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the bell at the bed's head for Trim) was to a grenadier, I think in Makay's regi- ment. -- Had my uncle Toby shot a bullet thro' my father's heart, he could not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly. Bless me ! said my uncle Toby. WAS it Makay's regiment, quoth my uncle Toby, where the poor grenadier was so unmercifully whipp'd at Bruges about the ducats. -- O Christ ! he was innocent ! cried Trim with a deep sigh. ---- And he was whipp'd, may it please your honour, almost to death's door 4 |
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door. -- They had better have shot him outright, as he begg'd, and he had gone directly to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour. ---- I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. I never think of his, continued Trim, and my poor bro- ther Tom's misfortunes, for we were all three school-fellows, but I cry like a coward. -- Tears are no proof of cowar- dice, Trim. -- I drop them oft-times my- self, cried my uncle Toby. -- I know your honour does, replied Trim, and so am not ashamed of it myself. -- But to think, may it please your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke -- to think of two vir- tuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could make them -- the children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the world -- and fall into VOL. IV. G such |
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such evils ! -- poor Tom ! to be tortured upon a rack for nothing -- but marrying a Jew's widow who sold sausages -- honest Dick Johnson's soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put into his knapsack ! -- O ! -- these are mis- fortunes, cried Trim, pulling out his handkerchief -- these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down and crying over. -- My father could not help blushing. -- 'Twould be a pity, Trim quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own -- thou feelest it so tenderly for others. -- Alack -o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face -- your honour knows I have neither wife or child ---- I can have no sorrows in this world. -- My father could not help smiling. -- As |
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As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby ; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age -- when thou art passed all services, Trim, -- and hast out-lived thy friends -- An'please your honour, never fear, replied Trim chearily -- But I would have thee never fear, Trim, replied my uncle ; and there- fore, continued my uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word there- fore -- in recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of -- whilst thy master is worth a shilling -- thou shalt never ask elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby, -- but had not power -- tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off -- He laid his hands upon G 2 his |
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his breast -- made a bow to the ground, and shut the door. -- I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby -- My father smiled -- I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby -- My father looked grave. IS this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and GRENADIERS ? WHEN my uncle Toby first men- tioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby |
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Toby had shot him ; but it was not added, that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described ; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed, -- he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it. -- Attitudes are nothing, madam, -- 'tis the transition from one attitude to another -- like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all. For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor -- pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance -- gave a hem -- raised himself up upon his elbow -- and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby -- when recol- G 3 lecting |
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lecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude, -- he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby ; and laying the three first fingers of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows. WHEN I reflect, brother Toby, upon MAN ; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble -- when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance -- I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, inter- rupting |
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rupting my father -- but my commission. Zooks ! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year ? -- What could I have done with- out it ? replied my uncle Toby. -- That's another concern, said my father testily -- But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross reckonings and sorrowful items with which the heart of man is overcharged, 'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand it out, and bear itself up, as it does against the impositions laid upon our nature. ---- 'Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together -- 'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy -- a sen- tinel in a wooden centry-box, might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men, -- we are upheld G 4 by |
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by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings. -- That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it. -- But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into this mystery. With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby. My father instantly exchanged the at- titude he was in, for that in which So- crates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens ; which your con- noisseurship knows is so exquisitely ima- gined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it -- for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the fore-finger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was |
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was saying to the libertine he is re- claiming -- `` You grant me this -- and this : `` and this, and this, I don't ask of `` you -- they follow of themselves in `` course.'' So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs -- O Garrick ! what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make ! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immor- tality, and secure my own behind it. C H A P. |
