 CHAPTER I If it had not been for those two metalsome tits and that madcap of a pastillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had never entered my head. He flew like lightning. There was a slope of three miles and a half which scarce touched the ground. The motion was most rapid, most impetuous. It was communicated to my brain. My heart part took of it. By the great God of day, said I, looking towards the sun, and thrusting my arm out of the four window of the shears, as I made my vow, I will lock up my study door the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the earth into the drawer well at the back of my house. The London wagon confirmed me in my resolution. It hung tottering upon the hill, scarce progressive, dragged, dragged up by eight heavy beasts, by main strength, close eye nodding. But your betters draw the same way, and something of everybody's, oh, rare. Tell me ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk, so little to the stock? Shall we for ever make new books as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Or we for ever to be twisting and untwisting the same rope, for ever in the same track, for ever at the same pace? Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy days as well as working days, to be showing the relics of learning, as monks do the relics of their saints, without working one, one single miracle with them? Who made man, with powers which dot him from earth to heaven in a moment, that great, that most excellent and most noble creature of the world, the miracle of nature, as Zoroasta in his book, Greek, called him, the shekinah of the Divine Presence, as Chrysostom, the image of God as Moses, the ray of divinity as Plato, the marvel of marvels as Aristotle, to go sneaking on at this pitiful, pimping, pettifogging rate. I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion, but if there is no catechesis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul that every imitator in great Britain, France, and Ireland had the farsi for his pains, and that there was a good farcical house large enough to hold eye, and sublimate them, shag, rag, and bobtail, male and female, all together. And this leads me to the affair of whiskers. But by what chain of ideas, I leave as a legacy in mortmain to prudes and tartiffs, to enjoy and make the most of. Upon whiskers. I am sorry I made it. It was as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a man's head, a chapter upon whiskers, alas the world will not bear it. It is a delicate world. But I knew not of what metal it was made, nor had I ever seen the underwritten fragment. Otherwise, as surely as noses and noses, and whiskers are whiskers still, let the world say what it will to the contrary, so surely would I have steered clear of this dangerous chapter. The Fragment You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking hold of the old lady's hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze, as he pronounced the word whiskers. Shall we change the subject? By no means replied the old lady, I like your account of those matters. So throwing a thin gore's handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back upon the chair with her face turned towards him, and advancing her two feet as she reclined herself, I desire, continued she, you will go on. The old gentleman went on as thollows. Whiskers cried the queen of Navarre, dropping her knotting-ball as Lafosser's uttered the word. Whiskers, madam, said Lafosser's, pinning the ball to the queen's apron, and making a courtesy as she repeated it. Lafosser's voice was naturally soft and low, yet towards an articulate voice, and every letter of the word whiskers fell distinctly upon the queen of Navarre's ear. Whiskers cried the queen, laying a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still distrusted her ears. Whiskers replied Lafosser's, repeating the word a third time. There is not a cavalier, madam, of his age in Navarre, continued the maid of honour, pressing the page's interest upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair. Of what? cried Margaret, smiling. Of whiskers, said Lafosser's, with infinite modesty. The word whiskers still stood its ground, and continued to be made use of in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of Navarre, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which Lafosser's had made of it. The truth was, Lafosser's had pronounced the word, not only before the queen, but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an accent which always implied something of a mystery. And as the court of Margaret, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of gallantry and devotion, and whiskers being as applicable to the one as the other, the word naturally stood its ground. It gained full as much as it lost, that is, the clergy were for it, the laity were against it, and for the women they were divided. The excellency of the figure and mean of the young Sire de Croix was at that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honour towards the terrace before the palace gate where the guard was mounted. The Lady de Boussière fell deeply in love with him. La Batairelle did the same. It was the finest weather for it that ever was remembered in Navarre. La Guyole, la Maronnette, la Sabatière, fell in love with the Sire de Croix also. La rebours and la faussures knew better. de Croix had failed in an attempt to recommend himself to la rebours, and la rebours and la faussures were inseparable. The Queen of Navarre was sitting with her ladies in the painted bow window facing the gate of the second court as de Croix passed through it. He is handsome, said the Lady de Boussière. He has a good mean, said la Batairelle. He is finely shaped, said la Guyole. I never saw an officer of the horse-guard in my life, said la Maronnette, with two such legs, or who stood so well upon them, said la Sabatière. But he has no whiskers, cried la faussures. Not a pile, said la rebours. The Queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way as she walked through the gallery upon the subject, turning it this way and that way in her fancy. Ah, ver, Maria, what can la faussures mean, said she, kneeling down upon the cushion. La Guyole, la Batairelle, la Maronnette, la Sabatière retired instantly to their chambers. Whiskers, said all four of them to themselves as they bolted their doors on the inside. The Lady Carnavalette was counting her beads with both hands unsuspected under her farthing gale. From St. Anthony down to St. Ursula inclusive, not a saint passed through her fingers without whiskers. St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Bennett, St. Basil, St. Bridget had all whiskers. The Lady Bouchière had got into a wilderness of conceits, with moralising too intricately upon la faussures's text. She mounted her poule-free, her page followed her, the host passed by. The Lady Bouchière rode on. One denier cried the order of mercy. One single denier, in behalf of a thousand patient captives, whose eyes looked towards heaven and you for their redemption. The Lady Bouchière rode on. Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, whorey-headed man, meekly holding up a box, beguert with iron in his withered hands. I beg for the unfortunate, good my Lady, tis for a prison, for an hospital, tis for an old man, a poor man, undone by shipwreck, by surety ship, by fire, I call God and all his angels to witness, tis to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, tis to comfort the sick and the broken-hearted. The Lady Bouchière rode on. A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground. The Lady Bouchière rode on. He ran, begging, bare-headed, on one side of her poule-free, conjuring her by the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, et cetera, cousin, aunt, sister, mother, for virtue's sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ's sake, remember me, pity me. The Lady Bouchière rode on. Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady Bouchière. The page took hold of her poule-free, she dismounted at the end of the terrace. There are some chains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eyebrows, and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the stronger. We see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary. Ha! Ha! Yee-hee! cried La Guillaume and La Sabatière, looking close at each other's prints. Ho! Ho! cried La Batairelle and Marinette, doing the same. Whist! cried one. Ho! ho! ho! said a second. Hush! quotes a third. Poo! poo! replied a fourth. Grammercy! cried the Lady Carnavalette, to her she who be whiskered, Saint Bridgette. La fausseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced the outline of a small whisker with the blunt end of it upon one side of her upper lip, put it into La Rebours' hand. La Rebours shook her head. The Lady Bossière coughed thrice into the inside of her muff. La Guillaume smiled. Fie! said the Lady Bossière. The Queen of Navarre touched her eye with the tip of her forefinger, as much as to say, I understand you all. T'was plain to the whole court the word was ruined. La fausseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all these defiles. It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by the expiration of which the Sierre-de-Croix, finding it high time to leave Navarre for want of whiskers, the word in course became indecent. And after a few efforts, absolutely unfit for use. The best word in the best language of the best world must have suffered under such combinations. The Curit of Destella wrote a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the Navarre against them. Does not all the world know, said the Curit of Destella at the conclusion of his work, that noses ran the same fate some centuries ago in most parts of Europe, which whiskers have now done in the Kingdom of Navarre. The evil indeed spread no farther then, but have not beds and bolsters and night-caps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink of destruction ever since. Are not trues and placate-holes and pump-handles and spigots and faucets in danger still from the same association? Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all affections, give it but its head, it is like a ramping and a roaring lion. The drift of the Curit of Destella's argument was not understood. They ran the scent the wrong way. The world bridled his ass at the tail. And when the extremes of delicacy and the beginnings of concupiscence hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also. CHAPTER II When my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy account of my brother Bobby's death, he was busy calculating the expense of his riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyon. T'was a most inauspicious journey. My father, having had every foot of it to travel over again, and his calculation to begin afresh when he had almost got to the end of it, by obadiars opening the door to acquaint him, the family was out of yeast. And to ask whether he might not take the great coachhorse early in the morning and ride in search of some. With all my heart, Obadiar, said my father, pursuing his journey, take the coachhorse and welcome. But he wants a shoe, poor creature, said Obadiar. Poor creature, said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back again like a string in unison. Then ride the scot horse, quothed my father hastily. He cannot bear a saddle upon his back, quothed Obadiar, for the whole world. The devil's in that horse, then take Patriot, cried my father, and shut the door. Patriot is sold, said Obadiar. Here's for you, cried my father, making a pause and looking in my uncle Toby's face, as if the thing had not been a matter of fact. Your worship ordered me to sell him last April, said Obadiar. Then go on foot for your pains, cried my father. I had much rather walk than ride, said Obadiar. Shutting the door. What plagues! cried my father, going on with his calculation. But the waters are out, said Obadiar, opening the door again. Till that moment my father, who had a map of Saint-Saint's and a book of the post roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon Nuve, the last stage he had paid for, purposing to go on from that point with his journey and calculation, as soon as Obadiar quitted the room. But this second attack of Obadiars, in opening the door and laying the whole country under water, was too much. He let go his compasses, or rather, with a mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table. And then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to Calais, like many others, as wise as he had set out. When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news of my brother's death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of Nuve. By your leave, Monsieur Saint-Saint! cried my father, striking the point of his compasses through Nuve into the table, and nodding to my Uncle Toby to see what was in the letter. Twice of one night is too much for an English gentleman and his son, Monsieur Saint-Saint, to be turned back from so lousy a town as Nuve. What thinks thou, Toby? added my father in a sprightly tone. Unless it be a garrison-town, said my Uncle Toby, for then I shall be a fool, said my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live. So giving a second nod, and keeping his compasses still upon Nuve with one hand, and holding his book of the post roads in the other, half calculating and half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my Uncle Toby hummed over the letter. He's gone, said my Uncle Toby. Where? Who? cried my father. My nephew, said my Uncle Toby. What, without leave, without money, without governor? cried my father in amazement. No, he is dead, my dear brother, quotes my Uncle Toby. Without being ill? cried my father again. I daresay not, said my Uncle Toby in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart. He has been ill enough, poor lad. I'll answer for him, for he is dead. When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, that not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work. My father stuck his compasses into Nuve, but so much the faster. What contrarieties! His indeed was matter of calculation. Agrippinas must have been quite a different affair. Who else could pretend to reason from history? How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one-two, so look to yourselves. It is either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian, or some one, perhaps of later date, either Cardan, or Budeus, or Petrarch, or Stella, or possibly it may be some divine, or father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children. And Seneca, I'm positive, tells us somewhere that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel. And accordingly we find that David wept for his son Absalom, Aegean for his Antinous, Naiobi for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death. My father managed his affliction otherwise, and indeed differently from most men either ancient or modern, for he neither wept it away as the Hebrews and the Romans, or slept it off as the Latlanders, or hanged it as the English, or drowned it as the Germans, nor did he curse it, or dam it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or lily-belaro it. He got rid of it, however. Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two pages? When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullya, at first he laid it to his heart. He listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it. Oh, my Tullya, my daughter, my child! Still, still, still! T'was, oh, my Tullya, my Tullya, me thinks I see my Tullya, I hear my Tullya, I talk with my Tullya. But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion, no body upon earth can conceive, says the Greater Rator, how happy, how joyful it made me. My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullya Cicero could be for his life, and for all I am convinced of, to the contrary at present, with as much reason. It was indeed his strengths, and his weakness too. His strengths, for he was by nature eloquent, and his weakness, for he was hourly addupe to it, and provided an occasion in life would but permit him to show his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty or a shrewd one, baiting the case of a systematic misfortune he had all he wanted. A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal. Sometimes indeed the misfortune was the better of the two. For instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune but as five, my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off as if it had never befallen him. This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's domestic character, and it is this that in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture. My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own riding. He was sanguine in all his projects, so talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security as if it had been reared, broke, and bridled and saddled at his door, ready for mounting. By some neglect or other in Obadiah it so fell out that my father's expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced. My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiah, and that there never would be an end of the disaster. See here you rascal! cried my father, pointing to the mule. What you have done! It was not me, said Obadiah. How do I know that? replied my father. Triumph swam in my father's eyes at the repartee. The attic salt brought water into them, and so Obadiah heard no more about it. Now let us go back to my brother's death. Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. For death it has an entire set. The misery was, they all at once rushed into my father's head, that it was difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent show out of them. He took them as they came. Tears an inevitable chance, the first statute in Magna Carta. It is an everlasting act of Parliament, my dear brother. All must die. If my son could not have died it had been matter of wonder, not that he is dead. Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us. To die is the great debt and tribute due unto nature. Tomes and monuments which should perpetuate our memories pay at themselves, and the proudest pyramid of them all which wealth and science have erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon. My father found he had got great ease and went on. Kingdoms and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? And when those principles and powers which at first cemented and put them together have performed their several evolutions, they fall back. Brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, laying down his pipe at the word evolutions. Revolutions, I mean, close my father, by heaven I meant revolutions, brother Toby. Evolutions is nonsense. Tears, not nonsense, said my uncle Toby. But is it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my father. Do not, dear Toby, continued he, taking him by the hand. Do not, do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis. My uncle Toby put his pipe into his mouth. Where is Troy and Mycenae, and Thebes and Delos, and Persepolis and Aggregentum? continued my father, taking up his book of post-roads which he had laid down. What is become, brother Toby, of Nineveh and Babylon, of Cysicum and Mycenae? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon are now no more. The names only are left, and those, for many of them are wrong-spelled, are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in lengths of time will be forgotten and involved with everything in a perpetual night. The world itself, brother Toby, must, must come to an end. Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Icenae towards Megara, when can this have been, thought my uncle Toby? I began to view the country round about. Icenae was behind me, Megara was before, Piraeus on the right hand, Corinth on the left. What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth. Alas, alas, said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his presence. Remember, said I to myself again, remember thou art a man. Now, my uncle Toby knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of Servius Sulpicius's consolatory letter to Tully. He had as little a skill-honest man in the fragments as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity. And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the Turkey trade, had been three or four different times in the Levant, in one of which he had stayed a whole year and a half at Zant, my uncle Toby naturally concluded that in some one of these periods he had taken a trip across the archipelago into Asia. And that all this sailing affair with Icenae behind and Megara before and Piraeus on the right hand, et cetera, et cetera, was nothing more than the true course of my father's voyage in reflections. To a certain in his manner, and many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations. And pray, brother," quotes my uncle Toby, laying the end of his pipe upon my father's hand in a kindly way of interruption, but waiting till he finished the account. What year of our lord was this?" "'Twas no year of our lord," replied my father. "'That's impossible," cried my uncle Toby. "'Simpleton,' said my father, "'twas forty years before Christ was born.' My uncle Toby had but two things for it, either to suppose his brother to be the wandering Jew, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain. "'Made a lord god of heaven and earth protect him and restore him,' said my uncle Toby, praying silently for my father and with tears in his eyes. My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his harangue with great spirit. There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil as the world imagines. This way of setting off, by the by, was not likely to cure my uncle Toby's suspicions. Labor, sorrow, grief, sickness, want, and woe are the sources of life.' "'Much good may do them,' said my uncle Toby to himself. "'My son is dead, so much the better. Tis a shame in such a tempest to have but one anchor. But he is gone for ever from us, be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was bald. He is but risen from a feast before he was surfeited, from a banquet before he had got drunken. The thracians wept when a child was born. And we were very near it,' quothed my uncle Toby, and feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world, and with reason. Death opens the gate of fame and shuts the gate of envy after it. It unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hands. Show me the man who knows what life is who dreads it, and I'll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty. Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, for mark our appetites are but diseases? Is it not better not to hunger at all than to eat? Not to thirst than to take physics to cure it? Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than like a galled traveller who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh? There is no terror, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions, and the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains in a dying man's room. Strip it of these. What is it? It is better in battle than in bed, said my uncle Toby. Take away its herces, its mutes, and its mourning, its plumes, scuptions, and other mechanic aids. What is it? Better in battle, continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby. It is terrible, no way, for consider, brother Toby, when we are, death is not, and when death is, we are not. We are not. My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider the proposition. My father's eloquence was too rapid to stay for any man, the way it went, and hurried my uncle Toby's ideas along with it. For this reason, continued my father, tears worthy to recollect how little alteration in great men the approaches of death have made. Vespasian died in a jest upon his close stool, galba with a sentence, septimus severus in a dispatch, tiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a compliment. I hoped was a sincere one, quotes my uncle Toby. Toils to his wife, said my father. End of chapter three. Chapter four to seven of Tristram Shandy, volume three. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shilifa Mulliam. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentlemen, volume three by Lauren Stern. Chapter four. And lastly, for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my father, this, like the gilded dome which covers in the fabric, crowns all. Tis of Cornelius Callus, the preter, which I dare say, brother Toby, you have read. I dare say I have not, replied my uncle. He died, said my father, as, and if it was with his wife, said my uncle Toby, there could be no hurt in it. That's more than I know, replied my father. Chapter five. My mother was going very dungily in the dark, along the passage which led to the parlour, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word wife. Disissual penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it, by leaving the door a little ajar, so that my mother heard enough of it, to imagine herself the subject of the conversation, so laying the edge of her finger across her two lips, holding in her breath, and bending her head a little downwards, with twist of her neck, not towards the door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the jink. She listened with all her powers. The listening slave, with the guzzles of silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an intaglio. In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes, till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen, as rape and assault those of the church, to the same period. Chapter six. Though in one sense our family was certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels, yet there was thus much to beset for it, that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted one upon the other, from such a variety of strange principles and impulses, that, though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour and advantages of a complex one, and a number of as odd movements within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a Dutch silk mill. Among these there was one I am going to speak of, in which perhaps it was not altogether so singular as in many others, and it was of this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same time and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen. Now, to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message or letter was delivered in the parlour, or a discourse suspended till a servant went out, or the lines of a discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or mother, or in short, when anything was supposed to be upon this tape as worse knowing or listening to, it was to rule to leave the door not absolutely shut, but somewhat a jar, as it stands just now, which, under cover of the bad hinge, and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended, it was not difficult to manage, by which means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left not indeed as wide as a Dardanelles, but wide enough for all that to carry on as much of this windward trade as was sufficient to save my father of the trouble of governing his house, my mother at this moment stands profiting by it. Obediah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brother's death, so that before my father had well got over his prize and entered upon his harangue, had Trem got upon his legs to speak a sentiment upon the subject. A curious observer of nature, had he been worse at the inventory of all job stock, though, by and so by, your curious observers are seldom worse in croat, would have given the half of it to have heard Corporal Trem and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same beer. My father, a man of deep reading, brumpt memory, was Cado and Seneca and Apectatus at his finger ends, the corporal with nothing, do remember of no deep reading, than his muster all, or greater names at his finger ends, than the contents of it. The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and illusion, and stragging the fancy as he went along, as men of wit and fancy do, was the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images. The other, without wit or antithesis, or point or turn, this way or that, but leaving the images on one side and the picture on the other, going straight forward as nature could lead him to the heart. O Trem, wood to heaven, thou hadst a better historian. Wood, thy historian, had a better pair of reaches. O ye critics, will nothing mount you. My young master in London is dead, said Obadiah. A green Saturday nightgown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susanna's head. One might log right a chapter upon the imperfections of words. Then, growth of Susanna, we must all go into mourning. But note, a second time the word mourning, not withstanding Susanna made use of it herself, failed also doing its office. It excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black. All was green. The green Saturday nightgown hung there still. Oh, to help me to death of my poor mistress, cried Susanna. My mother's whole wardrobe followed. What a procession! A red damask, her orange tornie, her wide and yellow lute strings, her brown taffeta, her bone-laced calves, her bed gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats. Not a rag was left behind. No, she will never look up again, said Susanna. We had a fat fool as your scullion, my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity. She had been all-ought on struggling with the dropsy. He is dead, said Obadiah. He is certainly dead. So am not I, said the foolish scullion. Here is sad news, trim, cried Susanna, wiping her eyes as trim stepped into the kitchen. Master Bobbie is dead and buried. The funeral was an interpolation of Susanna's. We shall have all to go into mourning, said Susanna. I hope not, said trim. You hope not? cried Susanna earnestly. The morning ran not in trim's head, whatever he did in Susanna's. I hope, said trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah. And we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the ox more. Oh, he's dead, said Susanna. As sure, said the scullion, as I'm alive. I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said trim, fetching aside. Poor creature, poor boy, poor gentleman. He was alive last witsentide, said the coachman. Witsentide, alas! cried trim, extending his right arm and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon. What is witsentide, darthen? for that was a coachman's name. Or shraftide, or any tide or time passed, to this? Are we not here now? continued the corporal, stragging the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability. And are we not, dropping his head upon the ground, gone in a moment? It was infinitely striking. Susanna burst into a flood of tears. We are not stocks and stones. Jonathan, Obadiah, the cookmaid, all melted. The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-cattle upon her knees, was roused with it. The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. Now, as I perceive plainly, that a preservation of our constitution in church and state, and possibly the preservation of the whole world, or what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power, may in time to condespend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal's eloquence, I do demand your attention, your warships and references, for any ten pages together, take some where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease. I said, we were not stocks and stones, this very well I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, but men clothed with bodies and governed by our imaginations, and what a junketing piece of work of it if there is, betweeks to these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own part I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let us suffice to affirm that of all the senses, the I, for I absolutely denied the touch, though most of your Babati, I know are for it, has the quickest comers with us all, gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey or sometimes get rid of. I've gone a little about, no matter, this for health. Let us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of Drimp's head. Are we not here now, and gone, in a moment? There was nothing in the sentence, so as one of your self-evident truths we have did find it of hearing every day, and if Drimp had not trusted more to his head than his head, he made nothing at all of it. Are we not here now, continued the corporal, and are we not, dropping his head plumb upon the ground, and pausing before he pronounced the word, gone, in a moment? The descent of the head was, as if a heavy lump of clay had been needed, into the crown of it. Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it. His hand seemed to vanish from under it, it fell dead, the corporals I fixed upon it, as upon a corpse, and Susanna burst into a flood of tears. Now ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand, for matter and emotion are infinite, are the ways by which a head may be dropped upon the ground without any effect. Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven, or in the best direction that could be given to it, had he dropped it like a goose, like a puppy, like an ass, or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool, like a ninny, like an income-pope, it had failed, and the effect upon the heart had been lost. Ye who govern this mighty world, and its mighty concerns with the engines of eloquence, who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it, and then harden it again to your purpose. Ye who wind and turn the passions with its great windblers, and having done it, lead the owners of them with a ye-sync mead. Ye lastly who drive, and why not, ye also who are driven, like turkeys to market with a stick and a red cloud. Meditate, meditate, I beseech you, upon trim's hat. End of chapters four to seven. Org. Red by Ted Drury. The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy. Gentleman. Volume three. By Lawrence Stern. Chapters eight through eleven. Chapter eight. Stay. I have a small account to settle with the reader before trim can go on with his harangue. It shall be done in two minutes. Amongst many other book debts, all of which I shall discharge in due time, I own myself a debtor to the world for two items, a chapter upon chambermaids and buttonholes, which in the former part of my work I promised and fully intended to pay off this year. But some of your worships and reverences telling me that the two subjects, especially so connected together, might endanger the morals of the world. I pray the chapter upon chambermaids and buttonholes may be forgiving me, and that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it, which is nothing, an ecclesia reverence, but a chapter of chambermaids, green gowns, and old hats. Trim took his hat off the ground, put it upon his head, and then went on with his aeration upon death in manner and form following. Chapter nine. To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care is, who live here in the service of two of the best masters, bathing in my own case, His Majesty King William III, whom I had the honor to serve in both Ireland and Flanders. I own it, that from Whitsunside to within three weeks of Christmas, tis not long, tis like nothing. But to those, Jonathan, who know what death is and what havoc and destruction he can make before man can well wheel about, tis like a whole age. Oh, Jonathan, could make a good-natured man's heart bleed to consider continued the corporal, standing perpendicularly. How low, many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time. And trust me, Susie, added the corporal, turning to Susanna, whose eyes were swimming in water. Before that time comes round again, many a bright eye will be dim. Susanna placed at the right side of the page. She wept, but she curtsied too. Are we not, continued Trim, looking still at Susanna, are we not like a flower of the field, a tear of pride stolen betwixt every two tears of humiliation? Else no tongue could have described Susanna's affliction. Is not all flesh grass, tis clay, tis dirt? They all looked directly at the scullion. The scullion had just been scouring a fish kettle. It was not fair. What is the finest face that ever man looked at? I could hear Trim talk so forever, cried Susanna. What is it, Susanna, later hand upon Trim's shoulder, but corruption? Susanna took it off. Now I love you for this, and it is this delicious mixture within you, which makes you, dear creatures, what you are. And he who hates you for it, all I can say of the matter is, that he either has a pumpkin for his head, or a pippin for his heart, and whenever he is dissected, will be found so. Chapter 10 Whether Susanna, by taking your hand too suddenly from off the corporal's shoulder, by the whisking about of her passions, broke a little the chain of his reflections, or whether the corporal began to be suspicious he had gotten to the doctor's quarter, and was talking more like the chaplain than himself, or whether, or whether, for in all such cases a man of invention in parts may with pleasure fill a couple pages of suppositions, which of all these was the cause. Let the curious physiologist, or the curious anybody, determine. To a certain at least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue. For my own part, I declare it that out of doors I value not death at all, not this, out of the corporal, snapping his fingers, but with an air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment. In battle, I value death not this, and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbons, in scouring his gun. What is he? A pull of a trigger, a push of a bayonet, an inch this way or that, makes the difference. Look along the line, to the right, see, jacks down. Well, it is worth a regiment of horse to him. No, it is dick. Then jacks no worse. Never mind which we pass on. In hot pursuit, the wound itself which brings in is not felt. The best way is to stand up to him. The man who flies is in ten times more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws. I have looked him, out of the corporal, a hundred times in the face, and know what he is. He's nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field, but he's very frightful in a house, quote Obadiah. I never mind it myself, said Jonathan, upon a coach box. It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, replied Susanna. And I could escape him by creeping into the worst calf's skin that ever was made into a knapsack. I would do it there, said Trim. But that is nature. Nature is nature, said Jonathan. And that is the reason, cried Susanna, I so much pity my mistress. She will never get the better of it. Now I pity the captain, the most of anyone in the family, answered Trim. Madam will get the ease of heart in weeping and the squire in talking about it. But my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself. I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for Lieutenant Le Fever. And please, Your Honor, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him, as I laid beside him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would say, to so melancholy an accident. I cannot get it off my heart. Your Honor, fear is not death yourself, I hope. Trim, I fear nothing, he would say. But they're doing a wrong thing. Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fever's boy. And with that, like quieting draught, His Honor would fall asleep. I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain, said Susanna. He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said Obadiah, as ever lived. I and his brava one, too, said the corporal, as ever stepped before a platoon. There never was a better officer in the King's army or a better man in God's world. For he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole. And yet for all that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people. He would not hurt a chicken. I would sooner, quote Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year than some for eight. Thank thee, Jonathan, for thy twenty shillings. As much, Jonathan, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou had put the money into my own pocket. I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. He is a friend and a brother to me. And could I be sure my poor brother Tom was dead, continued the corporal, taking out his handkerchief? Was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the captain. Trim could not refrain from tears of this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master. The whole kitchen was affected. Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said Susanna. With all my heart answered the corporal. Susanna, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and corporal Trim, formed a circle about the fire. And as soon as the scullion had shut the kitchen door, the corporal began. Chapter 11 I am a Turk if I had not as much forgot my mother as if nature had placed me up and set me naked down naked upon the banks of the river Nile, without one. Your most obedient servant, madam, I cost you a great deal of trouble. I wish it may answer, but you have left a crack in my back. Here's a great piece fallen off here before. And what must I do with this foot? I shall never reach England with it. For my own part, I never wondered anything, and so often has my judgment deceived me in my life that I always suspect it right or wrong. At least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For this I reference truth as much as anybody. And when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly in search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without, I will go to the world's end with him. But I hate disputes, and therefore, bating religious points or such as touch society, I would almost subscribe to anything which does not choke me in the first passage, rather than be drawn into one. But I cannot bear suffocation, and bad smells burst of all, for which reasons I resolve from the beginning, that if ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented, or a new one raised, I would have no hand in it one way or the other. End of chapters 8 through 11 Chapter 12 But to return to my mother My Uncle Toby's opinion, madam, that there could be no harm in Cornelia's gallows, that Roman Spreeter's lying with his wife, or rather the last word of that opinion, for it was all my mother heard of it, caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex. You shall not mistake me, I mean her curiosity. She instantly concluded herself the subject of the conversation, and without prepossession upon her fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said was accommodated either to herself or her family concerns. Pray, madam, in what street does a lady live who would not have done the same? From the strange mode of Cornelia's death, my father had made a transition to that of Socrates, and was giving my Uncle Toby an abstract of his pleading before his judges. It was irresistible, not the oration of Socrates, but my father's temptation to it. He had rode the life of Socrates, this book my father would never content to publish, did a manuscript with some other tract of his in the family, all on most of which will be printed in due time. Himself the year before he left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it, so that no one was able to set out with so full a sale, and so swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in Socrates's oration, which closed with a shorter word than transmigration or annihilation, or a worse thought in the middle of it than to be, or not to be, the endering upon a new and untried state of things, or upon a long profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance, that we and our children were born to die, but neither of us born to be slaves. No, there I mistake, that was part of Elyse's oration, as recorded by Josephus, the bell Judaic. Elyse owns he had it from the philosophers of India, in all likelihood Alexander of the Great, in his eruption into India, after he had over on Persia, amongst the many things he stole, still that sentiment also, by which means it was carried, if not all the way by himself, for we all know he died at Babylon, at least by some of his marauders into Greece, from Greece it got to Rome, from Rome to France, and from France to England, though things come round, by lead carriage, I can conceive no other way, by water the sentiment might easily have come down the Ganges into the Sinus Gengadicus, or Bay of Bengal, and so into the Indian Sea, and following the cause of trade, the way from India by the Cape of Guto, being then unknown, might be carried with other drugs and spices, up the Red Sea to Jodha, the port of Mecca, or else to Tor or Suez, towns at the bottom of the Gulf, and from thence by caravans to Coptos, but a three days journey distant, so down the Nile directly to Alexandria, where the sentiment would be learned at the very foot of the great staircase of the Alexandrian Library, and from that storehouse it would be fetched. Bless me, what a trade was driven by the learner in those days! Chapter 13 Now, my father had a way, a little like that, of jobs, in case there ever was such a man, if not there's an end of the matter, though by the by, because you learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise era in which a so great a man lived, whether for instance, before or after the patriarchs, etc., devote therefore that he never lived at all, it is the cruel, it is not doing as if they would be done by, happened that, I said may. My father, I say, had a way when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience, of wondering why he was begot, wishing himself dead, sometimes worse. And when the provocation went higher, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary powers, Sir Euskers could have distinguished him from Socrates himself. Every word would breathe the sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about all its issues, for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the abstract of Socrates' oration, which my father was giving me in Gotobi, was not altogether new to her. She listened to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter. Had not my father plunged, which he had no occasion to have done, it is that part of the pleading, where the great philosopher reckons up his connections, his alliances and children, but renounces his security to be so one by working upon the passions of his judges. I have friends, I have relations, I have three desolate children, says Socrates. Then, cried to my mother, opening the door, you have one more, Mr. Stanley, then I know of. By heaven, I have one less, said my father, getting up and walking out of the room. Chapter 14. They are Socrates' children, said my Uncle Toby. He has been dead a hundred years ago, replied to my mother. My Uncle Toby was no chronology, so not caring to advance one step but upon safe ground, he lay down his pipe deliberately upon the table, and, rising up and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without saying another word, either good or bad to her, he let around after my father, that he might finish the Iglaiessement himself. Chapter 15. Had this volume been a farce, which, unless everyone's life and opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no reason to suppose. The last chapter sir had finished the first act of it, and then this chapter must have been set off thus. Yeah, this curse of bad fiddle. Do you know whether my fiddles in tune or not? Trot, trot. They should be fifths. This wickedly strung. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down. Else, trot, trot. Hark, it is not so bad a tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges, but there's a man there. No, not him with the bundle under his arm. The grave man in black. And death, not the gentleman with his sword on. Sir, I had rather play Capriccio to Cagliope herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man, and yet I'll stake my Cremona to a juice trump, which is the greatest musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop 350 leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that belongs to him. Trot, trot, trot. I've undone you, sir, but you see, he's no worse, and was Apollo to take his fiddle off to me. He can make him no better. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, hum, dum, drum. Your worships and your references love music, and God has made you always good ears, and some of you play delightfully yourselves. Trot, trot, trot, trot. Oh, there is whom I could sit and hear whole days, whose talents lie in making what he fiddles to be felled, who inspires me with his joys and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion. If you would borrow five guineas of me, sir, which is generally ten guineas more than I have to spare, or you, masses apothecary, and tailor, want your bills paying, that's your time. End of chapters 12 to 15. The first thing which entered my father's head, after affairs were a little settled in the family, and Susanna had got possession of my mother's green satin nightgown, was to sit down coolly, after the example of Xenophon, and write a tristopedia, or system of education for me, collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, councils, and notions, and binding them together so as to form an institute for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father's last stake, he had lost my brother Bobby entirely, he had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me, that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me, my geniture, nose, and name. There was but this one left, and accordingly my father gave himself up to it, with as much devotion as ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of projectiles. The difference between them was that my uncle Toby drew his whole knowledge of projectiles from Nicholas Tartaglia. My father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain, or reeled and cross-twisted, what all other spinners and spinsters had spun before him, that was pretty near the same torture to him. In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced almost into the middle of his work. Like all other writers he met with disappointments. He imagined he should be able to bring whatever he had to say into so small a compass that when it was finished and bound, it might be rolled up in my mother's hussive. Matter grows under our hands, let no man say, Come, I'll write a duodessimo. My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful diligence, proceeding step by step in every line with the same kind of caution and circumspection, though I cannot say upon quite so religious a principle, as was used by John de la Casse, the Lord Archbishop of Benevento, encompassing his Galatea, in which his grace of Benevento spent near forty years of his life, and when the thing came out it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a writer's almanac. How the Holy Man managed the affair, unless he spent the greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at Primero with his chaplain, would pose any mortal not led into the true secret, and therefore, tis worth explaining to the world, was it only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to be fed as to be famous. I own had John de la Casse, the Archbishop of Benevento, for whose memory, notwithstanding his Galatea, I retain the highest veneration. Had he been, sir, a slender clerk of dull wit, slow parts, costive head, and so forth, he and his Galatea might have jogged on together to the age of Methuselah for me. The phenomenon had not been worth a parenthesis. But the reverse of this was the truth. John de la Casse was a genius of fine parts and fertile fancy, and yet with all these great advantages of nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his Galatea, he lay under an impusance at the same time of advancing above a line and a half in the compass of a whole summer's day. This disability, in his grace, arose from an opinion he was afflicted with, which opinion was this—Viz—that whenever a Christian was writing a book, not for his private amusement, but—where his intent and purpose was, bona fide, to print and publish it to the world, his first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil one. This was the state of ordinary writers, but when a personage of venerable character and high station, either in church or state, once