involved a perpetual fondling and caressing of those effeminate
sensibilities of his into that condition of hyper-aesthesia which,
though Sterne regarded it as the strength, was in reality the
weakness, of his art.

Injurious, however, as was the effect which Sterne's philanderings
exercised upon his personal and literary character, it is not likely
that, at least at this period of his life at Sutton, they had in any
degree compromised his reputation. For this he had provided in
other ways, and principally by his exceedingly injudicious choice
of associates. "As to the squire of the parish," he remarks in the
Memoir, "I cannot say we were on a very friendly footing, but at
Stillington the family of the C[rofts] showed us every kindness: 'twas
most agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family who
were ever cordial friends;" and who, it may be added, appear to have
been Sterne's only reputable acquaintances. For the satisfaction of
all other social needs he seems to have resorted to a companionship
which it was hardly possible for a clergyman to frequent without
scandal--that, namely, of John Hall Stevenson and the kindred spirits
whom he delighted to collect around him at Skelton--familiarly known
as "Crazy" Castle. The club of the "Demoniacs," of which Sterne makes
mention in his letters, may have had nothing very diabolical about it
except the name; but, headed as it was by the suspected ex-comrade
of Wilkes and his brother monks of Medmenham, and recruited by gay
militaires like Colonels Hall and Lee, and "fast" parsons like the
Rev. "Panty" Lascelles (mock godson of Pantagruel), it was certainly
a society in which the Vicar of Sutton could not expect to enroll
himself without offence. We may fairly suppose, therefore, that it
was to his association with these somewhat too "jolly companions" that
Sterne owed that disfavour among decorous country circles, of which