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THOUGH man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame and so totteringly put to- gether, that the sudden jerks and hard jost- lings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day -- was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us -- Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion. -- Will that set my child's nose on ? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other -- It makes every thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby -- Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said 3 my |
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my father ; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can't prevent the shock -- at least it imposes upon our sense of it. Now, my dear brother, said my fa- ther, replacing his fore-finger, as he was coming closer to the point, -- had my child arrived safe into the world, un- martyr'd in that precious part of him -- fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistably impress upon our characters and conducts -- hea- ven is witness ! that in the warmest trans- ports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour, than |
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than what GEORGE or EDWARD would have spread around it. But alas ! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him -- I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good. He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother. I wish it may answer -- replied my uncle Toby, rising up. WHAT a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs ---- what a long chapter of chances do the events |
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events of this world lay open to us ! Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly -- I know no more of calculations than this balluster, said my uncle Toby, (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a de- sperate blow souse upon his shin-bone) -- 'Twas a hundred to one -- cried my uncle Toby. ---- I thought, quoth my father, ( rubbing his shin ) you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby. -- 'Twas a meer chance, said my uncle Toby -- Then it adds one to the chapter -- replied my father. The double success of my father's re- partees tickled off the pain of his shin at once -- it was well it so fell out -- (chance ! again) -- or the world to this day had never known the subject of my father's calculation -- to guess it -- there was no chance 4 |
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chance -- What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out ! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I have anew already upon my hands without it ---- Have not I pro- mised the world a chapter of knots ? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman ? a chapter upon whiskers ? a chapter upon wishes ? -- a chapter of noses ? -- No, I have done that -- a chapter upon my uncle Toby's modesty ? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep -- by my great grandfather's whis- kers, I shall never get half of 'em through this year. Take pen and ink in hand, and calcu- late it fairly, brother Toby, said my fa- ther, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of |
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of the forceps should have the ill luck just to fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the fortunes of our house with it. It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby -- I don't comprehend, said my father -- Suppose the hip had present- ed, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr. Slop foreboded. My father reflected half a minute -- looked down -- touched the middle of his forehead slightly with his finger -- -- True, said he. C H A P. |
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IS it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of stairs ? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bot- tom ; and for aught I know, as my fa- ther and my uncle Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps ; -- let that be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny : -- A sudden impulse comes across me ---- drop the curtain, Shandy -- I drop it ---- Strike a line here across the paper,Tristram -- I strike it -- and hey for a new chapter ! The duce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair -- and if I had |
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had one -- as I do all things out of all rule -- I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done -- Am I warm ? I am, and the cause demands it -- a pretty story ! is a man to follow rules -- or rules to follow him ? Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my conscience entirely before I lay'd down, by telling the world all I knew about the matter at once : Is not this ten times better than to set out dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world a story of a roasted horse -- that chapters relieve the mind -- that they assist -- or impose upon the imagination -- and that in a work of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as VOL. IV. H the |
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the shifting of scenes -- with fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted him. -- O ! but to un- derstand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple -- you must read Lon- ginus -- read away -- if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over -- never fear -- read him again -- Avicenna and Licetus, read Aristotle's metaphysicks forty times through a piece, and never understood a single word. -- But mark the consequence -- Avicenna turned out a de- sperate writer at all kinds of writing -- for he wrote books de omni scribili ; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus *, of no * Ce Foetus n'etoit pas plus grand que la paúme de la main ; mais son pere l'ayant éxaminè en qua- litè de Médecin, & ayant trouvé que c'etoit quel- que chose de plus qu'un Embryon, le fit transporter tout vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à Jerôme Bardi |
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no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himself ---- the learned know I mean his Gonopsychan- thropologia, upon the origin of the human soul. So Bardi & à d'autres Medecins du lieu. On trouva qu'il ne lui manquoit rien d'essential a la vie ; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son expérience, entreprit d'achever l'ouvrage de la Nature, & de travailler a la formation de l'Enfant avec le même artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire éclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourrisse de tout ce qu'elle avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un four proprement accommodè, il reussit à l'élever et a lui faire prendre ses accroisse- mens necessaires, par l'uniformité d'une chaleur étrangére mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d'un Thermométre, ou d'un autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri á Cart. 223. 488.) H 2 On |