The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

bed again as long as he lives. It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand. ——That she is not a woman of science, my father would say—is her misfortune—but she might ask a question.— My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still._——My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,—but she always forgot. For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again. If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my mother. Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else, ——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition—the reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you of. It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my father. A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.—— ——Lord have mercy upon me,—said my father to himself——* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * C H A P. LXXXIII I AM now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle _Toby_’s story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now, four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes[32]——In the fifth volume I have been very good,——the precise line I have described in it being this: One very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D. By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to _Navarre_,—and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady _Baussiere_ and her page,—I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till _John de la Casse_’s devils led me the round you see marked D.—for as for _c c c c c_ they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,—or with my own transgressions at the letters A B D—they vanish into nothing. In this last volume I have done better still—for from the end of Le Fever’s episode, to the beginning of my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns,—I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way. If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible——by the good leave of his grace of _Benevento_’s devils——but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus: which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master’s ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand or to the left. This _right line_,—the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines—— ——The emblem of moral rectitude! says _Cicero_—— ——_The best line!_ say cabbage planters——is the shortest line, says _Archimedes_, which can be drawn from one given point to another.—— I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth- day suits! ——What a journey! Pray can you tell me,—that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines——by what mistake——who told them so——or how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line, with the line of GRAVITATION? [32] Alluding to the first edition. C H A P. LXXXIV NO——I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the devil, would but give me leave—and in another place—(but where, I can’t recollect now) speaking of my book as a _machine_, and laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, in order to gain the greater credit to it—I swore it should be kept a going at that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless me so long with health and good spirits. Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge—nay so very little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on the contrary, I have much—much to thank ’em for: cheerily have ye made me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares) upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when DEATH himself knocked at my door—ye bad him come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission—— “—There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,” quoth he. Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story——and I was that moment telling _Eugenius_ a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the procedure—— “—Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_, taking hold of my hand as I finished my story—— But there is no living, _Eugenius_, replied I, at this rate; for as this _son of a whore_ has found out my lodgings—— —You call him rightly, said _Eugenius_,—for by sin, we are told, he enter’d the world——I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him—for I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for _Eugenius_ could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support me—had I not better, _Eugenius_, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my dear _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_—Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of——for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the _Garonne;_ and if I hear him clattering at my heels——I’ll scamper away to mount _Vesuvius_——from thence to _Joppa_, and from _Joppa_ to the world’s end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck—— —He runs more risk _there_, said _Eugenius_, than thou. _Eugenius_’s wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banish’d——’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led me to my chaise——_Allons!_ said I; the post-boy gave a crack with his whip——off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into _Dover._ C H A P. LXXXV NOW hang it! quoth I, as I look’d towards the _French_ coast—a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad——and I never gave a peep into _Rochester_ church, or took notice of the dock of _Chatham_, or visited St. _Thomas_ at _Canterbury_, though they all three laid in my way—— —But mine, indeed, is a particular case—— So without arguing the matter further with _Thomas o’Becket_, or any one else—I skip’d into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind. Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by _Death_ in this passage? Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he——What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already——what a brain!——upside down!——hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix’d and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass——good G—! every thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools——I’d give a shilling to know if I shan’t write the clearer for it—— Sick! sick! sick! sick!—— —When shall we get to land? captain—they have hearts like stones——O I am deadly sick!——reach me that thing, boy——’tis the most discomfiting sickness——I wish I was at the bottom—Madam! how is it with you? Undone! undone! un——O! undone! sir——What the first time?——No, ’tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, sir,——hey-day!—what a trampling over head!—hollo! cabin boy! what’s the matter? The wind chopp’d about! s’Death—then I shall meet him full in the face. What luck!—’tis chopp’d about again, master——O the devil chop it—— Captain, quoth she, for heaven’s sake, let us get ashore. C H A P. LXXXVI IT is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between _Calais_ and _Paris_, in behalf of which there is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll take. First, the road by _Lisle_ and _Arras_, which is the most about——but most interesting, and instructing. The second, that by _Amiens_, which you may go, if you would see _Chantilly_—— And that by _Beauvais_, which you may go, if you will. For this reason a great many chuse to go by _Beauvais._ C H A P. LXXXVII “NOW before I quit _Calais_,” a travel-writer would say, “it would not be amiss to give some account of “it.”—Now I think it very much amiss—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely o’ my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have _wrote and gallop’d_—or who have _gallop’d and wrote_, which is a different way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, have _wrote galloping_, which is the way I do at present——from the great _Addison_, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a—, and galling his beast’s crupper at every stroke—there is not a gallopper of us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as well as not. For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make my last appeal—I know no more of _Calais_ (except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of _Grand Cairo_; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark as pitch in the morning when I set out, and yet by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting this and that together in another—I would lay any travelling odds, that I this moment write a chapter upon _Calais_ as long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which is worth a stranger’s curiosity in the town—that you would take me for the town-clerk of _Calais_ itself—and where, sir, would be the wonder? was not _Democritus_, who laughed ten times more than I—town-clerk of _Abdera?_ and was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, town-clerk of _Ephesus?_——it should be penn’d moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and precision—— —Nay—if you don’t believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains. C H A P. LXXXVIII CALAIS, _Calatium, Calusium, Calesium._ This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see no reason to call in question in this place—was _once_ no more than a