The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

otherwise,——unless **** I don’t know what. It wonderfully explained and accounted for the acumen of the _Asiatic_ genius, and that sprightlier turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more perpetual sunshine, &c.—which for aught he knew, might as well rarefy and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme,—as they are condensed in colder climates by the other;——but he traced the affair up to its spring-head;—shewed that, in warmer climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the creation;—their pleasures more;—the necessity of their pains less, insomuch that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the whole organization of the cerebellum was preserved;——nay, he did not believe, in natural births, that so much as a single thread of the network was broke or displaced,——so that the soul might just act as she liked. When my father had got so far,——what a blaze of light did the accounts of the _Caesarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had come safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium;—no pressure of the head against the pelvis;——no propulsion of the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, either by the _os pubis_ on this side, or _os coxygis_ on that;——and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your _Julius Caesar_, who gave the operation a name;—and your _Hermes Trismegistus_, who was born so before ever the operation had a name;——your _Scipio Africanus_; your _Manlius Torquatus_; our _Edward_ the Sixth,—who, had he lived, would have done the same honour to the hypothesis:——These, and many more who figured high in the annals of fame,—all came _side-way_, Sir, into the world. The incision of the _abdomen_ and _uterus_ ran for six weeks together in my father’s head;——he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in the _epigastrium_, and those in the _matrix_, were not mortal;—so that the belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a passage to the child.—He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my mother,——merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as ashes at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his hopes,—he thought it as well to say no more of it,——contenting himself with admiring,—what he thought was to no purpose to propose. This was my father Mr. _Shandy_’s hypothesis; concerning which I have only to add, that my brother _Bobby_ did as great honour to it (whatever he did to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke of: For happening not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be born too, when my father was at _Epsom_,——being moreover my mother’s first child,—coming into the world with his head _foremost_,—and turning out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts,——my father spelt all these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one end,—he was determined to try the other. This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not easily to be put out of their way,——and was therefore one of my father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could better deal with. Of all men in the world, Dr. _Slop_ was the fittest for my father’s purpose;——for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book, in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy;——tho’ not with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical. This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_, in the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle _Toby._——In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, could bear up against two such allies in science,—is hard to conceive.—You may conjecture upon it, if you please,——and whilst your imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle _Toby_ got his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin.—You may raise a system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles,—and shew the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to be called TRISTRAM, in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family, Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted.—These, with fifty other points left yet unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time;——but I tell you beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage _Alquise_, the magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor the no less famous _Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive) could pretend to come within a league of the truth. The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the next year,——when a series of things will be laid open which he little expects. [4] The author is here twice mistaken; for _Lithopædus_ should be wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon._ The second mistake is, that this _Lithopædus_ is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen at the end of _Cordæus_’s works in _Spachius._ Mr. _Tristram Shandy_ has been led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus_’s name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ——, or by mistaking _Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_,—from the too great similitude of the names. C H A P. XLV ——“I _WISH_, Dr. _Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish for Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at first[5])——“_I wish, Dr. Slop,”_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen what prodigious armies we had in_ Flanders.” My uncle _Toby_’s wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart never intended any man,—Sir, it confounded him——and thereby putting his ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for the soul of him. In all disputes,——male or female, —whether for honour, for profit, or for love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the wish, is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs—and wish the _wisher_ something in return, of pretty near the same value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were—nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it. This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.— Dr. _Slop_ did not understand the nature of this defence;—he was puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four minutes and a half;—five had been fatal to it:—my father saw the danger—the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born without a head or with one:”—he waited to the last moment, to allow Dr. _Slop_, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning it; but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare with—first in my uncle _Toby_’s face—then in his—then up—then down—then east—east and by east, and so on,——coasting it along by the plinth of the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the compass,——and that he had actually begun to count the brass nails upon the arm of his chair,—my father thought there was no time to be lost with my uncle _Toby_, so took up the discourse as follows. [5] Vide page 260. C H A P. XLVI “—WHAT prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”— Brother _Toby_, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with his right hand, and with his _left_ pulling out a striped _India_ handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as he argued the point with my uncle _Toby._—— ——Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give you my reasons for it. Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “_Whether my father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his left_,”—have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of the monarchs who governed them, to totter upon their heads.——But need I tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which every thing in this world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape!—and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to be, what it is—great—little—good—bad—indifferent or not indifferent, just as the case happens? As my father’s _India_ handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he should by no means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on the contrary, instead of taking off his wig with it, as he did, he ought to have committed that entirely to the left; and then, when the natural exigency my father was under of rubbing his head, called out for his handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have done, but to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and taken it out;——which he might have done without any violence, or the least ungraceful twist in any one tendon or muscle of his whole body. In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand——or by making some nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or armpit)—his whole attitude had been easy—natural—unforced: _Reynolds_ himself, as great and gracefully as he paints, might have painted him as he sat. Now as my father managed this matter,—consider what a devil of a figure my father made of himself. In the latter end of Queen _Anne_’s reign, and in the beginning of the reign of King _George_ the first—“_Coat pockets were cut very low down in the skirt._”—I need say no more—the father of mischief, had he been hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion for one in my father’s situation. C H A P. XLVII IT was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean a subject as myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across your whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat pocket.——In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle _Toby_ discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s approaches towards it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, before the gate of _St. Nicolas_;—the idea of which drew off his attention so intirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand to the bell to ring up _Trim_ to go and fetch his map of _Namur_, and his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the returning angles of the traverses of that attack,—but particularly of that one, where he received his wound upon his groin. My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his body seemed to rush up into his face——my uncle _Toby_ dismounted immediately. ——I did not apprehend your uncle _Toby_ was o’horseback.—— C H A P. XLVIII A MAN’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining;—rumple the one,—you rumple the other. There is one certain exception however in this case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have had your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a sarcenet, or thin persian.