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My uncle Toby blushed as red as scar- let as Trim went on ; -- but it was not a blush of guilt, -- of modesty, -- or of an- ger ; -- it was a blush of joy ; -- he was fired with Corporal Trim's project and description. -- Trim ! said my uncle Toby, thou hast said enough. -- We might be- gin the campaign, continued Trim, on the very day that his Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish 'em town by town as fast as ---- Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, say no more. -- Your Ho- nour, continued Trim, might sit in your arm-chair, (pointing to it) this fine weather, giving me your orders, and I would ---- Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. ------ Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure and good pastime, -- but good air, and good exer- cise, and good health, -- and your Ho- nour's wound would be well in a month. Thou |
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Thou hast said enough, Trim, -- quoth my uncle Toby, (putting his hand into his breeches-pocket) -- I like thy project mightily ; -- and if your Honour pleases, I'll, this moment, go and buy a pioneer's spade to take down with us, and I'll be- speak a shovel and a pick-ax, and a couple of ------ Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture, ---- and thrusting a guinea into Trim's hand. ---- Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more; -- but go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant. Trim ran down and brought up his Master's supper, -- to no purpose : ---- Trim's plan of operation ran so in my uncle Toby's head, he could not taste it. -- Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, get me to 1 |
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to bed; -- 'twas all one. -- Corporal Trim's description had fired his imagination, -- my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes. -- The more he consider'd it, the more be- witching the scene appeared to him ; -- so that, two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decampment. My uncle Toby had a little neat coun- try-house of his own, in the village where my father's estate lay at Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre ; -- and at the bot- tom of the garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling- green, containing just about as much ground |
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ground as Corporal Trim wished for ; -- so that as Trim uttered the words, ``A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with :'' ---- this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously painted, all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy ; ------ which was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least, of heightening his blush to that immo- derate degree I spoke of. Never did lover post down to a belov'd mistress with more heat and expectation, than my uncle Toby did, to enjoy this self-same thing in private ; -- I say in pri- vate ; ---- for it was sheltered from the house, as I told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly and thickset flowering shrubs ; -- so that the idea 3 |
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idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute to the idea of pleasure pre- conceived in my uncle Toby's mind. -- Vain thought ! however thick it was planted about, ---- or private soever it might seem, -- to think, dear uncle Toby, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rood and a half of ground, -- and not have it known ! How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter, -- with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, -- may make no unin- teresting under-plot in the epitasis and working up of this drama. -- At present the scene must drop, -- and change for the parlour fire-side. C H A P. |
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------ What can they be doing, brother ? said my father. -- I think, re- plied my uncle Toby, -- taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and strik- ing the ashes out of it as he began his sentence ; -- I think, replied he, -- it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. Pray, what's all that racket over our heads, Obadiah ? -- quoth my father ; -- my brother and I can scarce hear our- selves speak. Sir, answer'd Obadiah, making a bow towards his left shoulder, -- my Mistress is taken very badly ; -- and where's Su- sannah running down the garden there, as |
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as if they were going to ravish her. ---- Sir, she is running the shortest cut into the town, replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife. ------ Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go direct- ly for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife, with all our services, -- and let him know your Mistress is fallen into labour, -- and that I desire he will return with you with all speed. It is very strange, says my father, ad- dressing himself to my uncle Toby, as Obadiah shut the door, -- as there is so expert an operator as Dr. Slop so near -- that my wife should persist to the very last in this obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of my child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old woman ; ---- and not only the life of my child, brother, -- but her own life, |
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life, and with it the lives of all the chil- dren I might, peradventure, have begot out of her hereafter. Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the ex- pense : -- A pudding's end, -- replied my father, ---- the Doctor must be paid the same for inaction as action, -- if not bet- ter, -- to keep him in temper. ------ Then it can be out of no- thing in the whole world, quoth my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his heart, -- but MODESTY : -- My sister, I dare say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her * * * *. I will not say whether my uncle Toby had com- pleated the sentence or not ; ------ 'tis for his advantage to suppose he had, ---- as, I think, he could have added no VOL. II D ONE |
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ONE WORD which would have im- proved it. If, on the contrary. my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at his period's end, -- then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco- pipe, for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis. -- Just heaven ! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists ; -- the in- sensible MORE or LESS, determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue ! How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-stick, et cætera, -- give the true swell, which gives the true pleasure ! -- O my countrymen ! -- be nice ; -- be cau- tious of your language ; ---- and never, O ! never let it be forgotten upon what small |
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small particles your eloquence and your fame depend. ---- ``My sister, mayhap, quoth my ``uncle Toby, does not choose to let a ``man come so near her * * * *'' Make this dash, -- 'tis an Aposiopesis. -- Take the dash away, and write Backside, ---- 'tis Bawdy. -- Scratch Backside out, and put Cover'd-way in, -- 'tis a Metaphor; -- and, I dare say, as fortification ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, that if he had been left to have added one word to the sentence, -- that word was it. But whether that was the case or not the case ; -- or whether the snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe so critically, happened thro' accident or anger, -- will be seen in due time. D 2 CHAP. |
