Sensibility, Moral Sympathy, and Social Class Sensibility was a literary genre that grew to popularity in the middle

of the 18th Century. While not a definable literary period, it was both a mode of thought, living, and writing, making it a unique and often understudied part of the 18th Century. Along with being less of an era than a cultural movement, sensibility is hard to define, and can often be misconstrued, confused, or taken too literally. In A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne, sentimentality is used always to gain in the end, and is therefore almost selfish. Other texts of the period, such as Mary, A Fiction by Mary Wollstonecraft, put sentimentality in a gentler light, claiming that when mixed with reason sensibility is valuable. While both extremes of sentimentality were equally valid in the 18th Century, indulging in emotion and sympathising with the unfortunate led to a distinction between the upper and lower classes of the time. The upper class would, urged on by their sentimental feelings, pity the lower classes but would often refuse to do more to help them. Sentimentality is, then, more of a way of indulging in ones feelings than actually going out and righting that which was upsetting, thus cementing the upper class role at the top. Laurence Sterne was, upon the time of writing Tristam Shandy, one of the most popular writers of the era. Hailed as a celebrity by most of London, Sterne quickly wrote sequels to the adventures of Tristam Shandy, including The Sermons of Mr Yorick and Journal to Eliza. When he sat down to write A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy in 1767 he was soon to die; only two volumes of his book were to be written. Yet despite this, Sterne was called the founder of a school of sentimental writers, (qtd. in Parnell viii) and was praised for writing so eloquently on compassion and sensibility. Yet despite the label given to him at the time of his writing and his unfortunate death in 1768, A Sentimental Journey mocks the sentiment that gave the book its title, delineating sensibility as an emotion that could belong only to the upper class. Yoricks

journey throughout the Continent begins in France, where he is eating and drinking, and as he makes jokes he sees an old Franciscan monk. Yorick writes that he was, predetermined not to give him a single sous (Sterne 5), and places his purse in a buttoned pocket, just to be clear about his intentions. Yet the Franciscan monk comes and speaks to Yorick regardless, and explains what Yorick, as a clergyman, must have already known: That the Franciscans, in keeping with their order, take a vow of poverty, and are obliged to beg for everything that they have. Yoricks response is cruel and cutting, and after a long soliloquy Yorick claims to, distinguish...betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labourand those who eat the bread of other peoples, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God. (Sterne 6). For a religious man who claims to feel keenly, this is a cutting blow, and a dividing one that marks the wide social divide between Catholics and Protestants. This is a cruel statement, and one that does not seem to be born of the notion of sentimentality. Yorick himself has admitted that the monk is old, poor, and has an aura that Guido, a famous painter of the time, oftentimes depicted in his work. Yorick is here separating himself from poverty, as a man who drinks for fun and goes where he pleases, and perhaps he is also trying to draw a line in the sand between the two sects of Christianity, Catholic and Protestant. It is not until after the Monk leaves that the ungraciousness of Yoricks words smote him (Sterne 7), but Yorick only reasons within himself that he will learn better manners as I get along. (Sterne 7). It is not until Yorick meets a beautiful young woman and sees her speaking to the Monk that the true horror of the situation falls upon him, and he determines to make right with the Monk, in order to preserve himself from the ladys scorn, since she, he repeats, is clearly one of a better order of beings (40) (Benedict 90). Yet none of his kind words or

