The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman
diminish as I advance,—have struck out a hint which I am resolved to
follow;——and that is,—not to be in a hurry;—but to go on leisurely,
writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year;——which, if I
am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my
bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.
C H A P. XV
THE article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader
I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it,
I think proper to lay before him,—is so much more fully express’d in
the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be
barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand:—It is as follows.
“And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said _Walter Shandy_,
merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had,
and, by God’s blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consummated
between the said _Walter Shandy_ and _Elizabeth Mollineux_ aforesaid,
and divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him
thereunto specially moving,—doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent,
conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with _John Dixon_, and _James
Turner_, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, &c. &c.—to wit,—That in case
it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come to
pass,—That the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, shall have left off
business before the time or times, that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_
shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off
bearing and bringing forth children;—and that, in consequence of the
said _Walter Shandy_ having so left off business, he shall in despight,
and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said
_Elizabeth Mollineux_,—make a departure from the city of _London_, in
order to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at _Shandy Hall_, in the
county of ——, or at any other country-seat, castle, hall,
mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now purchased, or hereafter
to be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof:—That then, and as
often as the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall happen to be enceint with
child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon
the body of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, during her said
coverture,—he the said _Walter Shandy_ shall, at his own proper cost
and charges, and out of his own proper monies, upon good and reasonable
notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six weeks of her the said
_Elizabeth Mollineux_’s full reckoning, or time of supposed and
computed delivery,—pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and
twenty pounds of good and lawful money, to _John Dixon_, and _James
Turner_, Esqrs. or assigns,—upon TRUST and confidence, and for and unto
the use and uses, intent, end, and purpose following:—That is to
say,—That the said sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid
into the hands of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, or to be otherwise
applied by them the said Trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one
coach, with able and sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of
the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, and the child or children which she
shall be then and there enceint and pregnant with,—unto the city of
_London_; and for the further paying and defraying of all other
incidental costs, charges, and expences whatsoever,—in and about, and
for, and relating to, her said intended delivery and lying-in, in the
said city or suburbs thereof. And that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_
shall and may, from time to time, and at all such time and times as are
here covenanted and agreed upon,—peaceably and quietly hire the said
coach and horses, and have free ingress, egress, and regress throughout
her journey, in and from the said coach, according to the tenor, true
intent, and meaning of these presents, without any let, suit, trouble,
disturbance, molestation, discharge, hinderance, forfeiture, eviction,
vexation, interruption, or incumbrance whatsoever.—And that it shall
moreover be lawful to and for the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, from time
to time, and as oft or often as she shall well and truly be advanced in
her said pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and agreed
upon,—to live and reside in such place or places, and in such family or
families, and with such relations, friends, and other persons within
the said city of _London_, as she at her own will and pleasure,
notwithstanding her present coverture, and as if she was a _femme sole_
and unmarried,—shall think fit.—And this Indenture further witnesseth,
That for the more effectually carrying of the said covenant into
execution, the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, doth hereby grant,
bargain, sell, release, and confirm unto the said _John Dixon_, and
_James Turner_, Esqrs. their heirs, executors, and assigns, in their
actual possession now being, by virtue of an indenture of bargain and
sale for a year to them the said _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_,
Esqrs. by him the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, thereof made; which
said bargain and sale for a year, bears date the day next before the
date of these presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for
transferring of uses into possession,—All that the manor and lordship
of _Shandy_, in the county of ——, with all the rights, members, and
appurtenances thereof; and all and every the messuages, houses,
buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts,
garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, commons,
woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and
water-courses;—together with all rents, reversions, services,
annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of frankpledge, escheats,
reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives,
felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, free warrens, and
all other royalties and seigniories, rights and jurisdictions,
privileges and hereditaments whatsoever.—And also the advowson,
donation, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or
parsonage of _Shandy_ aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tythes,
glebe-lands.”——In three words,——“My mother was to lay in, (if she chose
it) in _London._”
But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the
part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too
manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of
at all, but for my uncle _Toby Shandy_;—a clause was added in security
of my father which was this:—“That in case my mother hereafter should,
at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a _London_
journey, upon false cries and tokens;——that for every such instance,
she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant gave her
to the next turn;——but to no more,—and so on, _toties quoties_, in as
effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them had not been
made.”—This, by the way, was no more than what was reasonable;—and yet,
as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it hard that the whole
weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon
myself.
But I was begot and born to misfortunes;—for my poor mother, whether it
was wind or water—or a compound of both,—or neither;—or whether it was
simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her;—or how far a
strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment;—in
short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way
becomes me to decide. The fact was this, That in the latter end of
September 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having
carried my father up to town much against the grain,—he peremptorily
insisted upon the clause;—so that I was doom’d, by marriage-articles,
to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had
actually spun me without one.
How this event came about,—and what a train of vexatious
disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from
the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member,—shall
be laid before the reader all in due time.
C H A P. XVI
MY father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother
into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty
or five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze
himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he
said might every shilling of it have been saved;—then what vexed him
more than every thing else was, the provoking time of the year,—which,
as I told you, was towards the end of _September_, when his wall-fruit
and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just
ready for pulling:——“Had he been whistled up to _London_, upon a _Tom
Fool_’s errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not
have said three words about it.”
For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy
blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had
fully reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his
pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should
fail him. “The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a
wise man, than all the money which the journey, &c. had cost him, put
together,—rot the hundred and twenty pounds,——he did not mind it a
rush.”
From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair
provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish
figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_;——of which,
in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by
vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking
descriptions,—and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights
and attitudes in the face of the whole congregation;—that my mother
declared, these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did
nothing but laugh and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of
them all the way.
From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out
of all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he
fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair—“Certainly,” he would
say to himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived
herself——if she could,——“what weakness!”—tormenting word!—which led his
imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the duce
and all with him;——for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was uttered,
and struck full upon his brain—so sure it set him upon running
divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were;——that there was
such a thing as weakness of the body,——as well as weakness of the
mind,—and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a
stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might,
or might not, have arisen out of himself.
In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out
of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose
up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an
uneasy journey of it down.——In a word, as she complained to my uncle
_Toby_, he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive.
C H A P. XVII
THOUGH my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the
best of moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the
complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to
himself;—which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the
justice, which my uncle _Toby_’s clause in the marriage-settlement
empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot,
which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of
his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little
chagrin’d and out of temper,——took occasion as they lay chatting