The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

who has generally as bad an appetite as myself——but if you think this makes a philosopher of me——I would not, my good people! give a rush for your judgments. True philosophy——but there is no treating the subject whilst my uncle is whistling Lillabullero. ——Let us go into the house. C H A P. LXXVII C H A P. LXXVIII C H A P. LXXIX —— * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.—— ——You shall see the very place, Madam; said my uncle _Toby._ Mrs. _Wadman_ blush’d——look’d towards the door——turn’d pale——blush’d slightly again——recover’d her natural colour——blush’d worse than ever; which, for the sake of the unlearned reader, I translate thus—— “_L—d! I cannot look at it——_ _What would the world say if I look’d at it?_ _I should drop down, if I look’d at it—_ _I wish I could look at it—_ _There can be no sin in looking at it._ _——I will look at it._” Whilst all this was running through Mrs. _Wadman_’s imagination, my uncle _Toby_ had risen from the sopha, and got to the other side of the parlour door, to give _Trim_ an order about it in the passage—— * * * * * * * * * * * * * *——I believe it is in the garret, said my uncle _Toby_——I saw it there, an’ please your honour, this morning, answered _Trim_——Then prithee, step directly for it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, and bring it into the parlour. The corporal did not approve of the orders, but most cheerfully obeyed them. The first was not an act of his will—the second was; so he put on his _Montero_-cap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My uncle _Toby_ returned into the parlour, and sat himself down again upon the sopha. ——You shall lay your finger upon the place—said my uncle _Toby._——I will not touch it, however, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_ to herself. This requires a second translation:—it shews what little knowledge is got by mere words—we must go up to the first springs. Now in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages, I must endeavour to be as clear as possible myself. Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads—blow your noses—cleanse your emunctories—sneeze, my good people!——God bless you—— Now give me all the help you can. C H A P. LXXX AS there are fifty different ends (counting all ends in——as well civil as religious) for which a woman takes a husband, the first sets about and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes in her mind, which of all that number of ends is hers; then by discourse, enquiry, argumentation, and inference, she investigates and finds out whether she has got hold of the right one——and if she has——then, by pulling it gently this way and that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it will not break in the drawing. The imagery under which _Slawkenbergius_ impresses this upon the reader’s fancy, in the beginning of his third Decad, is so ludicrous, that the honour I bear the sex, will not suffer me to quote it——otherwise it is not destitute of humour. “She first, saith _Slawkenbergius_, stops the asse, and holding his halter in her left hand (lest he should get away) she thrusts her right hand into the very bottom of his pannier to search for it—For what?—you’ll not know the sooner, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, for interrupting me—— “I have nothing, good Lady, but empty bottles;’ says the asse. “I’m loaded with tripes;” says the second. ——And thou art little better, quoth she to the third; for nothing is there in thy panniers but trunk-hose and pantofles—and so to the fourth and fifth, going on one by one through the whole string, till coming to the asse which carries it, she turns the pannier upside down, looks at it—considers it—samples it—measures it—stretches it—wets it—dries it—then takes her teeth both to the warp and weft of it. ——Of what? for the love of Christ! I am determined, answered _Slawkenbergius_, that all the powers upon earth shall never wring that secret from my breast. C H A P. LXXXI WE live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles—and so ’tis no matter——else it seems strange, that Nature, who makes every thing so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs, unless for pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes to whatever passes through her hands, that whether she designs for the plough, the caravan, the cart—or whatever other creature she models, be it but an asse’s foal, you are sure to have the thing you wanted; and yet at the same time should so eternally bungle it as she does, in making so simple a thing as a married man. Whether it is in the choice of the clay——or that it is frequently spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too crusty (you know) on one hand——or not enough so, through defect of heat, on the other——or whether this great Artificer is not so attentive to the little Platonic exigences _of that part_ of the species, for whose use she is fabricating _this_——or that her Ladyship sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do——I know not: we will discourse about it after supper. It is enough, that neither the observation itself, or the reasoning upon it, are at all to the purpose—but rather against it; since with regard to my uncle _Toby_’s fitness for the marriage state, nothing was ever better: she had formed him of the best and kindliest clay——had temper’d it with her own milk, and breathed into it the sweetest spirit——she had made him all gentle, generous, and humane——she had filled his heart with trust and confidence, and disposed every passage which led to it, for the communication of the tenderest offices——she had moreover considered the other