 CHAPTER XX. How could you, madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it that my mother was not a papist. Papist? You told me no such things, sir. Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least as words by direct inference, could tell you such a thing. Then, sir, I must have missed a page. No, madam, you have not missed a word. When I was asleep, sir, my pride, madam, cannot allow you that refuge. Then I declare I know nothing at all about the matter. That, madam, is the very fault I laid to your charge. And as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty, but from the best of motives, and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she returns back. Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into thousands besides herself, of reading straightforwards more in a quest of the adventures than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them. The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along, the habit of which made Pliny the younger affirm that he never read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it. The stories of Greece and Rome run over without this turn and application do less service I affirm it, than the history of Parismus and Parismenos, or of the seven champions of England read with it. But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter, madam, as I desired you? You have. And did you not observe the passage upon the second reading, which admits the inference? Not a word like it? Then madam, be pleased to ponder well, the last line but one of the chapter, where I take upon me to say, it was necessary I should be born before I was christened. Had my mother, madam, been a papist, that consequence did not follow. Footnote. The Romish rituals direct the baptizing of the child in cases of danger before it is born. But upon this proviso, that some part or other of the child's body be seen by the baptizer. But the doctors of the Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10th, 1733, have enlarged the powers of the midwives by determining that though no part of the child's body should appear, the baptism shall nevertheless be administered to it by injection. Par le moyen d'une petite canule. Anglice? A squirt. Tis very strange that Saint Thomas Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of school divinity, should, after so much pain, be stowed upon this, give up the point at last, as a second la chose impossible. Infantes, in maternis, úteres, existentes, quote Saint Thomas, baptizare possunt nulo modo. Oh, Thomas Thomas. End of footnote. It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to the Republic of Letters, so that my own is quite swallowed up in the consideration of it, that this self-same vile pruriancy for fresh adventures in all things has got so strongly into our habit and humor. And so holy intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our concupiscence that way, that nothing but the gross and more carnal parts of a composition will go down. The subtle hints and sly communications of science fly off like spirits upward, the heavy moral escapes downwards, and both the one and the other are as much lost to the world as if they were still left in the bottom of the inkhorn. I wish the male reader has not passed by many a one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the female reader has been detected. I wish it may have its effects, and that all good people, both male and female, from example, may be taught to think as well as read. If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the doctors of the Sorbonne, with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows. Memoirs présente à messieurs les docteurs de Sorbonne. Vidé de Winter, Paris, édition 4e, 1734, page 366, un chirurgien accoucheur représente à messieurs les docteurs de Sorbonne qu'il y a des cas quoique très rares, ou une mère ne serait accouchée, et même où l'enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa mère qu'il ne fait paraître aucune partie de son corps, ce qui serait un cas suivant les rituels de lui conférer du moins sous condition le baptême. Le chirurgien qui consulte, prétend, par le moyen d'une petite canule, de pouvoir baptiser immédiatement l'enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mère. Il demande si ce moyen qu'il vient de proposer est permis et légitime, et s'il peut s'en servir dans les cas qu'il vient d'exposer. Réponse Le conseil estime que la question proposée souffre de grandes difficultés. Les théologiens posent d'un côté pour principe que le baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une première naissance. Il faut être né dans le monde pour renaître en Jésus-Christ, comme il l'enseigne. Saint Thomas, 3e partie, Coestio 88, article 2, suit cette doctrine comme une vérité constante. L'on ne peut, dit ce Saint-Docteur, baptiser les enfants qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leur mère, et Saint Thomas est fondé sur ce, que les enfants ne sont point nés, et ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes, d'où il conclut qu'ils ne peuvent être l'objet d'une action extérieure pour recevoir par leur ministre les sacrements nécessaires au salut. Puèri in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodieront in lucem, ut cum aliis om minibus vitam, ducant. Unde non possunt subiechi aktioni umane, ut per eurum ministerium sacramenta recipient ad salutem. Le rituel ordonne dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les mêmes matières, et ils défendent tous d'une maniere uniforme, de baptiser les enfants qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leur mère, s'ils ne font paraître quelque parti de leur corps. Le concours des théologiens et des rituel, qui sont les règles des dioceses, paraît former une autorité qui termine la question présente. Cependant, le conseil de conscience considérant d'un côté que le raisonnement des théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance et que la défense des ritueles suppose que l'on ne peut baptiser immédiatement les enfants ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leur mère, ce qui est contre la supposition présente. Et d'un autre côté, considérant que les mêmes théologiens enseignent que l'on peut risquer les sacraments que Jésus Christ a établi comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour sanctifier les hommes, et d'ailleurs estimant que les enfants renfermés dans le sein de leur mère pourraient être capables de salut parce qu'ils sont capables de donation. Pour ces considérations, et en égards à l'exposé, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen certain de baptiser ses enfants ainsi renfermés sans faire aucun secret. Le conseil estime que l'on pourrait se servir du moyen proposé, dans la confiance qui l'a, que Dieu n'a point laissé ses sortes d'enfants sans aucun secours, et supposant comme il est exposé, que le moyen dont il s'agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême. Cependant, comme il s'agirait en autorisant la pratique proposée de changer une règle universellement établie, le conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit s'adresser à son évêque, et à qui il appartient de juger de l'utilité et du danger du moyen proposé. Et comme sous le bon plaisir de l'évêque, le conseil estime qu'il faudrait recourir au pape, qui a le droit d'expliquer les règles de l'église, et d'y déroger dans le cas où la loi ne serait obligée. Quelques sages et quelques utiles que paroissent la manière de baptiser dont il s'agit. Le conseil ne pourrait l'approuver sans le concours de ses deux autorités. On conseille au moins à celui qui consulte de s'adresser à son évêque, et de lui faire part de la présente décision, afin que s'il prêla, entre dans les raisons sur lesquelles les docteurs, sous-signés, s'appuient, ils puissent être autorisés dans le cas de nécessité, ou ils risqueraient trop d'attendre que la permission fut demandée et accordée d'employer le moyen qu'il propose si avantageux au salut de l'enfant. Au reste, le conseil, en estimant que l'homme pourrait s'en servir, croit cependant que si les enfants dont il s'agit venaient au monde contre l'espérance de ceux qui se seraient servi du même moyen, ils seraient nécessaires de les baptiser sous condition. Et en cela, le conseil se conforme à tous les rituels qui, en autorisant le baptême d'un enfant, qui fait paraître quelque partie de son corps, enjoigne néanmoins et ordonne de le baptiser sous condition s'il vient heureusement au monde, délibéré en Sorbonne le 10 avril 1733, à Le Moine, L de Romigny de Marseillais. Mr. Tristram Chandy's compliments to Messers Le Moin, de Romigny et de Marseillais, hopes they rested well the night after so tiresome a consultation. He begs to know whether after the ceremony of marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the homunculi, at once, slapdash, by injection, would not be a shorter and safer cut still, on condition as above, that if the homunculi do well and come safe into the world after this, that each and every one of them shall be baptized again, sous condition, and provided in the second place that the thing can be done, which Mr. Chandy apprehends it may, par le moyen d'une petite canule, and sans faire aucun tort au pair. End of Chapter 20, Recording by B. G. Oxford. Chapter 21 of Tristram Chandy, Volume 1. 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 Tristram Chandy, Gentleman, Volume 1 by Laurence Stearn, Chapter 21. I wonder what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for above stairs, quote my father, addressing himself after an hour and a half silence, to my Uncle Toby, who you must know, was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush breeches, which he had got on. What can they be doing, brother, quote my father? We can scarce hear ourselves talk. I think, replied my Uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb. As he began his sentence, I think, says he, but to enter rightly into my Uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on as well again. Pray, what was that man's name? For I write in such a hurry, I have no time to recollect or look for it. He first made the observation that there was great inconsistency in our air and climate, whoever he was, was a just and good observation in him. But the corollary drawn from it, namely, that it is this which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and whimsical characters, that was not his, it was found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him. Then again, that this copious storehouse of original materials is the true and natural cause, that our comedies are so much better than those of France, or any others that either have or can be wrote upon the continent, that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of King William's reign. When the great Dryden, in writing one of his long prefaces, if I mistake not, was fortunately hit upon, indeed towards the latter end of Queen Anne, the great Addison, began to patronise the notion and more fully explained it to the world in one or two of his spectators. But the discovery was not his, then fourthly and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, doth thereby in some sort make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with, when the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors, that observation is my own, and was struck out by me this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning. Thus, thus my fellow labourers and associates in this great harvest of our learning, now ripening before our eyes, thus it is by slow steps of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, enigmatic, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it. Most of them ending as these do in a call, have for these last two centuries or more gradually been creeping upwards towards the acme of their perfection, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off. When that happens it is to be hoped it will put an end to all kind of writings whatsoever. The want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading, and that in time, as war begets poverty, poverty-peace, must in course put an end to all kind of knowledge, and then we shall have all to begin over again, or in other words, be exactly where we started. Happy, thrice happy times, only wish that the era of my begetting, as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little altered, or that it had been put off, with any convenience to my father or mother, for some twenty or five and twenty years longer, when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance, but I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes out of his tobacco pipe. His humour was of that particular species which dishonoured