The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and dancing to the vintage, and every step that’s taken, the judgment is surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been said upon _straight lines_[37] in sundry pages of my book—I defy the best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants backwards or forwards, it makes little difference in the account (except that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in the other)—I defy him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically, planting his cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical distances, especially if slits in petticoats are unsew’d up—without ever and anon straddling out, or sidling into some bastardly digression——In _Freeze-land, Fog-land_, and some other lands I wot of—it may be done—— But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible and insensible, gets vent—in this land, my dear _Eugenius_—in this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing my ink-horn to write my uncle _Toby_’s amours, and with all the meanders of JULIA’s track in quest of her DIEGO, in full view of my study window—if thou comest not and takest me by the hand—— What a work it is likely to turn out! Let us begin it. [37] Vid. Vol. III. p. 243. C H A P. XXVI IT is with LOVE as with CUCKOLDOM—— But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the COMPARISON may be imparted to him any hour in the day)——I’ll just mention it, and begin in good earnest. The thing is this. That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best——I’m sure it is the most religious——for I begin with writing the first sentence——and trusting to Almighty God for the second. ’Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows the whole. I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up——catching the idea, even sometimes before it half way reaches me—— I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man. _Pope_ and his Portrait[38] are fools to me——no martyr is ever so full of faith or fire——I wish I could say of good works too——but I have no Zeal or Anger——or Anger or Zeal—— And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name——the errantest TARTUFFE, in science——in politics—or in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting, than what he will read in the next chapter. [38] Vid. _Pope_’s Portrait. C H A P. XXVII ——Bon jour!——good morrow!——so you have got your cloak on betimes!——but ’tis a cold morning, and you judge the matter rightly——’tis better to be well mounted, than go o’ foot——and obstructions in the glands are dangerous——And how goes it with thy concubine—thy wife,—and thy little ones o’ both sides? and when did you hear from the old gentleman and lady—your sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins——I hope they have got better of their colds, coughs, claps, tooth-aches, fevers, stranguries, sciaticas, swellings, and sore eyes. ——What a devil of an apothecary! to take so much blood—give such a vile purge—puke—poultice—plaister—night-draught—clyster—blister?——And why so many grains of calomel? santa Maria! and such a dose of opium! periclitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to tail——By my great-aunt _Dinah_’s old black velvet mask! I think there is no occasion for it. Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off and on, _before_ she was got with child by the coachman—not one of our family would wear it after. To cover the MASK afresh, was more than the mask was worth——and to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be half seen through, was as bad as having no mask at all—— This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that in all our numerous family, for these four generations, we count no more than one archbishop, a _Welch_ judge, some three or four aldermen, and a single mountebank—— In the sixteenth century, we boast of no less than a dozen alchymists. C H A P. XXVIII “IT is with Love as with Cuckoldom”——the suffering party is at least the _third_, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing about the matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen words for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the human frame, is _Love_—may be _Hatred_, in that——_Sentiment_ half a yard higher——and _Nonsense_———no, Madam,—not there——I mean at the part I am now pointing to with my forefinger——how can we help ourselves? Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, who ever soliloquized upon this mystic subject, my uncle _Toby_ was the worst fitted, to have push’d his researches, thro’ such a contention of feelings; and he had infallibly let them all run on, as we do worse matters, to see what they would turn out——had not _Bridget_’s pre-notification of them to _Susannah_, and _Susannah_’s repeated manifestoes thereupon to all the world, made it necessary for my uncle _Toby_ to look into the affair. C H A P. XXIX WHY weavers, gardeners, and gladiators—or a man with a pined leg (proceeding from some ailment in the _foot_)—should ever have had some tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and duly settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists. A water-drinker, provided he is a profess’d one, and does it without fraud or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, “That a rill of cold water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a torch in my _Jenny_’s—” ——The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run opposite to the natural workings of causes and effects—— But it shews the weakness and imbecility of human reason. ——“And in perfect good health with it?” —The most perfect,—Madam, that friendship herself could wish me—— “And drink nothing!—nothing but water?” —Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of the brain——see how they give way!—— In swims CURIOSITY, beckoning to her damsels to follow—they dive into the center of the current—— FANCY sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits——And DESIRE, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her, with the other—— O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn’d this world about like a mill-wheel—grinding the faces of the impotent—bepowdering their ribs—bepeppering their noses, and changing sometimes even the very frame and face of nature—— If I was you, quoth _Yorick_, I would drink more water, _Eugenius_—And, if I was you, _Yorick_, replied _Eugenius_, so would I. Which shews they had both read _Longinus_— For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as long as I live. C H A P. XXX I WISH my uncle _Toby_ had been a water-drinker; for then the thing had been accounted for, That the first moment Widow _Wadman_ saw him, she felt something stirring within her in his favour—Something!—something. —Something perhaps more than friendship—less than love—something—no matter what—no matter where—I would not give a single hair off my mule’s tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed the villain has not many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain), to be let by your worships into the secret—— But the truth is, my uncle _Toby_ was not a water-drinker; he drank it neither pure nor mix’d, or any how, or any where, except fortuitously upon some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be had——or during the time he was under cure; when the surgeon telling him it would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner into contact——my uncle _Toby_ drank it for quietness sake. Now as all the world knows, that no effect in nature can be produced without a cause, and as it is as well known, that my uncle _Toby_ was neither a weaver—a gardener, or a gladiator——unless as a captain, you will needs have him one—but then he was only a captain of foot—and besides, the whole is an equivocation——There is nothing left for us to suppose, but that my uncle _Toby_’s leg——but that will avail us little in the present hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment _in the foot_—whereas his leg was not emaciated from any disorder in his foot—for my uncle _Toby_’s leg was not emaciated at all. It was a little stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it, for the three years he lay confined at my father’s house in town; but it was plump and muscular, and in all other respects as good and promising a leg as the other. I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it, than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to make fresh experiments of getting out of ’em——Inconsiderate soul that thou art! What! are not the unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm’d in on every side of thee——are they, _Tristram_, not sufficient, but thou must entangle thyself still more? Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cart-loads of thy fifth and sixth volumes[39] still—still unsold, and art almost at thy wit’s ends, how to get them off thy hands? To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest in skating against the wind in _Flanders?_ and is it but two months ago, that in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and hadst thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell thee——it would have amounted to a gallon?—— [39] Alluding to the first edition. C H A P. XXXI —But for heaven’s sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons——let us take the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow or other, you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it— —I beg we may take more care. C H A P. XXXII MY uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the whole affair, it was neither a pioneer’s spade, a pickax, or a shovel— —It was a bed to lie on: so that as _Shandy-Hall_ was at that time unfurnished; and the little inn where poor _Le Fever_ died, not yet built; my uncle _Toby_ was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. _Wadman_’s, for a night or two, till corporal _Trim_ (who to the character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of taylors, constructed one in my uncle _Toby_’s house.