182 18™.Cenr. LITERATURE DIGRESSIONS, THE LIFE OF READING * (AND WRITING!) Here are Sterne's own humorous observations about the difficulties involved in recounting stories “in a tolerable straight line”. The reader will observe that Sterne delights im digressions, but isn't it true that it is difficult to reduce the variety of life into a straight, direct line of narrative? Chapter XL 1 am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but T shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story and my own in a tolerable straight line. Now, aa QL os These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes—In the fifth volume I have been very good — the precise line I have described in it being this: AB » * The title given to this excerpt is a“ Sempre dal libro VI. statement by ‘Sterne himself.