and then in hers—and then in mine—and then I wip’d hers again—and as I did it, I felt such indescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me of the contrary.
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Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw—and ‘tis thou who lifts him up to HEAVEN—eternal fountain of our feelings!—‘tis here I trace thee—and this is thy divinity which stirs within me […] that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world!
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Maria Character Timeline in A Sentimental Journey
The timeline below shows where the character Maria appears in A Sentimental Journey. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Volume 2
...out of France, Yorick decides to stop near Moulines to ask after a girl named Maria, whom his friend Mr. Shandy has written about. When he reaches Maria’s parents’ house, Maria’s...
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Yorick rides off in his carriage and sees Maria sitting under a tree. He gets out of the carriage, orders the coachman and La...
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Yorick asks Maria whether she recalls “a pale thin person of a man” who met her two years...
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Maria tells Yorick that she has walked to Rome, across the Apennines, to Lombardy, and to...
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After a moment of playing, Maria stands. Yorick asks where she’s going. When she tells him she’s going to Moulines, he...
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Continuing to travel through France, Yorick sees various happy scenes but continues to think of Maria’s sorrow. He muses that sentiment, in which he senses some “divinity,” causes both great happiness...
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