The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 24

-My father could not help blushing.

'Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own-thou feelest it so tenderly for others.-Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face-your honour knows I have neither wife or child-I can have no sorrows in this world.-My father could not help smiling.-As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age-when thou art pa.s.sed all services, Trim-and hast outlived thy friends.-An' please your honour, never fear, replied Trim, chearily.-But I would have thee never fear, Trim, replied my uncle Toby, and therefore, continued my uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word therefore-in recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of-whilst thy master is worth a shilling-thou shalt never ask elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby-but had not power-tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off-He laid his hands upon his breast-made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.

-I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby-My father smiled.-I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby.-My father looked grave.

Chapter 2.XL.

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

Chapter 2.XLI.

When my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise att.i.tude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed-he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it. Att.i.tudes are nothing, madam-'tis the transition from one att.i.tude to another-like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.

For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor-pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance-gave a hem-raised himself up upon his elbow-and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby-when recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that att.i.tude-he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby; and laying the three first fingers of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows:

Chapter 2.XLII.

When I reflect, brother Toby, upon Man; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble-when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance-I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father-but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?-What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby-That's another concern, said my father testily-But I say Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful Items with which the heart of man is overcharged, 'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.-'Tis by the a.s.sistance of Almighty G.o.d, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together-'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy-a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.-We are upheld by the grace and the a.s.sistance of the best of Beings.

-That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it,-But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery.

With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.

My father instantly exchanged the att.i.tude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it-for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the fore-finger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the libertine he is reclaiming-'You grant me this-and this: and this, and this, I don't ask of you-they follow of themselves in course.'

So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs-O Garrick!-what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it.

Chapter 2.XLIII.

Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day-was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us.-Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.-Will that set my child's nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other.-It makes every thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby.-Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can't prevent the shock-at least it imposes upon our sense of it.

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger, as he was coming closer to the point-had my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr'd in that precious part of him-fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our characters and conducts-Heaven is witness! that in the warmest transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what George or Edward would have spread around it.

But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him-I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.

He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.

I wish it may answer-replied my uncle Toby, rising up.

Chapter 2.XLIV.

What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs, what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly-I know no more of calculation than this ball.u.s.ter, said my uncle Toby (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)-'Twas a hundred to one-cried my uncle Toby-I thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin) you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby. A mere chance, said my uncle Toby.-Then it adds one to the chapter-replied my father.

The double success of my father's repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at once-it was well it so fell out-(chance! again)-or the world to this day had never known the subject of my father's calculation-to guess it-there was no chance-What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it.-Have not I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes?-a chapter of noses?-No, I have done that-a chapter upon my uncle Toby's modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep-by my great grandfather's whiskers, I shall never get half of 'em through this year.

Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother Toby, said my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the fortunes of our house with it.

It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby.-I don't comprehend, said my father.-Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr. Slop foreboded.

My father reflected half a minute-looked down-touched the middle of his forehead slightly with his finger-

-True, said he.

Chapter 2.XLV.

Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what pa.s.sed in going down one pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I know, as my father and my uncle Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps:-let that be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny:-A sudden impulse comes across me-drop the curtain, Shandy-I drop it-Strike a line here across the paper, Tristram-I strike it-and hey for a new chapter.

The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair-and if I had one-as I do all things out of all rule-I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done-Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it-a pretty story! is a man to follow rules-or rules to follow him?

Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world a story of a roasted horse-that chapters relieve the mind-that they a.s.sist-or impose upon the imagination-and that in a work of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes-with fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted him?-O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple-you must read Longinus-read away-if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over-never fear-read him again-Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle's metaphysicks forty times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.-But mark the consequence-Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of writing-for he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus, (Ce Foetus n'etoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais son pere l'ayant examine en qualite de Medecin, & ayant trouve que c'etoit quelque chose de plus qu'un Embryon, le fit transporter tout vivant a Rapallo, ou il le fit voir a Jerome Bardi & a d'autres Medecins du lieu. On trouva qu'il ne lui manquoit rien d'essentiel a la vie; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience, entreprit d'achever l'ouvrage de la Nature, & de travailler a la formation de l'Enfant avec le meme artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire ecclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce qu'elle avoit a faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour proprement accommode, il reussit a l'elever & a lui faire prendre ses accroiss.e.m.e.ns necessaires, par l'uniformite d'une chaleur etrangere mesuree exactement sur les degres d'un Thermometre, ou d'un autre instrument equivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri a 223. 488.) On auroit toujours ete tres satisfait de l'industrie d'un pere si experimente dans l'Art de la Generation, quand il n'auroit pu prolonger la vie a son fils que pour Puelques mois, ou pour peu d'annees. Mais quand on se represente que l'Enfant a vecu pres de quatre-vingts ans, & qu'il a compose quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits d'une longue lecture-il faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable n'est pas toujours faux, & que la Vraisemblance n'est pas toujours du cote la Verite. Il n'avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu'il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animae humanae. (Les Enfans celebres, revus & corriges par M. de la Monnoye de l'Academie Francoise.)) of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a t.i.tle as long as himself-the learned know I mean his Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul.

So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as well employed, as in picking straws.

Chapter 2.XLVI.

We shall bring all things to rights, said my father, setting his foot upon the first step from the landing.-This Trismegistus, continued my father, drawing his leg back and turning to my uncle Toby-was the greatest (Toby) of all earthly beings-he was the greatest king-the greatest lawgiver-the greatest philosopher-and the greatest priest-and engineer-said my uncle Toby.

-In course, said my father.