to our atmosphere, and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of the first rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many strong lines in it of a family likeness, which showed that he derived the singularity of his temper more from blood than either wind or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever. And I have therefore oft times wondered that my father, though I believe he had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity in my course, when I was a boy, should never once endeavour to account for them in this way, for all the shandy family were of an original character throughout, I mean the males, the females had no character at all, except indeed my great aunt Diana, who about sixty years ago was married and got with child by the coachman for which my father, according to his hypothesis of Christian names, would often say she might thank her godfathers and godmothers. It will seem strange, and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader's way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and unity which otherwise so cordially subsisted between my father and my uncle Toby. One would have thought that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the family at first, as is generally the case, but nothing ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way, possibly at the very time this happened it might have something else to afflict it, and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done the shandy family any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its office. Observe, I determine nothing upon this, my way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell, not with a pedantic fescue, or in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader, but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive. To them I write, and by them I shall be read, if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long, to the very end of the world. Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle, is undetermined by me, but how and in what direction it exerted itself, so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows. My uncle Toby Shandy madam was a gentleman who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honor and rectitude, possessed one in a very eminent degree which is seldom or never put into the catalogue, and that was a most extreme and unparalleled modesty of nature, though I correct the word nature for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that is whether this modesty of his was natural or required. Whichever way my uncle Toby came by it, was nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it, and that is, madam, not in regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them, but to things, and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a height in him as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman. That female nicety madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours. You will imagine, madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this from this very source, that he had spent a great part of his time in converse with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he had acquired this amiable turn of mind. I wish I could say so, for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my father's wife, and my mother, my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words with the sex in as many years. No, he got it, madam, by a blow. A blow? Yes, madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from a parapet of a hornwork at the siege of Namur, which struck full upon my uncle Toby's groin. Which way could that affect it? The story of that, madam, is long and interesting, but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here. Tis for an episode hereafter, and every circumstance relating to it, and its proper place shall be faithfully laid before you. Till then, it is not in my power to give far the light into this matter, or say more than what I have said already, that my uncle Toby was a gentleman of unparalleled modesty, which happened to be somewhat subtleized and rarefied by the constant heat of a little family pride. They both so wrought together within him that he could never bear to hear their fear of my aunt Diana touched upon, but with the greatest emotion. The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face, but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do, the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family would set my uncle Toby's honor and modesty a-bleeding, and he would often take my father aside, and the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and tell him he would give him anything in the world only to let the story rest. My father I believe had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle Toby that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done anything in nature which one brother in reason could have desired of another, to have made my uncle Toby's heart easy in this, or any other point, but this lay out of his power. My father as I told you was a philosopher in grain, speculative, systematically, and my aunt Diana's affair was a matter of as much consequence to him as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus. The backsliding of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system called so after his name, and the backsliding of my aunt Diana in her orbit did the same service in establishing my father's system, which I trust will forever hereafter be called the Shandian system after his. In any other family dishonour my father I believe had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever, and neither he nor I daresay Copernicus would have divulged their fear in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed as they thought to truth. Amicus Plato, my father would say, construing the words to my uncle Toby as he went along, Amicus Plato, that is, Diana was my aunt, said Magus Amicus Veritas, but truth is my sister. This contrarity of humours betwixt my father and my uncle was the source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace recorded, and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end without some hinted it. For God's sake, my uncle Toby would cry, and for my sake and for all our sakes. My dear brother Shandy, do let the story of our aunts and her ashes