The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman
——Particularly the _cuvetts;_ replied my father.
’Tis enough—he tasted the sweet of triumph—and went on.
—Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. _Wadman_’s premises, said
my father, partly correcting himself—because she is but tenant for
life——
——That makes a great difference—said my mother——
—In a fool’s head, replied my father——
Unless she should happen to have a child—said my mother——
——But she must persuade my brother _Toby_ first to get her one—
To be sure, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother.
——Though if it comes to persuasion—said my father—Lord have mercy upon
them.
Amen: said my mother, _piano._
Amen: cried my father, _fortissimè._
Amen: said my mother again——but with such a sighing cadence of personal
pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my father—he
instantly took out his almanack; but before he could untie it,
_Yorick_’s congregation coming out of church, became a full answer to
one half of his business with it—and my mother telling him it was a
sacrament day—left him as little in doubt, as to the other part—He put
his almanack into his pocket.
The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of _ways and means_, could not
have returned home with a more embarrassed look.
C H A P. LXXI
UPON looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the
texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page
and the three following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be
inserted to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without
which a book would not hold together a single year: nor is it a poor
creeping digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as
well going on in the king’s highway) which will do the business——no; if
it is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a
frisky subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be
caught, but by rebound.
The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the
service: FANCY is capricious—WIT must not be searched for—and
PLEASANTRY (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call,
was an empire to be laid at her feet.
——The best way for a man, is to say his prayers——
Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well
ghostly as bodily—for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse
after he has said them than before—for other purposes, better.
For my own part, there is not a way either moral or mechanical under
heaven that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in
this case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself,
and arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of
her own faculties——
——I never could make them an inch the wider——
Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon
the body, by temperance, soberness, and chastity: These are good, quoth
I, in themselves—they are good, absolutely;—they are good,
relatively;—they are good for health—they are good for happiness in
this world—they are good for happiness in the next——
In short, they were good for every thing but the thing wanted; and
there they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven
made it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it
courage; but then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father
would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly
where you started.
Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have
found to answer so well as this——
——Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not
blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me,
merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for
never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the
furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing
that all mankind should write as well as myself.
——Which they certainly will, when they think as little.
C H A P. LXXII
NOW in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts
rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen——
Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of
infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it _for my soul;_
so must be obliged to go on writing like a _Dutch_ commentator to the
end of the chapter, unless something be done—
——I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch
of snuff, or a stride or two across the room will not do the business
for me—I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the
palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first
lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a
hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt—put on a
better coat—send for my last wig—put my topaz ring upon my finger; and
in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best
fashion.
Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider,
Sir, as every man chuses to be present at the shaving of his own beard
(though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits
over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand
in it—the Situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put
into the brain.——
——I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man, are seven years
more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not
run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual
shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity—How _Homer_ could write
with so long a beard, I don’t know——and as it makes against my
hypothesis, I as little care——But let us return to the Toilet.
_Ludovicus Sorbonensis_ makes this entirely an affair of the body
(εξωιεριχη πραξις) as he calls it——but he is deceived: the soul and
body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but
his ideas get cloth’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a
gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination,
genteelized along with him—so that he has nothing to do, but take his
pen, and write like himself.
For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I
writ clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well
by looking into my Laundress’s bill, as my book: there is one single
month in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty
shirts with clean writing; and after all, was more abus’d, cursed,
criticis’d, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for
what I had wrote in that one month, than in all the other months of
that year put together.
——But their honours and reverences had not seen my bills.
C H A P. LXXIII
AS I never had any intention of beginning the Digression, I am making
all this preparation for, till I come to the 74th chapter——I have this
chapter to put to whatever use I think proper——I have twenty this
moment ready for it——I could write my chapter of Button-holes in it——
Or my chapter of _Pishes_, which should follow them——
Or my chapter of _Knots_, in case their reverences have done with
them——they might lead me into mischief: the safest way is to follow the
track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been
writing, tho’ I declare before-hand, I know no more than my heels how
to answer them.
And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of _thersitical_
satire, as black as the very ink ’tis wrote with——(and by the bye,
whoever says so, is indebted to the muster-master general of the
_Grecian_ army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouth’d a
man as _Thersites_ to continue upon his roll——for it has furnish’d him
with an epithet)——in these productions he will urge, all the personal
washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of
good——but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is, the
better generally he succeeds in it.
To this, I have no other answer——at least ready——but that the
Archbishop of _Benevento_ wrote his _nasty_ Romance of the _Galatea_,
as all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of
breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the
book of the _Revelations_, as severe as it was look’d upon by one part
of the world, was far from being deem’d so, by the other, upon the
single account of that _Investment._
Another objection, to all this remedy, is its want of universality;
forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid,
by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species
entirely from its use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether
of _England_, or of _France_, must e’en go without it——
As for the _Spanish_ ladies——I am in no sort of distress——
C H A P. LXXIV
THE seventy-fourth chapter is come at last; and brings nothing with it
but a sad signature of “How our pleasures slip from under us in this
world!”
For in talking of my digression——I declare before heaven I have made
it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.
’Tis very true, said I——but ’twere better to get all these things out
of our heads, and return to my uncle _Toby._
C H A P. LXXV
WHEN my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had marched down to the bottom of
the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they
faced about and marched up straight to Mrs. _Wadman_’s door.
I warrant your honour; said the corporal, touching his _Montero_-cap
with his hand, as he passed him in order to give a knock at the
door——My uncle _Toby_, contrary to his invariable way of treating his
faithful servant, said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not
altogether marshal’d his ideas; he wish’d for another conference, and
as the corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door—he
hem’d twice—a portion of my uncle _Toby_’s most modest spirits fled, at
each expulsion, towards the corporal; he stood with the rapper of the
door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why.
_Bridget_ stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the
latch, benumb’d with expectation; and Mrs _Wadman_, with an eye ready
to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her
bed-chamber, watching their approach.
_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_——but as he articulated the word, the
minute expired, and _Trim_ let fall the rapper.
My uncle _Toby_ perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knock’d
on the head by it——whistled Lillabullero.
C H A P. LXXVI
AS Mrs. _Bridget_’s finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal
did not knock as often as perchance your honour’s taylor——I might have
taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine, some five and
twenty pounds at least, and wonder at the man’s patience——
——But this is nothing at all to the world: only ’tis a cursed thing to
be in debt; and there seems to be a fatality in the exchequers of some
poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no Economy can
bind down in irons: for my own part, I’m persuaded there is not any one
prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small upon earth, more
desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I am——or
who takes more likely means for it. I never give above half a
guinea——or walk with boots——or cheapen tooth-picks——or lay out a
shilling upon a band-box the year round; and for the six months I’m in
the country, I’m upon so small a scale, that with all the good temper
in the world, I outdo _Rousseau_, a bar length——for I keep neither man
or boy, or horse, or cow, or dog, or cat, or any thing that can eat or
drink, except a thin poor piece of a Vestal (to keep my fire in), and