How we cite our quotes:
Quote #10
I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads. (9.8.8)
Tristram uses a figure of speech, imaging that Life is chasing his pen and possibly borrowing from a famous poem by seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell, whose work was popular in Sterne's political circles. Here, it sounds like his writing is actually making time go faster, speeded up by "every letter I trace."