But it is comparatively seldom that this foible of Sterne obtrudes itself upon the strictly narrative and dramatic parts of his work; and, next to the abiding charm and interest of his principal figure, it is by the admirable life and colour of his scenes that he exercises his strongest powers of fascination over a reader.  Perpetual as are Sterne’s affectations, and tiresome as is his eternal self-consciousness when he is speaking in his own person, yet when once the dramatic instinct fairly lays hold of him there is no writer who ever makes us more completely forget him in the presence of his characters—­none who can bring them and their surroundings, their looks and words, before us with such convincing force of reality.  One wonders sometimes whether Sterne himself was aware of the high dramatic excellence of many of what actors would call his “carpenter’s scenes”—­the mere interludes introduced to amuse us while the stage is being prepared for one of those more elaborate and deliberate displays of pathos or humour, which do not always turn out to be unmixed successes when they come.  Sterne prided himself vastly upon the incident of Le Fevre’s death; but I dare say that there is many a modern reader who would rather have lost this highly-wrought piece of domestic drama, than that other exquisite little scene in the kitchen of the inn, when Corporal Trim toasts the bread which the sick lieutenant’s son is preparing for his father’s posset, while “Mr. Yorick’s curate was smoking a pipe by the fire, but said not a word, good or bad, to comfort the youth.”  The whole scene is absolute life; and the dialogue between the Corporal and the parson, as related by the former to his master, with Captain Shandy’s comments thereon, is almost Shakspearian in its excellence.  Says the Corporal: 

“When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step upstairs, I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers, for there was a book laid on the chair by the bed-side, and as I shut the door I saw him take up a cushion.  I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.  I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.  Are you sure of it? replied the curate.  A soldier, an’ please your reverence, said I, prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world.  ’Twas well said of thee, Trim, said my Uncle Toby.  But when a soldier, said I, an’ please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water—­or engaged, said I, for months together in long and