The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman
against the man;—and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is
made use of by the man only against the woman;—As these two are enough
in conscience for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best
answer to the other,—let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of
in a place by themselves.
C H A P. XXII
THE learned Bishop _Hall_, I mean the famous Dr. _Joseph Hall_, who was
Bishop of _Exeter_ in King _James_ the First’s reign, tells us in one
of _Decads_, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at
_London_, in the year 1610, by _John Beal_, dwelling in
_Aldersgate-street_, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to
commend himself;”——and I really think it is so.
And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind
of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;—I think it is
full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out
of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head.
This is precisely my situation.
For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in
all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of
digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been
over-looked by my reader,—not for want of penetration in him,—but
because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a
digression;—and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as
you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as
often too, as any writer in _Great Britain_; yet I constantly take care
to order affairs so that my main business does not stand still in my
absence.
I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of
my uncle _Toby_’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt _Dinah_ and
the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles
into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this,
you perceive that the drawing of my uncle _Toby_’s character went on
gently all the time;—not the great contours of it,—that was
impossible,—but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it,
were here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much
better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before.
By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself;
two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were
thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is
digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.
This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving
round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her
elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that
variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though I own it suggested
the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and
discoveries have come from such trifling hints.
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the
soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as
well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign
in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a
bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite
to fail.
All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as
to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author,
whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a
digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock
still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—then there is an end of
his digression.
——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you
see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it
with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the
digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that
the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what’s more,
it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain
of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.
C H A P. XXIII
I HAVE a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very
nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.—Accordingly I set off
thus:
If the fixture of _Momus_’s glass in the human breast, according to the
proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,——first, This
foolish consequence would certainly have followed,—That the very wisest
and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid
window-money every day of our lives.
And, secondly, that had the said glass been there set up, nothing more
would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but
to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical
bee-hive, and look’d in,—view’d the soul stark naked;—observed all her
motions,—her machinations;—traced all her maggots from their first
engendering to their crawling forth;—watched her loose in her frisks,
her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn
deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.——then taken your pen and
ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn
to:—But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this
planet;—in the planet _Mercury_ (belike) it may be so, if not better
still for him;——for there the intense heat of the country, which is
proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than
equal to that of red-hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified
the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them
for the climate (which is the final cause;) so that betwixt them both,
all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing
else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the contrary, but
one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot)—so
that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the
rays of light, in passing through them, become so monstrously
refracted,——or return reflected from their surfaces in such transverse
lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through;—his soul might as
well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the
umbilical point gave her,—might, upon all other accounts, I say, as
well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house.
But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this
earth;—our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in a
dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would
come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to
work.
Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to
take, to do this thing with exactness.
Some, for instance, draw all their characters with
wind-instruments.—_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of
_Dido_ and _Æneas_;—but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame;—and,
moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the
_Italians_ pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of
one particular sort of character among them, from the _forte_ or
_piano_ of a certain wind-instrument they use,—which they say is
infallible.—I dare not mention the name of the instrument in this
place;—’tis sufficient we have it amongst us,—but never think of making
a drawing by it;—this is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at least
_ad populum_:—And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you
read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about
it.
There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other
helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations;—but this often
gives a very incorrect outline,—unless, indeed, you take a sketch of
his repletions too; and by correcting one drawing from the other,
compound one good figure out of them both.
I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must
smell too strong of the lamp,—and be render’d still more operose, by
forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his _Non-naturals._—Why the
most natural actions of a man’s life should be called his
Non-naturals,—is another question.
There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these
expedients;—not from any fertility of their own, but from the various
ways of doing it, which they have borrowed from the honourable devices
which the Pentagraphic Brethren[3] of the brush have shewn in taking
copies.—These, you must know, are your great historians.
One of these you will see drawing a full length character _against the
light_;—that’s illiberal,—dishonest,—and hard upon the character of the
man who sits.
Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the
_Camera_;—that is most unfair of all, because, _there_ you are sure to
be represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes.
To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle
_Toby_’s character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help
whatever;—nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument
which ever was blown upon, either on this, or on the other side of the
_Alps_;—nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges,—or
touch upon his Non-naturals; but, in a word, I will draw my uncle
_Toby_’s character from his HOBBY-HORSE.
[3] Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures
mechanically, and in any proportion.
C H A P. XXIV
IF I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience
for my uncle _Toby_’s character,——I would here previously have
convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing
with, as that which I have pitch’d upon.
A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act
exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each
other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some
kind; and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of
the manner of electrified bodies,—and that, by means of the heated
parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back
of the HOBBY-HORSE,—by long journies and much friction, it so happens,
that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of
HOBBY-HORSICAL matter as it can hold;—so that if you are able to give
but a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty
exact notion of the genius and character of the other.
Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my
opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was
only upon the score of his great singularity;—for you might have
travelled from _York_ to _Dover_,—from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in
_Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen
such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever
haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a
view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so
utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the
whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of
dispute,——whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: But as the
Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed
with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his
legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle _Toby_ use no
other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but
by getting upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after
that, to determine the point as it thought fit.
In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and
he carried my uncle _Toby_ so well,——that he troubled his head very
little with what the world either said or thought about it.