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THO' my father was a good natural philosopher, -- yet he was some- thing of a moral philosopher too ; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapp'd short in the middle, ---- he had nothing to do, -- as such, -- but to have taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of the fire. -- He did no such thing ; -- he threw them with all the violence in the world ; -- and, to give the action still more emphasis, -- he started up upon both his legs to do it. This look'd something like heat ; ---- and the manner of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying prov'd it was so. ``Not |
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-- ``Not choose, quoth my father, (re- peating my uncle Toby's words) to let a man come so near her ---- '' By hea- ven, brother Toby ! you would try the patience of a Job ; -- and I think I have the plagues of one already, without it. ---- Why ? -- Where ? -- Wherein ? ---- Wherefore ? -- Upon what account, re- plied my uncle Toby, in the utmost asto- nishment. ---- To think, said my father, of a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little about women ! -- I know nothing at all about them, -- re- plied my uncle Toby ;and I think. con- tinued he, that the shock I received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with widow Wadman ; -- which shock you know I should not have re- ceived, but from my total ignorance of the sex, -- has given me just cause to say, That I neither know, nor do pretend to D 3 know, |
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know, any thing about 'em, or their concerns either. ---- Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong. It is said in Aristotle's Master-Piece, ``That when a man doth think of any ``thing which is past, -- he looketh down ``upon the ground ; -- but that when he ``thinketh of something which is to come, ``he looketh up towards the heavens.'' My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither, -- for he look'd horizontally. -- Right end, -- quoth my uncle Toby, mut- tering the two words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly, as he mut- tered them, upon a small crevice, form'd by a bad joint in the chimney-piece. -- Right end of a woman ! ---- I declare, quoth |
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quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is, than the man in the moon ; -- and if I was to think, continued my uncle Toby, (keeping his eye still fix'd upon the bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out. Then brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you. Every thing in this world, continued my father, (filling a fresh pipe) -- every thing in this earthly world, my dear bro- ther Toby, has two handles ; -- not always, quoth my uncle Toby ; -- at least, replied my father, every one has two hands, -- which comes to the same thing. -- Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and con- sider within himself the make, the shape, the construction, com-at-ability, and con- venience of all the parts which constitute D 4 the |
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the whole of that animal, call'd Woman, and compare them analogically -- I never understood rightly the meaning of that word, ---- quoth my uncle Toby. ------ ANALOGY, replied my father, is the cer- tain relation and agreement, which dif- ferent -- Here a Devil of a rap at the door snapp'd my father's definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two, -- and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was engen- dered in the womb of speculation ; -- it was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely deliver'd of it : -- And, at this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself, -- (considering the confu- sion and distresses of our domestick mis- adventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another) whether I |
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I shall be able to find a place for it in the third volume or not. IT is about an hour and a half's tole- rable good reading since my uncle Toby rung the bell, when Obadiah was order'd to saddle a horse, and go for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife ; -- so that no one can say, with reason, that I have not al- lowed Obadiah time enough, poetically speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and come ; ------ tho', mo- rally and truly speaking, the man, perhaps, has scarce had time to get on his boots. If the hypercritick will go upon this ; and is resolved after all to take a pen- dulum, |
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dulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the bell and the rap at the door ; -- and, after finding it to be no more than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three fifths, ---- should take upon him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather probability, of time ; -- I would remind him, that the idea of duration and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succes- sion of our ideas, -- and is the true scho- lastick pendulum, ---- and by which, as a scholar, I will be tried in this matter, -- abjuring and detesting the jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever. I would, therefore, desire him to con- sider that it is but poor eight miles from Shandy-Hall to Dr. Slop, the man-mid- wife's house ; -- and that whilst Obadiah has been going those said miles and back, I |
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I have brought my uncle Toby from Na- mur, quite across all Flanders, into Eng- land : -- That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years ; -- and have since travelled him and Corporal Trim, in a chariot and four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into Yorkshire ; -- all which put together, must have prepared the reader's imagination for the enter- ance of Dr. Slop upon the stage, -- as much, at least, (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts. If my hypercritick is intractable, -- al- ledging, that two minutes and thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds, -- when I have said all I can about them ; -- and that this plea, tho' it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my book, from this very moment, a pro- fess'd |
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fess'd ROMANCE, which, before, was a book apocryphal : ---- If I am thus pres- sed -- I then put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once, -- by acquainting him, that Obadiah had not got above threescore yards from the stable-yard before he met with Dr. Slop ; -- and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him, -- and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too. Imagine to yourself ; -- but this had better begin a new chapter. IMagine to yourself a little, squat, un- courtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, |
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height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a Serjeant in the Horse- Guards. Such were the out-lines of Dr. Slop's figure, which, -- if you have read Ho- garth's analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would ; -- you must know, may as certainly be caracatur'd, and con- vey'd to the mind by three strokes as three hundred. Imagine such a one, -- for such, I say, were the out-lines of Dr. Slop's figure, co- ming slowly along, foot by foot, wad- dling thro' the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, -- of a pretty colour ; -- but of strength, -- alack ! ---- scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in |