The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is nothing, an’t please your reverences, but a chapter of _chamber-maids, green gowns, and old hats._ _Trim_ took his hat off the ground,—put it upon his head,—and then went on with his oration upon death, in manner and form following. C H A P. IX ——To us, _Jonathan_, who know not what want or care is—who live here in the service of two of the best of masters—(bating in my own case his majesty King _William_ the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both in _Ireland_ and _Flanders_)—I own it, that from _Whitsontide_ to within three weeks of _Christmas_,—’tis not long—’tis like nothing;—but to those, _Jonathan_, who know what death is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can well wheel about—’tis like a whole age.—O _Jonathan!_ ’twould make a good-natured man’s heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal (standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time!—And trust me, _Susy_, added the corporal, turning to _Susannah_, whose eyes were swimming in water,—before that time comes round again,—many a bright eye will be dim.—_Susannah_ placed it to the right side of the page—she wept—but she court’sied too.—Are we not, continued _Trim_, looking still at _Susannah_—are we not like a flower of the field—a tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation—else no tongue could have described _Susannah_’s affliction—is not all flesh grass?—Tis clay,—’tis dirt.—They all looked directly at the scullion,—the scullion had just been scouring a fish-kettle.—It was not fair.— —What is the finest face that ever man looked at!—I could hear _Trim_ talk so for ever, cried _Susannah_,—what is it! (_Susannah_ laid her hand upon _Trim_’s shoulder)—but corruption?——_Susannah_ took it off. Now I love you for this—and ’tis this delicious mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you are—and he who hates you for it——all I can say of the matter is—That he has either a pumpkin for his head—or a pippin for his heart,—and whenever he is dissected ’twill be found so. C H A P. X WHETHER _Susannah_, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the corporal’s shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions)——broke a little the chain of his reflexions—— Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into the doctor’s quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than himself—— Or whether - - - - - - - - Or whether——for in all such cases a man of invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages with suppositions——which of all these was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curious any body determine——’tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue. For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at all:—not this . . added the corporal, snapping his fingers,—but with an air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.—In battle, I value death not this . . . and let him not take me cowardly, like poor _Joe Gibbins_, in scouring his gun.—What is he? A pull of a trigger—a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that—makes the difference.—Look along the line—to the right—see! _Jack_’s down! well,—’tis worth a regiment of horse to him.—No—’tis _Dick._ Then _Jack_’s no worse.—Never mind which,—we pass on,—in hot pursuit the wound itself which brings him is not felt,—the best way is to stand up to him,—the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws.—I’ve look’d him, added the corporal, an hundred times in the face,—and know what he is.—He’s nothing, _Obadiah_, at all in the field.—But he’s very frightful in a house, quoth _Obadiah._——I never mind it myself, said _Jonathan_, upon a coach-box.—It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, replied _Susannah._—And could I escape him by creeping into the worst calf’s skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it there—said _Trim_—but that is nature. ——Nature is nature, said _Jonathan._—And that is the reason, cried _Susannah_, I so much pity my mistress.—She will never get the better of it.—Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family, answered _Trim._——Madam will get ease of heart in weeping,—and the Squire in talking about it,—but my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself.—I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for lieutenant _Le Fever._ An’ please your honour, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him. I cannot help it, _Trim_, my master would say,—’tis so melancholy an accident—I cannot get it off my heart.—Your honour fears not death yourself.—I hope, _Trim_, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a wrong thing.——Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of _Le Fever_’s boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour would fall asleep. I like to hear _Trim_’s stories about the captain, said _Susannah._—He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said _Obadiah_, as ever lived.—Aye, and as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a platoon.—There never was a better officer in the king’s army,—or a better man in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole,—and yet, for all that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people.——He would not hurt a chicken.——I would sooner, quoth _Jonathan_, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year—than some for eight.—Thank thee, _Jonathan!_ for thy twenty shillings,—as much, _Jonathan_, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into my own pocket.——I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. He is a friend and a brother to me,—and could I be sure my poor brother _Tom_ was dead,—continued the corporal, taking out his handkerchief,—was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the captain.——_Trim_ could not refrain from tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master.——The whole kitchen was affected.—Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said _Susannah._——With all my heart, answered the corporal. _Susannah_, the cook, _Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, and corporal _Trim_, formed a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the kitchen door,—the corporal begun. C H A P. XI I AM a _Turk_ if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river _Nile_, without one.——Your most obedient servant, Madam—I’ve cost you a great deal of trouble,—I wish it may answer;—but you have left a crack in my back,—and here’s a great piece fallen off here before,—and what must I do with this foot?——I shall never reach _England_ with it. For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;—and so often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,—at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without,—I’ll go to the world’s end with him:——But I hate disputes,—and therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society) I would almost subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first passage, rather than be drawn into one——But I cannot bear suffocation,——and bad smells worst of all.——For which reasons, I resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented,—or a new-one raised,—I would have no hand in it, one way or t’other. C H A P. XII ——BUT to return to my mother. My uncle _Toby_’s opinion, Madam, “that there could be no harm in _Cornelius Gallus_, the _Roman_ prætor’s lying with his wife;”——or rather the last word of that opinion,—(for it was all my mother heard of it) caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex:——You shall not mistake me,—I mean her curiosity,—she instantly concluded herself the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession upon her fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said, was accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns. ——Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live, who would not have done the same? From the strange mode of _Cornelius_’s death, my father had made a transition to that of _Socrates_, and was giving my uncle _Toby_ an abstract of his pleading before his judges;——’twas irresistible:——not the oration of _Socrates_,—but my father’s temptation to it.——He had wrote the Life of _Socrates_[23] himself the year before he left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it;——so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in _Socrates_’s oration, which closed with a shorter word than _transmigration_, or _annihilation_,—or a worse thought in the middle of it than _to be—or not to be_,—the entering upon a new and untried state of things,—or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance?——_That we and our children were born to die,—but neither of us born to be slaves._——No—there I mistake; that was part of _Eleazer_’s oration, as recorded by _Josephus (de Bell. Judaic)_——_Eleazer_ owns he had it from the philosophers of _India;_ in all likelihood _Alexander_ the Great, in his irruption into _India_, after he had over-run _Persia_, amongst the many things he stole,—stole that sentiment also; by which means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he died at _Babylon_), at least by some of his maroders, into _Greece_,—from _Greece_ it got to _Rome_,—from _Rome_ to _France_,—and from _France_ to _England:_——So things come round.—— By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.—— By water the sentiment might easily have come down the _Ganges_ into the _Sinus Gangeticus_, or _Bay of Bengal_, and so into the _Indian Sea;_ and following the course of trade (the way from _India_ by the _Cape of Good Hope_ being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and spices up the _Red Sea_ to _Joddah_, the port of _Mekka_, or else to _Tor_ or _Sues_, towns at the bottom of the gulf; and from thence by karrawans to _Coptos_, but three days journey distant, so down the _Nile_ directly to _Alexandria_, where the SENTIMENT would be landed at the very foot of the great stair-case of the _Alexandrian_ library,——and from that store-house it would be fetched.——Bless me! what a trade was driven by the learned in those days! [23] This book my father would never consent to publish; ’tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family, all, or most of which will be printed in due time. C H A P. XIII ——NOW my father had a way, a little like that of _Job_’s (in case there ever was such a man——if not, there’s an end of the matter.—— Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived;—whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c.——to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel,—’tis not doing as they would be done by,—happen that as it may)——My father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience,—of wondering why he was begot,—wishing himself dead;—sometimes worse:——And when the provocation ran high, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary powers—Sir, you scarce could have distinguished him from _Socrates_ himself.——Every word would