actions to the Monk following this scene is because Yorick feels sympathy for the poverty of the Monk, but instead fears that the woman, a member of his own social class, may view him as a selfish brute. Even his peace offering of his tortoise snuffbox is laden with class symbols. In the paragraphs following the exchange of the snuffboxes, Yorick is careful to relegate ownership to the Monk, writing that by looking at the snuffbox conjures up the spirit of its owner (Sterne 18). Lynn Festa, in Sentimental Figures of Empire, claims that this is because, To do so would be to reinscribe divisions between men. Proprietary rights subsides before sentimental usufruct. (Festa 73). Despite the goodwill that now exists between the Monk and Yorick, it is a tentative one; the social chasm has not been crossed, and the exchange was not so much out of sympathy as it was to define his place as an upper class gentleman in the eyes of his class. The interaction between Yorick and Father Lorenzo, however, is not the only instance in which Yoricks feelings of sensibility are born not out of genuine feeling but of other, more base desires. If Yoricks apology for Father Lorenzo was born of lust for the young woman, whom Yorick follows throughout the book, the sympathy for the Paris starling was born out of pride. As Yorick ruminates on the horrors of the French Bastille, he is interrupted by a voice like that of a childs, who cries I cant get out (Sterne 59). Upon investigating further, Yorick realises that the cry is that of a starling, trapped in a cage. After having contemplated the Bastille, and finding it to be less deserving of the terror that the word inspires, Yorick is touched by the birds cries, and says, God help thee! Ill let thee out, cost what it will, (Sterne 60), but fails to undo the birdcage chain. Yorick steps back and speaks passionately about the horrors of slavery in disguise, but upon thinking more of it, finds that he is incapable of imaginings millions of his fellow men trapped as the bird is, and so invents a mythical slave to weep over. Yet Yorick, despite his tears and tender feelings for the imagined slave and real starling, does not free the

bird, cost what it will (Sterne 60). Instead, Yorick takes the bird from Italy back to England, where he sells it to Lord A, who then sells it to Lord B and so on, until the bird belonged to commoners, who wanted to get in as much as the bird wanted to get out (Sterne 63). Yoricks actions here were pride; he was the man who had discovered the delightful bird, and wishes to be known forever as the man from whom the birds succession began. In fact, Yorick is so proud of his role in the Starlings fate that he adds the bird to his family crest. These are not the actions of a sentimental man, who felt so much sorrow for an imprisoned bird that it reminded him of the sufferings of men. It is the, powerlessness of Yorick, the speaker, [which] seem to praise feeling over action...that we can do nothing except sympathise with the afflicted (Benedict 89). Sterne is mocking the politics of sentimentality, even as Yorick repeatedly glorifies it by claiming that the emotions felt by the upper class changed little for the poor and oppressed. Just as the bird is never freed, Yoricks sentimental feelings do not permanently change the lives of those he meets. The Augustans and the Romantics were profoundly political literary eras. The Romantics especially sought to encourage the upper classes to take real notice of the lower class, and to actively try and make their lives better. Whilst the culture of sensibility was not an overtly political movement, Sternes between-the-lines mockery of it reveals that sensibility was something that, given the right incentive, could have become a revolutionary ideal. Sensibility was, at the time of its popularity, mocked for two primary reasons: It blurred the distinctions between the classes, and it encouraged men to behave in an effeminate manner. By blurring the distinction between the classes, as the famous Magdalen House showed, it was almost impossible to tell who was the peasant, crying for their misfortune, and who belonged to the upper class, crying in sympathy. Should the tears have ever meant more than an indulgence in feeling, real change could have occurredand did occur, in cases such as the Bluestocking circle

and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Laurence Sterne was aware of this, and as he was himself avidly against slavery, pushed his own sentiments upon the reader. The case of the Starling emphasises slavery, in that it cries for liberty, and it is denied. Any sympathy that Yorick might have felt for the bird was, however, overshadowed by his own pride, a metaphor for the slave trade and their masters. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the first to weigh in on sensibility and its effects on women and the working class. While Mary, A Fiction, the only one of her novels she ever finished, is a satire of sensibility, it also shows the good that can come of sensibility, when tempered with reason. Like Sternes Yorick, the character Mary is deeply religious, and her religious feelings often seem to mix with her sensibilities until the two are almost indistinguishable. The novel begins with a caricature of the true sentimental woman. Eliza is weak and lazy, rather conventional, the mother of two children, a son and a daughter, and prefers to spend her time with her two dogs, giving her children up to nurses. Mary is left to her own devices; she is a natural, unaffected child, but awkward when she engages with humanity. In fact, Marys earliest playmates are not humans at all, but angels, and this religious bent encourages her to love even her parents, who do not love her. Sublime ideas filled her young mind, Wollstonecraft writes of her heroine, always connected with devotional sentiments; extemporary effusions of gratitude, and rhapsodies of praise would burst often from her, when she listened to the birds, or pursued the deer (Wollstonecraft 5). Mary is, in effect, natures child, prompted only by her emotions, or sensibility. We are first privy to the effect of Marys nurturing feeling very early in the book, when a young girl in the nursery falls ill, and Mary tries to nurse her, as the childs mother must work outside of the home in order to feed her children. However, the girl is sent out of the home

