The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

My father gave _Trim_ a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse. ——I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways— 1st, by marriage. 2d, by adoption. 3d, by legitimation. And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order. I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied _Yorick_——the act, especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation upon the child, as it conveys power to the father.—You are wrong,—said my father argutely, and for this plain reason * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.—I own, added my father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power and jurisdiction of the mother.—But the reason, replied _Yorick_, equally holds good for her.—She is under authority herself, said my father:—and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason,—_she is not the principal agent_, Yorick.—In what, quoth my uncle _Toby?_ stopping his pipe.—Though by all means, added my father (not attending to my uncle _Toby_), “The son ought to pay her respect,” as you may read, _Yorick_, at large in the first book of the Institutes of _Justinian_, at the eleventh title and the tenth section.—I can read it as well, replied _Yorick_, in the Catechism. C H A P. XXXII TRIM can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby._—Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim_’s saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby._—Ask him, Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.—— —The fifth Commandment, _Trim_,—said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.—You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command:——The fifth———cried my uncle _Toby._—I must begin with the first, an’ please your honour, said the corporal.—— —_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling.—Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,—that ’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.— “_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion.— “_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both of adjutant and private man. “_Rest your firelock;_”—one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see leads into another.—If his honour will begin but with the _first_— THE FIRST—cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side—* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. THE SECOND—cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment.—The corporal went through his _manual_ with exactness; and having _honoured his father and mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room. Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and has wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out. —Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, without the BUILDING behind it. —Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true dimensions.— Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away! —SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE BUT WISDOM NOT. _Yorick_ thought my father inspired.—I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah_’s legacy in charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated.—Prithee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to him,—What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_” Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my pay, when they grow old.—And didst thou do that, _Trim_? said _Yorick._—He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby._—Then, _Trim_, said _Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue;_ and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had a hand in the _Talmud_ itself. C H A P. XXXIIIV O BLESSED health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art before all gold and treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul,—and openest all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue.—He that has thee, has little more to wish for;—and he that is so wretched as to want thee,—wants every thing with thee. I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my father, into a very little room, therefore we’ll read the chapter quite through. My father read as follows: “The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture”—You have proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said _Yorick._ Sufficiently, replied my father. In saying this, my father shut the book,—not as if he resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his fore-finger in the chapter:——nor pettishly,—for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had done it, upon the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive violence.—— I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to _Yorick_, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter. Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the _radical heat_ and the _radical moisture_,—and that he had managed the point so well, that there was not one single word wet or dry upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter,—or a single syllable in it, _pro_ or _con_, directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal œconomy—— “O thou eternal Maker of all beings!”—he would cry, striking his breast with his right hand (in case he had one)—“Thou whose power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of excellence and perfection,—What have we MOONITES done?” C H A P. XXXIV WITH two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord _Verulam_, did my father achieve it. The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars longa_,—and _Vita brevis._——Life short, cried my father,—and the art of healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves,—and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it? ——O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_, and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,—What shall I say to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say to thy internal spirit,—thy opium, thy salt-petre,——thy greasy unctions,—thy daily purges,—thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums? ——My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion,——you shall see;——but when—I know not:——we must first see what his lordship’s opinion was. C H A P. XXXV “THE two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, says lord _Verulam_, are first—— “The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame wastes the body down to death:—And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to ashes:—which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions of life.” This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of salt-petre every morning before you got up.—— Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of the air without;—but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could enter;——nor could any one get out.——This put a stop to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy distempers—a course of clysters was requisite to carry off redundant humours,—and render the system complete. What my father had to say to my lord of _Verulam_’s opiates, his salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read,—but not to-day—or to-morrow: time presses upon me,—my reader is impatient—I must get forwards——You shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you chuse it), as soon as ever the _Tristra-pædia_ is published.—— Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established his own.—— C H A P. XXXVI THE whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us;—the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the school-men confounded the task, merely (as _Van Helmont_, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies. Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of _Aristotle_, “_Quod omne animal post coitum est_ triste.” Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but whether _vice versa_, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness——or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.——So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his destruction,——’twill be all that is needful to be done upon that head.—— C H A P. XXXVII THE description of the siege of _Jericho_ itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle _Toby_ more powerfully than the last chapter;—his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;—he never mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle _Toby_ took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question,—_aside._— * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. It was at the siege of _Limerick_, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, making a bow. The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to my