turned author, he maintained that from the very moment he took pen in hand all the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him, to his term time with them. Every thought first and last was captious, how specious and good so ever, to his all one, in whatever form or color it presented itself to the imagination, to a still a stroke of one or other of him leveled at him, and was to be fenced off. So that the life of a writer and whatever he might fancy to the contrary was not so much a state of composition as a state of warfare, and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth, both depending alike, not have so much upon the degrees of his wit as his resistance. My father was hugely pleased with this theory of John Delacasse, Archbishop of Benevento, and, had it not cramped him a little in his creed, I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the shandy estate to have been the broacher of it. How far my father actually believed in the devil will be seen when I come to speak of my father's religious notions in the progress of this work. Tis enough to say here, as he could not have the honour of it in the literal sense of the doctrine. He took up with the allegory of it, and would often say, especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good meaning, truth and knowledge, couched under the veil of John Delacasse's parabolical representation, as was to be found in any one poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity. Prejudice of education, he would say, is the devil, and the multitudes of them which we suck in with our mother's milk are the devil and all. We are haunted with them, brother Toby, in all our lubrications and researches, and was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they obtruded upon him, what would his book be? Nothing, he would add, throwing his pen away with a vengeance, nothing but a farago of the clack of nurses and of the nonsense of the old women, of both sexes, throughout the kingdom. This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my father made in his trystapedia, at which, as I said, he was three years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and at last had scarce completed, by this own reckoning, one half of his undertaking. The misfortune was, that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned to my mother, and what was almost as bad by the very delay, the first part of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains, was rendered entirely useless, every day a page or two became of no consequence. Certainly it was ordained, as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, that the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them. In short, my father was so long in all his acts of resistance, or, in other words, he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened, which, when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not be concealed a moment from the reader. I verily believe I had put by my father and left him drawing a sundial, for no better purpose, than to be buried underground. T'was nothing. I did not lose two drops of blood by it. T'was not worth calling in a surgeon, had he lived next door to us. Thousands suffer by choice what I did by accident. Dr. Slopp made ten times more of it than there was occasion. Some men rise by the art of hanging great weights upon small wires, and I am this day—August the 10th, 1761—paying part of the price of this man's reputation. Oh, twid provoke a stone to see how things are carried on in this world. The chambermaid had left no—blank—under the bed. Cannot you contrive, Master, quotes Susanna, lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the window-seat with the other? Cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time too—blank? I was five years old. Susanna did not consider that nothing was well hung in our family, so Slopp came the sash down like lightning upon us. Nothing is left, cried Susanna, nothing is left for me but to run my country. My Uncle Toby's house was a much kinder sanctuary, and so Susanna fled to it. CHAPTER XVIII When Susanna told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all the circumstances which attended the murder of me, as she called it, the blood forsook his cheeks. All accessories in murder being principles, Trimms' conscience told him he was as much to blame as Susanna, and if the doctrine had been true, my Uncle Toby had as much of the blood shed to answer for to heaven as either of them, so that neither reason or instinct, separate or together, could possibly have guided Susanna's steps to sow proper an asylum. It is in vain to leave this to the reader's imagination, to form any kind of hypothesis that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore, and to do it without he must have such brains as no reader ever had before him. Why should I put them either to trial or to torture? It is my own affair. I'll explain it myself. END OF CHAPTERS XVI-XVIII This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTUM SHANDI, GENTLEMAN. Volume III by Lawrence Stern. CHAPTERS XIX-XIV Tis a pity, Trimms said my Uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the corporal shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works. That we have not a couple of field pieces to mount in the gorge of that new redoubt. To it secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on that side quite complete. Get me a couple cast, Trimms. Your honour shall have them, replied Trimms, before to-morrow morning. It was the joy of Trimms' heart, nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for expedience in doing it, to supply my Uncle Toby and his campaigns with whatever his fancy called for. Had it been his last crown he would have sat down and hammered it into a padarero, to have prevented a single wish in his master. The corporal had already, what with cutting off the ends of my Uncle Toby's spouts, hacking and chiselling up the sides of his leaden gutters, melting down his pewter-shaving basin, and going at last, like Lewis XIV, on to the top of the church, for spare ends, etc. He had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering canons, besides three demi-coverins into the field. My Uncle Toby's demand for two more pieces for the redoubt had set the corporal at work again. And no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery window, and as the sash-pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages. He had dismantled every sash window in my Uncle Toby's house long before, in the very same way, though not always in the same order, for sometimes the pullies have been wanted and not the lead, so then he began with the pullies, and the pullies being picked out, then the lead became useless, and so the lead went to pot too. A great moral might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not time. Tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, was equally fatal to the sash window. The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artillery-ship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left Susanna to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she could. True courage is not content with coming off so. The corporal, whether as general or Comptroller of the train, twas no matter, had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have happened, at least in Susanna's hands. How would your honours have behaved? He determined at once not to take shelter behind Susanna, but to give it, and with this resolution upon his mind he marched upright into the parlor to lay the whole manoeuvre before my Uncle Toby. My Uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of Steenkirk, and of the strange conduct of Count Psalms in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act, which was directly contrary to the King's commands, and proved the loss of the day. There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow, they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic writer, I mean of ancient days. Trim, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand, striking across it at right angles, made a shift to tell his story so that priests and virgins might have listened to it, and the story being told, the dialogue went on as follows. I would be picketed to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded Susanna's story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm, to as my fault, and please your honour, not hers. Corporal Trim replied my Uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the table. If anything can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done, to his eye certainly who deserved the blame, you obeyed your orders. Had Count Psalms, Trim, done the same at the Battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the retreat, he had saved thee. Saved, cried Trim, interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence for him after his own fashion. He had saved five battalions, and pleased your reverence, every soul of them. There was cuts, continued the corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand. There was cuts, mackays, anguses, grams, and leavens, all cut to pieces, and so had the English lifeguards too, had it not been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and received the enemy's fire in their faces, before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket. They'll go to heaven for it, added Trim. Trim is right, said my Uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick, he's perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so straight that the French had such a nation of hedges and copses and ditches and felled trees laid this way and that to cover them, as they always have. Count Psalms should have sent us, we would have fired muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives. There was nothing to be done for the horse, he had his foot shot off, however, for his pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landon. Poor Trim got his wound there, quote my Uncle Toby. Twas owing, and please your honour, entirely to Count Psalms, had he drummed them soundly at Steenkirk, they would not have fought us at Landon. Possibly not, Trim, said my Uncle Toby, though if they have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment's time to entrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop forever at you. There is no way but to march coolly up to them, receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pal mel, ding dong, added Trim, horse and foot, said my Uncle Toby, helter