The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 67

-Heaven have mercy upon us both!

Chapter 4.LXVIII.

Now, for what the world thinks of that e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n-I would not give a groat.

Chapter 4.LXIX.

My mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father's right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor Slop was overthrown by Obadiah on the coach-horse: as this was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman's house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle Toby and the corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn'd about-'Let us just stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their first entry-it will not detain us, added my father, a single minute:'

-No matter, if it be ten minutes, quoth my mother.

-It will not detain us half one; said my father.

The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother Tom and the Jew's widow: the story went on-and on-it had episodes in it-it came back, and went on-and on again; there was no end of it-the reader found it very long-

-G.. help my father! he pish'd fifty times at every new att.i.tude, and gave the corporal's stick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to as many devils as chose to accept of them.

When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out.

Curiosity governs the first moment; and the second moment is all oeconomy to justify the expence of the first-and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment-'tis a point of Honour.

I need not be told, that the ethic writers have a.s.signed this all to Patience; but that Virtue, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles which Honour has left him upon the earth.

My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries to the end of Trim's story; and from thence to the end of my uncle Toby's panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, that instead of marching up to Mrs. Wadman's door, they both faced about and march'd down the avenue diametrically opposite to his expectation-he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of humour, which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from that of all other men.

Chapter 4.LXX.

-'Now what can their two noddles be about?' cried my father...&c....

I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications-

-Not on Mrs. Wadman's premises! cried my father, stepping back-

I suppose not: quoth my mother.

I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts-

-They are foolish things-said my mother.

Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your reverences would imitate-and that was, never to refuse her a.s.sent and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no ideas of the princ.i.p.al word or term of art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself with doing all that her G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers promised for her-but no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together-and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it.

This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than could have done the most petulant contradiction-the few which survived were the better for the cuvetts-

-'They are foolish things;' said my mother.

-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, fortissime.

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 embarra.s.sed look.

Chapter 4.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 quant.i.ty 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 s.l.u.t 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-