The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies—not killing them.——’Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle _Toby_—she had suffered persecution, _Trim_, and had learnt mercy—— ——She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature, as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said _Trim;_ and some dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall be told you with the rest of _Tom_’s story, for it makes a part of it—— Then do not forget, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby._ A negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the corporal (doubtingly). I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me—— ——It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the corporal. It would so; said my uncle _Toby._ Why then, an’ please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one? I can give no reason, said my uncle _Toby_—— ——Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her—— ——’Tis that very thing, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_,——which recommends her to protection——and her brethren with her; ’tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands _now_——where it may be hereafter, heaven knows!——but be it where it will, the brave, _Trim!_ will not use it unkindly. ——God forbid, said the corporal. Amen, responded my uncle _Toby_, laying his hand upon his heart. The corporal returned to his story, and went on——but with an embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave sense and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and aiding nature at the same time with his left arm a kimbo on one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the other—the corporal got as near the note as he could; and in that attitude, continued his story. C H A P. LXVI AS _Tom_, an’ please your honour, had no business at that time with the _Moorish_ girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the _Jew_’s widow about love——and this pound of sausages; and being, as I have told your honour, an open cheary-hearted lad, with his character wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the table, and sat down. There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your honour, whilst she is making sausages——So _Tom_ began a discourse upon them; first, gravely,——“as how they were made——with what meats, herbs, and spices.”—Then a little gayly,—as, “With what skins——and if they never burst——Whether the largest were not the best?”—and so on—taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, rather under than over;——that he might have room to act in—— It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle _Toby_, laying his hand upon _Trim_’s shoulder, that Count _De la Motte_ lost the battle of _Wynendale:_ he pressed too speedily into the wood; which if he had not done, _Lisle_ had not fallen into our hands, nor _Ghent_ and _Bruges_, which both followed her example; it was so late in the year, continued my uncle _Toby_, and so terrible a season came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perish’d in the open field.—— ——Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?—my uncle _Toby_ mused—— Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply exactly to his mind——my uncle _Toby_ said nothing at all; and the corporal finished his story. As _Tom_ perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them.——First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her hand——then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one——then, by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them——and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.—— ——Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before _Tom_ mentioned it. She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage:——_Tom_ instantly laid hold of another—— But seeing _Tom_’s had more gristle in it—— She signed the capitulation——and _Tom_ sealed it; and there was an end of the matter. C H A P. LXVII ALL womankind, continued _Trim_, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.—— ——I like the comparison, said my uncle _Toby_, better than the thing itself—— ——Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure. I hope, _Trim_, answered my uncle _Toby_, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world——and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of AMBITION, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the _few_, from the plunderings of the _many_——whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march. In pronouncing this, my uncle _Toby_ faced about, and march’d firmly as at the head of his company——and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first step——march’d close behind him down the avenue. ——Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother——by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. _Wadman_ in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation. I dare say, quoth my mother——But stop, dear Sir——for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion——and what my father did say upon it——with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon—or to say it all in a word, shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart——I say, by Posterity—and care not, if I repeat the word again—for what has this book done more than the Legation of _Moses_, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them? I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen: the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear _Jenny!_ than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more——every thing presses on——whilst thou art twisting that lock,——see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.—— ——Heaven have mercy upon us both! C H A P. LXVIII NOW, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation——I would not give a groat. C H A P. LXIX MY mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor _Slop_ was overthrown by _Obadiah_ on the coach-horse: as this was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. _Wadman_’s house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about——“Let us just stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother _Toby_ and his man _Trim_ make their first entry——it will not detain us, added my father, a single minute:”——No matter, if it be ten minutes, quoth my mother. ——It will not detain us half one; said my father. The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother _Tom_ and the _Jew_’s widow: the story went on—and on——it had episodes in it——it came back, and went on——and on again; there was no end of it——the reader found it very long—— ——G— help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to as many devils as chose to accept of them. When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out. Curiosity governs the _first moment;_ and the second moment is all œconomy to justify the expence of the first——and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment—’tis a point of HONOUR. I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience; but that VIRTUE, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles which HONOUR has left him upon the earth. My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries to the end of _Trim_’s story; and from thence to the end of my uncle _Toby_’s panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, that instead of marching up to Mrs. _Wadman_’s door, they both faced about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his expectation—he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of humour, which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from that of all other men. C H A P. LXX ——“Now what can their two noddles be about?” cried my father - - &c. - - - - I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications—— ——Not on Mrs. _Wadman_’s premises! cried my father, stepping back—— I suppose not: quoth my mother. I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts—— ——They are foolish things——said my mother. Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your reverences would imitate—and that was, never to refuse her assent and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no ideas of the principal word or term of art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her—but no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together—and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it. This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than could have done the most petulant contradiction——the few which survived were the better for the _cuvetts_—— —“They are foolish things;” said my mother.