skelter, said Trim, right and left, cried my Uncle Toby, blood and oens, shouted the corporal, the battle raged. Yorick drew his chair a little to one side for safety, and after a moment's pause, my Uncle Toby, sinking his voice a note, resumed the discourse as follows. CHAPTER XXII King William, said my Uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly provoked at Count Psalms for disobeying his orders that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after. I fear, answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal as the king at the count. But would be singularly hard in this case, continued he, if corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite to Count Psalms, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace? Too often this world do things take that train. I would spring a mind, cried my Uncle Toby, rising up, and blow up my fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see it. Trim directed a slight but a grateful bow towards his master. And so the chapter ends. CHAPTER XXIII Then Yorick, replied my Uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast, and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us, and Susanna, and please your honour, said Trim, shall be put in the rear. It was an excellent disposition, and in this order, without either drums beating or colours flying, they marched slowly from my Uncle Toby's house to Shandy Hall. I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door. Instead of the sash weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have done. You have cut off spouts, and now, replied Yorick. CHAPTER XXIV As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him so ever in different heirs and attitudes, not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or act upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life. There was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing. It baffled, sir, all calculations. The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled, that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind. In other words, it was a different object, and in course was differently considered. This is the true reason that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing. She looks at her outside, I at her in. How is it possible we should agree about her value? End of CHAPTERS 19 to 24. Read by Kara Schellenberg, www.kray.org, November 2009 in San Diego, California. CHAPTERS 25 to 29 of Tristam Shandy, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman, Volume 3 by Lawrence Stern, CHAPTERS 25 to 29. CHAPTER 25. Tis a point settled, and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius—Mr. Shandy is supposed to mean Esquire, member four—and not the Chinese legislator. Who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story, that provided he keeps along the line of the story he may go backwards and forwards as he will, Tis still held to be no digression. This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself. CHAPTER 26. Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils—not of the archbishop of Beneventos, I mean of rebelese devils—with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it as I did when the accident befell me. It summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery, so that Susanna had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore. Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself, and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity, yet Susanna, in passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in the shorthand with the cook. The cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah, so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above, was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened. I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his nightgown, and so walked upstairs. One would imagine from this, though for my own part I somewhat question it, that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable character in the Tristapedia, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book, and that is the chapter upon sash windows, with a bitter Philippic at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids. I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise. First, had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for good and all, which, considering with what difficulty he composed books, he might have done with ten times less trouble than he could have wrote the chapter. This argument I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter, even after the event, but is obviated under the second reason, which I have the honor to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash windows and chamber-pots at the time supposed, and it is this, that, in order to render the Tristapedia complete, I wrote the chapter myself. My father put on his spectacles, looked, took them off, put them into the case, all in less than a statutable minute, and without opening his lips turned about and walked precipitately downstairs. My mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon, but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading desk, she took it for granted, was an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his ease. "'If it be but right done,' said my father, turning to the section, de se de vel subjecto circumsisionis, for he had brought up Spencer de legibus hebreorum ritualibus and my monides, in order to confront and examine us all together. "'If it be but right done,' quote he, only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs?' "'For that,' replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slopp.' My mother went down, and my father went on reading the section as follows. "'Very well,' said my father. "'Nay, if it has that convenience, and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the Egyptians or the Egyptians from the Jews, he rose up and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded, he shut the book and walked downstairs. "'Nay,' said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step, as he set his foot upon it, if the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, the Arabians, the Cappadocians, if the Colchee and Troglodytes did it, if Solon and Pythagoras submitted, what is Tristam? Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter?' Chapter 28 "'Dear Yorick,' said my father, smiling, for Yorick had broke his rank with my Uncle Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stepped first into the parlour. This Tristam of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his religious rites. Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner. But he is no worse, I trust,' said Yorick. "'There has been, certainly,' continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed. "'That you are a better judge of than I,' replied Yorick. Astrologers, quote my father, know better than us both. The trine and sex-still aspects have jumped awry, or the opposite of their ascendance have not hit it as they should, or the lords of the genatures, as they call them, have been at bow-peep, or something has been wrong above or below with us.' "'Tis possible,' answered Yorick. "'But is the child,' cried my Uncle Toby, the worse. The troglodytes say not,' replied my father. "'And your theologists, Yorick, tell us.' "'Theologically,' said Yorick, or speaking after the manner of apothecaries. Footnote in Greek philosophy. Statesman, footnote in Greek. Or washer-women, footnote in Greek, Bochart. "'I'm not sure,' replied my father, but they tell us, Brother Toby, he's the better for it. Provided,' said Yorick, you travel him into Egypt. "'Of that,' answered my father, he will have the advantage when he sees the pyramids. "'Now every word of this,' quote my Uncle Toby, is Arabic to me. "'I wish,' said Yorick, to us so, to half the world.' "'Illus,' footnote in Greek, son Chunyato.' Continued my father, circumcised his whole army one morning. Not without a court-martial, cried my Uncle Toby. "'Though the learned,' continued he, taking no notice of my Uncle Toby's remark, but turning to Yorick, are greatly divided still who Illus was. Some say Saturn, some the Supreme Being. Others know more than a brigadier general under Pharaoh Neco.' "'Let him be who he will,' said my Uncle Toby. I know not by what article of war he could justify it.' "'The controvertists,' answered my father, assign two and twenty different reasons for it. Others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shown the world the futility of the greatest part of them. But then again our best polemic divines—' "'I wish there was not a polemic divine,' said Yorick in the kingdom. One ounce of practical divinity is worth a painted ship-load of all their reverences have imported these fifty years.' "'Pray, Mr. Yorick,' quote my Uncle Toby, do tell me what a polemic divine is.' "'The best description, Captain Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of them,' replied Yorick, in the account of the battle fought single hands betwixt gymnast and captain trippet, which I have in my pocket.' "'I beg I may hear it,' quote my Uncle Toby earnestly.' "'You shall,' said Yorick. And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door, and I know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than his supper, I beg, brother, you'll give him leave to come in.' "'With all my soul,' said my father. Trim came in, erect and happy as an emperor, and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from his right-hand coat pocket, and read—or, pretended to read—as follows. Chapter 29 Which words being heard by all the soldiers which there were, diverse of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the assailant. All this did gymnast very well remark and consider, and therefore, making as if he would have a lighted from off his horse, as he was poisoning himself on the mounting-side, he most nimbly, with his short sword by this thigh, shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the stirrup-leather feet whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards his horse's head. "'Now,' said he, my case goes forward. Then suddenly, in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gamble upon one foot, and, turning to the left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot. "'Ha!' said Trippet, I will not do that at this time, and not without cause. "'Well,' said gymnast, I have failed, I will undo this leap. Then, with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another striking gamble as