to her mothers house, where consequently, the girl dies. Mary is distressed by this incident and never gets over it; she spends the rest of her life attempting to nurse others back to health. Even the suffering of the beggars bothers her; she often slips them her breakfast, and feels satisfied when she goes hungry instead of them. Her understanding was strong and clear, Wollstonecraft writes grudgingly of Mary, when not clouded by her feelings (Wollstonecraft 6). As it is, Mary is currently the slave of compassion (Wollstonecraft 6), and will not be considered an adult until she has learnt to master her emotions with reason. Marys association with the beggars of her childhood is not forgotten, even when she grows up and becomes, rather unexpectedly, the heiress of her fathers estate. After travelling to Lisbon to avoid her husband, Charles, and try and nurse her friend Ann back to health, Mary meets a group of fashionable young women, who declare that, [Mary] is a foolish creature, and this friend that she pays as much attention to as if she as a lady of quality, is a beggar (Wollstonecraft 21). This manner of regarding Mary continues after Ann dies, and she returns home to England, where she ministers to the poor. After treating one young woman with a fever, Mary falls ill with it, and finds that, she was not treated with the same respect as formerly; her favours were forgotten when no more were expected (Wollstonecraft 40). These are three cases in which Mary nurses individuals, and yet receives no credit for it. Her mother, who had treated her ill throughout Marys life, was devotedly attended to by her daughter, who married a man she had never met in her mothers last moments to please her. Ann was nursed by Mary with zeal that went unappreciated, and the third gave Mary the fever. Mary finds herself forgotten by all she had helped. This is, in effect, the result of sentimental offerings, the same way that Yorick, upon giving alms to the poor, is really only prolonging, and not assisting, the situation. Their pity changes nothing, and as soon as the money is gone, the

benefactor is soon forgotten. Yet Mary, after her illness, continues to nurse the poor, because she is filled with such sympathy for the working class. Yorick, when confronted with the poor, gives coins but spares no thought to the people he gives money to; Mary, in contrast, works with the poor because she genuinely sympathises with their suffering. After Marys illness, Mary reviews her earlier thoughts on sensibility, and begins to change her mind on what it means to her. In her journal she writes, Man seems formed for action, though the passions are seldom properly managed; they are either so languid as not to serve as a spur, or else so violent, as to overleap all bounds (Wollstonecraft 43-44). Mary is learning that sensibility, while not in itself a terrible thing, must be executed with caution. It is one thing to feel overwhelming sympathy for the poor, but these emotions must be restrained so that change can be enacted, or else the emotions are worth nothing. Both Mary and Yorrick, in their respective texts, hint at change but do very little to change their surroundings themselves. Yorrick spends his time sermonising about what is terrible about his life, whilst chasing beautiful women, and Mary, for all of her nursing, leaves very little changed in her wake. Yet Wollstonecraft and Sterne prod the reader to think about the characters and what is meant by them, and at the same time mock and encourage reasonable sentimentality upon their readers. Social classes break down in these books and are thoroughly examined by the characters, who find that even servants and beggars can find sensibility, thought to be an emotion of the upper classes, in their hearts. This indefinable feeling encourages sympathy to be had for all, but Sterne and Wollstonecraft caution through their characters, that sensibility must be tempered with intelligent thought. Yoricks sympathy for the Monk and the starling relate back to the change in social classes, from slaves to the poor, and Marys sympathy for both her idle parents and the poor she nurses have such an effect on her that she spends the rest of her life in

devotion to the needy. Yet for all of the good that Yorick and Mary attempted to do, prompted by their sympathetic feelings, the social divide was only more firmly cemented.

Works Cited Benedict, Barbara M. Framing Feeling: Sentiment and Style in English Prose Fiction. New York: AMS Press, 1994. Festa, Lynn. Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Parnell, Tom. Introduction. A Sentimental Journey. Ed. Ian Jack and Tim Parnell. New York: Oxford university Press, 1968. Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey. New York: Oxford university Press, 1968. Wollstonecraft, Shelley. Mary, A Fiction. South Australia: University of Adelaide, 1788.