causes for which matrimony was ordained—— And accordingly * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. The DONATION was not defeated by my uncle _Toby_’s wound. Now this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is the great disturber of our faiths in this world, had raised scruples in Mrs. _Wadman_’s brain about it; and like a true devil as he was, had done his own work at the same time, by turning my uncle _Toby_’s Virtue thereupon into nothing but _empty bottles, tripes, trunk-hose_, and _pantofles._ C H A P. LXXXII MRS. _Bridget_ had pawn’d all the little stock of honour a poor chamber-maid was worth in the world, that she would get to the bottom of the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most concessible _postulata_ in nature: namely, that whilst my uncle _Toby_ was making love to her mistress, the corporal could find nothing better to do, than make love to her——“_And I’ll let him as much as he will_, said _Bridget_, to get it out of him.” Friendship has two garments; an outer and an under one. _Bridget_ was serving her mistress’s interests in the one—and doing the thing which most pleased herself in the other: so had as many stakes depending upon my uncle _Toby_’s wound, as the Devil himself——Mrs. _Wadman_ had but one—and as it possibly might be her last (without discouraging Mrs. _Bridget_, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her cards herself. She wanted not encouragement: a child might have look’d into his hand——there was such a plainness and simplicity in his playing out what trumps he had——with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the _ten-ace_——and so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sopha with widow _Wadman_, that a generous heart would have wept to have won the game of him. Let us drop the metaphor. C H A P. LXXXIII ——AND the story too—if you please: for though I have all along been hastening towards this part of it, with so much earnest desire, as well knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the world, yet now that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen, and go on with the story for me that will—I see the difficulties of the descriptions I’m going to give—and feel my want of powers. It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of blood this week in a most uncritical fever which attacked me at the beginning of this chapter; so that I have still some hopes remaining, it may be more in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the subtile _aura_ of the brain——be it which it will—an Invocation can do no hurt——and I leave the affair entirely to the _invoked_, to inspire or to inject me according as he sees good. T H E I N V O C A T I O N GENTLE Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of my beloved CERVANTES; Thou who glidedst daily through his lattice, and turned’st the twilight of his prison into noon-day brightness by thy presence——tinged’st his little urn of water with heaven-sent nectar, and all the time he wrote of _Sancho_ and his master, didst cast thy mystic mantle o’er his wither’d stump[44], and wide extended it to all the evils of his life—— ——Turn in hither, I beseech thee!——behold these breeches!——they are all I have in world——that piteous rent was given them at _Lyons_—— My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen’d amongst ’em—for the laps are in _Lombardy_, and the rest of ’em here—I never had but six, and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at _Milan_ cut me off the _fore_-laps of five—To do her justice, she did it with some consideration—for I was returning out of _Italy._ And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinder-box which was moreover filch’d from me at _Sienna_, and twice that I pay’d five Pauls for two hard eggs, once at _Raddicoffini_, and a second time at _Capua_—I do not think a journey through _France_ and _Italy_, provided a man keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some people would make you believe: there must be _ups_ and _downs_, or how the duce should we get into vallies where Nature spreads so many tables of entertainment.—’Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their voitures to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to his bread?—We really expect too much—and for the livre or two above par for your suppers and bed—at the most they are but one shilling and ninepence halfpenny——who would embroil their philosophy for it? for heaven’s and for your own sake, pay it——pay it with both hands open, rather than leave _Disappointment_ sitting drooping upon the eye of your fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gate-way, at your departure—and besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of ’em worth a pound——at least I did—— ——For my uncle _Toby_’s amours running all the way in my head, they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own——I was in the most perfect state of bounty and good-will; and felt the kindliest harmony vibrating within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike; so that whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference; every thing I saw or had to do with, touch’d upon some secret spring either of sentiment or rapture. ——They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly——’Tis _Maria;_ said the postillion, observing I was listening——Poor _Maria_, continued he (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her. The young fellow utter’d this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to _Moulins_—— ——And who is poor _Maria?_ said I. The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the postillion——it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon