The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 44

In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his post:-He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand,-and the ebony pipe tipp'd with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, betwixt the finger and thumb of the other-and with his right knee fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the corporal, with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard, which faced the counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the enemy a single puff or two;-but the pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined him.

'Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had not his will to make that day.

Chapter 3.LXXI.

My uncle Toby took the ivory pipe out of the corporal's hand,-looked at it for half a minute, and returned it.

In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe from the corporal again, and raised it half way to his mouth-then hastily gave it back a second time.

The corporal redoubled the attack,-my uncle Toby smiled,-then looked grave,-then smiled for a moment,-then looked serious for a long time;-Give me hold of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby-my uncle Toby put it to his lips,-drew it back directly,-gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge;-never did my uncle Toby's mouth water so much for a pipe in his life.-My uncle Toby retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his hand.-

-Dear uncle Toby! don't go into the sentry-box with the pipe,-there's no trusting a man's self with such a thing in such a corner.

Chapter 3.LXXII.

I beg the reader will a.s.sist me here, to wheel off my uncle Toby's ordnance behind the scenes,-to remove his sentry-box, and clear the theatre, if possible, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest of his military apparatus out of the way;-that done, my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff the candles bright,-sweep the stage with a new broom,-draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will act: and yet, if pity be a-kin to love,-and bravery no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses, betwixt the two pa.s.sions (in case there is one) to your heart's content.

Vain science! thou a.s.sistest us in no case of this kind-and thou puzzlest us in every one.

There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart which misled him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this nature usually go on; you can-you can have no conception of it: with this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman;-and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege was out of his head,) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks, and shot my uncle Toby ten times in a day, through his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.

With all this, Madam,-and what confounded every thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you might as soon-But where am I going? these reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts.

Chapter 3.LXXIII.

Of the few legitimate sons of Adam whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s never felt what the sting of love was,-(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,)-the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their sakes I had the key of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their names-recollect them I cannot-so be content to accept of these, for the present, in their stead.

There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and Darda.n.u.s, and Pontus, and Asius,-to say nothing of the iron-hearted Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K..... herself could make nothing of.-There was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus, and Prusicus, not one of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the G.o.ddess-The truth is, they had all of them something else to do-and so had my uncle Toby-till Fate-till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus's and the rest,-she basely patched up the peace of Utrecht.

-Believe me, Sirs, 'twas the worst deed she did that year.

Chapter 3.LXXIV.

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appet.i.te afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary's heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby's. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,-or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great Motive-Monger, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,-for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself-would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his hobby-horse.-Never mind, brother Toby, he would say,-by G.o.d's blessing we shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does,-the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.-I defy 'em, my dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns,-or towns without sieges.

My uncle Toby never took this back-stroke of my father's at his hobby-horse kindly.-He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:-I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.-He was not eloquent,-it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,-and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus-but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby's, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers, with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus (.. .), and is endorsed,

My Brother Toby's Justification of His Own Principles and Conduct in Wishing to Continue the War.

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle Toby's a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence,-and shews so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.

Chapter 3.LXXV.

My Uncle Toby's Apologetical Oration.

I am not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,-it has an ill aspect to the world;-and that, how just and right soever his motives the intentions may be,-he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in doing it.

For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe him.-He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,-lest he may suffer in his esteem:-But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I hope, I have been in all these, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say:-much worse, I know, have I been than I ought,-and something worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the same b.r.e.a.s.t.s with me,-and with whom I have been brought up from my cradle,-and from whose knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it-Such as I am, brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my pa.s.sions, or my understanding.

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht, and grieved the war was not carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain,-more slaves made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own pleasure:-Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it? (The devil a deed do I know of, dear Toby, but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed sieges.)

If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart beat with it-was it my fault?-Did I plant the propensity there?-Did I sound the alarm within, or Nature?

When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and Parismenus, and Valentine and Orson, and the Seven Champions of England, were handed around the school,-were they not all purchased with my own pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother Shandy? When we read over the siege of Troy, which lasted ten years and eight months,-though with such a train of artillery as we had at Namur, the town might have been carried in a week-was I not as much concerned for the destruction of the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of the whole school? Had I not three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my left, for calling Helena a b.i.t.c.h for it? Did any one of you shed more tears for Hector? And when king Priam came to the camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy without it,-you know, brother, I could not eat my dinner.-

-Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war,-was it a proof it could not ache for the distresses of war too?

O brother! 'tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,-and 'tis another to scatter cypress.-(Who told thee, my dear Toby, that cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?)

-'Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his own life-to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in pieces:-'Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the breach the first man,-to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears:-'Tis one thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this,-and 'tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war;-to view the desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo.

Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fever's funeral sermon, That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?-But why did you not add, Yorick,-if not by Nature-that he is so by Necessity?-For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honour-what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,-and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our creation.

Chapter 3.LXXVI.

I told the Christian reader-I say Christian-hoping he is one-and if he is not, I am sorry for it-and only beg he will consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book-