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was under of writing the 25th chapter of my book before the 18th, &c. ------ So I don't take it amiss ---- All I wish is that it may be a lesson to the world, `` to let people tell their stories `` their own way.'' |
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AS Mrs. Bridget open'd the door before the Corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into the parlour was so short that Mrs. Wad- man had but just time to get from be- hind the curtain ---- lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two to- wards the door to receive him. My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wad- man, after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and thirteen ---- then facing about, he march'd up abreast with her to the H 3 sopha, |
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sopha, and in three plain words ---- though not before he was sat down ---- nor after he was sat down ------ but as he was sitting down, told her, `` he was in love'' ---- so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the de- claration than he needed. Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation, every moment, that my uncle Toby would go on ; but having no talents for amplification, and LOVE moreover of all others being a subject of which he was the least a mas- ter ---- When he had told Mrs. Wad- man once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way. My |
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My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother Toby to his processe have added but a pipe of tobacco ---- he had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish pro- verb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe. My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant ; nor will I pre- sume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under ---- but the French, every one of 'em to a man, who believe in it, almost as much as the REAL PRESENCE, `` That talking of `` love, is making it.'' H 4 ---- I |
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------ I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt. Let us go on : Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that mi- nute, wherein silence on one side or the other, generally becomes indecent : so edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she did it ---- she took up the gauntlet ---- or the discourse (if you like it bet- ter) and communed with my uncle Toby, thus. The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are |
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are very great. I suppose so -- said my uncle Toby ; and therefore when a per- son, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you are -- so happy, captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends, and your amusements -- I wonder what rea- sons can incline you to the state ---- ---- They are written, quoth my un- cle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book. Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leav- ing Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulph as she pleased. ---- As for children -- said Mrs. Wad- man -- though a principal end perhaps of the institution, and the natural wish, I sup- pose, of every parent -- yet do not we all find they are certain sorrows, and very 2 uncertain |
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uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches -- what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suf- fering and defenceless mother who brings them into life? I declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none ; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God ---- ---- A fiddlestick! quoth she. C H A P. |
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NOW there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents with which the word fiddlestick may be pronounced in all such causes as this, every one of 'em im- pressing a sense and meaning as different from the other, as dirt from cleanliness -- That Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong. Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby's modest blood into his cheeks -- so feeling within himself that he had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short ; |
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short ; and without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they were, and share them along with her. When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again ; so cast- ing his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up ; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of all others the most interesting to him -- which was the siege of Jericho -- he set himself to read it over -- leaving his proposal of marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener ; nor like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug |
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drug which nature had bestowed upon the world -- in short, it work'd not at all in her ; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there before ---- Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen times ; but there is fire still in the subject ---- allons. C H A P. |
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IT is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edin- burgh to enquire, before he sets out, how many miles to York ; which is about the half way ---- nor does any body wonder, if he goes on and asks about the Corporation, &c. - - It was just as natural for Mrs. Wad- man, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin ; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings in the one case than in the other. She had accordingly read Drake's ana- tomy from one end to the other. She had |
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had peeped into Wharton upon the brain, and borrowed * Graaf upon the bones and muscles ; but could make nothing of it. She had reason'd likewise from her own powers ---- laid down theorems ---- drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion. To clear up all, she had twice asked Dr. Slop, `` if poor Captain Shandy `` was ever likely to recover of his `` wound ---- ?'' ---- He is recovered, Dr. Slop would say ---- * This must be a mistake in Mr. Shandy ; for Graaf wrote upon the pancreatick juice, and the parts of generation. What! |
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What! quite ? ---- Quite, Madam ---- But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say. Dr. Slop was the worst man alive at definitions ; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge : in short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself. There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls SUSPI- CION to rest ---- and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near it, in his dis- course with Eve ; for the propensity in the sex to be deceived could not be so great that she should have boldness to hold chat with the devil without it ---- But |
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But there is an accent of humanity ---- how shall I describe it? -- 'tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular with it as your body-surgeon. `` ---- Was it without remission? -- `` ---- Was it more tolerable in bed? `` ---- Could he lie on both sides ``alike with it? `` -- Was he able to mount a horse? `` -- Was motion bad for it?'' et cætera, were so tenderly spoke to, and so directed towards my uncle Toby's heart, that every item of them sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves ---- but when Mrs. Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby's groin ; and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and pêle-mêle VOL. IX. I with |
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with the Dutch to take the counterguard of St. Roch, sword in hand -- and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was carried to his tent ---- Heaven! Earth! Sea! -- all was lifted up -- the springs of nature rose above their levels -- an angel of mercy sat besides him on the sopha -- his heart glow'd with fire -- and had he been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. Wadman. -- And whereabouts, dear Sir, quoth Mrs. Wadman, a little categorically, did you receive this sad blow? ---- In ask- ing this question, Mrs. Wadman gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my uncle Toby's red plush breeches, ex- 4 pecting |
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pecting naturally, as the shortest reply to it, that my uncle Toby would lay his forefinger upon the place ---- It fell out otherwise ---- for my uncle Toby having got his wound before the gate of St. Nicolas, in one of the traverses of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. Roch, he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing when the stone struck him : this struck instantly upon my uncle Toby's senso- rium ---- and with it, struck his large map of the town and citadel of Namur and its environs, which he had purchased and pasted down upon a board by the Corporal's aid, during his long illness ---- it had lain with other military lum- ber in the garret ever since, and accord- I 2 ingly |
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ingly the Corporal was detached in to the garret to fetch it. My uncle Toby measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. Wadman's scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. Nicolas ; and with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the goddess of Decency, if then in being -- if not, 'twas her shade -- shook her head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes -- forbid her to explain the mistake. Unhappy Mrs. Wadman! ---- ---- For nothing can make this chap- ter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to thee ---- but my heart tells me that in such a crisis, an apostrophe is but an in- 1 sult |
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sult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a woman in distress -- let the chap- ter go to the devil ; provided any damn'd critick in keeping will be but at the trouble to take it with him. I 3 C H A P. |
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MY uncle Toby's Map is carried down into the kitchen. C H A P. |
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---- AND here is the Maas -- and this is the Sambre ; said the Corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map, and his left upon Mrs. Bridget's shoulder -- -- but not the shoulder next him -- and this, said he, is the town of Namur -- and this the citadel -- and there lay the French -- and here lay his honour and myself ---- and in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the Corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush'd him so miserably here ---- In pronouncing which he slightly press'd the back of her hand towards the part he felt for ---- and let it fall. I 4 We |