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Passage Anticipated

— "He will be ready, monsieur," said she, in a moment. "And in that moment," replied I, "most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly," added I, "if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world." "Feel it," said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.

— Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever: how wouldst thou have laugh’d and moralized upon my new profession! — and thou shouldst have laugh’d and moralized on. Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, “There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.” "But a grisette’s!" thou wouldst have said, "and in an open shop! Yorick —" ["The Pulse. Paris," p. 78]

Bibliography

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.

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