before. Which done, he set his right hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up and sprung into the air, poisoning and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb. And so turned and hurled himself about three times, at the fourth, reversing his body and overturning it upside down and four side back, without touching anything, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the cropper. "'This can't be fighting,' said my Uncle Toby.' The corporal shook his head at it. "'Have patience,' said Jorak. Then Trippet passed his right leg over his saddle and placed himself on croup. But, said he, "'Twer better for me to get into the saddle,' then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the cropper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels overhead in the air, and straight found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat. Then, springing into the air with a summer set, he turned him about like a windmill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demi pomadas. "'Good God!' cried Trim, losing all patience. One home thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.' "'I think so too,' replied Jorak. "'I am of a contrary opinion,' quote my father.' CHAPTERS 30-33 OF TRISTRUM SHANDY VOLUME 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRUM SHANDY GENTLEMAN VOLUME 3 BY LAWRENCE STERN CHAPTER 30 "'No, I think I have advanced nothing,' replied my father, making answer to a question which Jorak had taken the liberty to put to him. I have advanced nothing in the Tristropedia, but what is as clear as any one proposition in Euclid? Reach me, Trim, that book from off the screw-toir. It has often been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over both to you, Jorak, and to my brother Tobi, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself in not having done it long ago. Shall we have a short chapter or two now, and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve, and so on till we get through the whole? My uncle Tobi and Jorak made the obeisance which was proper, and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast and made his bow at the same time. The company smiled. Trim, quote my father, has paid the full price for staying out the entertainment. He did not seem to relish the play, replied Jorak. It was a tom-fool battle, and pleas your reverence, of Captain Tripitz and that other officer, making so many summer sets as they advanced. The French come on capering now and then in that way, but not quite so much. My uncle Tobi never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency than what the corporals, and his own reflections, made him do at that moment. He lighted his pipe. Jorak drew his chair closer to the table. Trim snuffed the candle. My father stirred up the fire, took up the book, coughed twice, and begun Chapter 31. The first thirty pages said my father, turning over the leaves. Are a little dry, and as they are not closely connected with the subject. For the present will pass them by. Tizza Prefatory Introduction continued my father, for an introductory preface, for I am not determined which name to give it. Upon political or civil government, the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species, I was insensibly led into it. It was natural, said Jorak. The original of society, continued my father, I am satisfied, is what pollution tells us, i.e. merely conjugal, and nothing more than the getting together of one man and one woman, to which, according to Hesiod, the philosopher adds a servant. But supposing in the first beginning there were no men servants born, he lays the foundation of it, in a man, a woman, and a bull. I believed Tizza in ox, or Jorak, quoting the passage. A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth, but there is a better reason still, said my father, dipping his pen into his ink, for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the most useful with all in tilling the ground for their nourishment, was the properest instrument, and emblem, too, for the new-joined couple, that the creation could have associated with them, and there is a stronger reason, added my Uncle Toby, than them all for the ox. My father had not power to take his pen out of his ink-horn, till he had heard my Uncle Toby's reason. For when the ground was tilled, said my Uncle Toby, and made worth in closing, then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification. True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place. My father gave Trim a nod to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse. I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and have shutting the book, as he went on. Merely to show the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child, the right and jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways. First by marriage, second by adoption, third by legitimation, and fourth by procreation, all which I consider in their order. I lay a light stress upon one of them, replied Yorick. The act, especially where it ends there, in my opinion, needs as little obligation upon the child as it conveys power to the father. You are wrong, said my father, arguably, and for this plain reason. I own, added my father, that the offspring upon this account is not so under the power and jurisdiction of the mother. But the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for her. She is under authority herself, said my father, and besides continued my father, nodding his head and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason. She is not the principal agent, Yorick. In what quiff, my uncle Toby, stopping his pipe? Though by all means, added my father, not attending to my uncle Toby, the son ought to pay her respect, as you may read, Yorick, at large, in the first book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh title, and the tenth section. I can read it as well, replied Yorick. In the Catechism, Chapter 32, Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quote my uncle Toby. Puh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with Trim's saying his Catechism. He can upon my honor, replied my uncle Toby. Ask him, Mr. Yorick, any question you please. The fifth commandment, Trim, said Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest, catechumen, the corporal stood silent. You don't ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice and giving it rapidly, like the word of command. The fifth, cried my uncle Toby, I must begin with the first and please your honor. Said the corporal, Yorick could not forbear smiling. Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room to illustrate his position. That is exactly the same thing as doing one's exercise in the field. Join your right hand to your firelock, cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion. Poise your firelock, cried the corporal, doing the duty, still both of agitant and private man. Rest your firelock. One motion and please your reverence. You see, leads into another. If his honor will begin but with the first. The first, cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand upon his side. The second, cried my uncle Toby, waving his tobacco pipe as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment. The corporal went through his manual with exactness, and having honored his father and mother, made a low bow and fell back to the side of the room. Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest and has wit in it, and instruction too, if we can but find it out. Here is the scaffold work of instruction, its true point of folly, without the building behind it. Here is the glass for pedagogues, perceptors, tutors, governors, gerundgrinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true dimensions. Oh, there is a husk and shell-york which grows up with learning, which their unskillfulness knows not how to fling away. Courses may be learned by rote, but wisdom not. Yorick thought my father inspired. I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all my Aunt Dinah's legacy, in charitable uses, of which by the by my father had no high opinion. If the corporal has any one determinate idea next to any one word he has repeated, prithee trim, quote my father, turning round to him. What dost thou mean by honouring thy father and mother? Allowing them, and please your honour, three half-pence a day, out of my pay, when they grow old. And didst thou do that, trim, said Yorick? He did indeed, replied my Uncle Toby. Then, trim, said Yorick, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand. Thou art the best commentator upon that part of the decalogue, and I honour thee more for it, corporal trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself. CHAPTER 33 O blessed health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next chapter. Thou art before all gold and treasure, it is thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for, and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with thee. I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my father, into a very little room. Therefore we'll read the chapter quite through. My father read as follows. The whole secret of health, depending upon the due contention for mastery, betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture. You have proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently replied my father, in saying this my father shut the book, not as if he resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his forefinger in the chapter, nor pettishly, for he shut the book slowly, his thumb resting when he had done it, upon the upper side of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive violence. I have demonstrated the truth of that point, clothed my father, nodding to Yorick, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter. Nor could the man in the moon be told that a man in the earth had wrote a chapter sufficiently demonstrating that the secret of all health depended upon the due contention for mastery, betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, and that he had managed the point so well, that there was not one single word, wet or dry, upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter, or a single syllable in it, pro or con, directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal economy. O thou eternal maker of all beings, he would cry, striking his breast, with his right hand, in case he had one. Thou whose power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of excellence and perfection. What have we moonites done?