The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 46

-Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.

-That she is not a woman of science, my father would say-is her misfortune-but she might ask a question.-

My mother never did.-In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.-My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,-but she always forgot.

For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,-a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.

If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,-quoth my mother.

Not a cherry-stone, said my father,-he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else,

-To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition-the reply,-and the rejoinder, I told you of.

It will be some amus.e.m.e.nt to him, too,-said my father.

A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.-

-Lord have mercy upon me,-said my father to himself-....

Chapter 3.Lx.x.xIII.

I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,

(four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S)

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes (Alluding to the first edition.)-In the fifth volume I have been very good,-the precise line I have described in it being this:

(one very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D)

By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,-and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,-I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Ca.s.se's devils led me the round you see marked D.-for as for C C C C C they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,-or with my own transgressions at the letters ABD-they vanish into nothing.

In this last volume I have done better still-for from the end of Le Fever's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns,-I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.

If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible-by the good leave of his grace of Benevento's devils-but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus:

(straight line across the page)

which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master's ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand or to the left.

This right line,-the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines-

-The emblem of moral rect.i.tude! says Cicero-

-The best line! say cabbage planters-is the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one given point to another.-

I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth-day suits!

-What a journey!

Pray can you tell me,-that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines-by what mistake-who told them so-or how it has come to pa.s.s, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line, with the line of Gravitation?

Chapter 3.Lx.x.xIV.

No-I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the devil, would but give me leave-and in another place-(but where, I can't recollect now) speaking of my book as a machine, and laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, in order to gain the greater credit to it-I swore it should be kept a going at that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless me so long with health and good spirits.

Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge-nay so very little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on the contrary, I have much-much to thank 'em for: cheerily have ye made me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares) upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when Death himself knocked at my door-ye bad him come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission-

'-There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,' quoth he.

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story-and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a sh.e.l.l-fish, and of a monk d.a.m.n'd for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the procedure-

'-Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a sc.r.a.pe?' quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my hand as I finished my story-

But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this son of a wh.o.r.e has found out my lodgings-

-You call him rightly, said Eugenius,-for by sin, we are told, he enter'd the world-I care not which way he enter'd, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him-for I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter'd spirits remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support me-had I not better, Eugenius, fly for my life? 'Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius-Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of-for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my heels-I'll scamper away to mount Vesuvius-from thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows me, I pray G.o.d he may break his neck-

-He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou.

Eugenius's wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banish'd-'twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led me to my chaise-Allons! said I; the post-boy gave a crack with his whip-off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.

Chapter 3.Lx.x.xV.

Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coast-a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad-and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way-

-But mine, indeed, is a particular case-

So without arguing the matter further with Thomas...o...b..cket, or any one else-I skip'd into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.

Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by Death in this pa.s.sage?

Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he-What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already-what a brain!-upside down!-hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one ma.s.s-good G..! every thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools-I'd give a shilling to know if I shan't write the clearer for it-

Sick! sick! sick! sick-!