sleep in peace. How can you? How can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family? What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? My father would reply, nay, if you come to that, what is the life of a family? The life of a family, my uncle Toby would say, throwing himself back in his armchair, lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg. Yes, the life, my father would say, maintaining his point. How many thousands of them are there every year that come cast away in all civilised countries at least, and considered as nothing but common ear in competition of an hypothesis? In my plain sense of things my uncle Toby would answer, every such instance is downright murder. Let who will commit it? There lies your mistake, my father would reply, for in photo scientiae, there is no such thing as murder, to his only death, brother. My uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of lila bolero. You must know, it was the usual channel through which his passions got fend. When anything shocked or surprised him, but especially when anything which he deemed very absurd was offered. As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this particular species of argument. I here take the liberty to do it myself, for two reasons. First, that in order to prevent all confusion and disputes, it may stand as much distinguished forever from every other species of argument, as the argumentatum ad veracan dem, ex absurdo, ex fortiori, or any other argument whatever. And secondly, that it may be said by my children's children, when my head is laid to rest, that their learned grandfather's head had been busied to as much purpose once as other peoples. That he had invented a name, and generously thrown it into the treasury of ours logica. For one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science, and if the end of disputation is more to silence than convince, then may add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too. I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order in command, that it be known and distinguished by the name and title of the argumentum fistulitorium, and that it rank hereafter with the argumentum bacculinum, and the argumentum ad crumenum, and forever hereafter be treated of in the same chapter. As for the argumentum tripodium, which is never used but by the woman against the man, and the argumentum ad crumenum, which, contra-wise, is made use of by the man only against the woman, as these two are enough in conscience for one lecture, and moreover, as the one is best answered to the other, let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves. 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 Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen, Volume 1 by Laurence Stearn, Chapter 22 The learned Bishop Hall, I mean the famous Dr Joseph Hall, who was Bishop of Exeter and King James I's reign, tells us, in one of decades, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at London in the year 1610 by John Beall, dwelling in Aldersgate Street, that it is an abominable thing for a man to commend himself. And I really think it is, and yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out, I think it is full as abominable that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head. This is precisely my situation. For in this long degression, which I was accidentally led into, as in all my degressions, one only accepted, there is a master stroke of degressive skill, the merit of which has all along I fear, been overlooked by my reader, not for want of penetration in him, but because there's an excellent seldom looked for or expected indeed in a degression. And it is this, that though my degressions are all fear, as you observe, and that I fly off from what I am about as far and as often to, as any writer in Great Britain, yet I constantly take care to order fears so that my main business does not stand still in my absence. I was just going, for example, to have given you the great outlines of my Uncle Toby's most whimsical character, when my aunt Diana and the coachman came across us, and led us to vagary some millions of miles into the very heart of the planetary system. Notwithstanding all this, you perceive that the drawing of my Uncle Toby's character went on gently all the time, not the great contours of it, that was impossible, but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it were here and there touched on as we went along, so that you are much better acquainted with my Uncle Toby now than you were before. By this contrivance, the machinery of my work is of a species by itself, two contrary motions are introduced into it and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is degressive, and it is progressive too, and at the same time, this here is a very different story from that of the Earth's moving round her axis, in her duodenal motion with her progress in her elliptical orbit, which brings about the year and constitutes that variety and vicitude of seasons we enjoy. Though I own it, suggested the thought, as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries that come from such trifling hints. Degressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, they are the life, the soul of reading. Take them out of this book, for instance, you might as well take the book along with them. One cold, eternal winter would rain in every page of it. Restore them to the writer, he sets forth like a bridegroom, bids all hail, brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail. All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress in this matter is truly pitiable. For if he begins a degression, from that moment I observe, his whole work stands stock still, and he goes on with his main work, then there is an end of his degression. This is vile work. For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it, with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the degressions and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept going, and what's more, it shall be kept going these 40 years, if it please the fountains of health, to bless me so long with life and good spirits. Chapter 23 I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not bulk my fancy, accordingly I set off thus. If the fixture of mommas's glass and human breast, according to the proposed emmendation of that arch-critic, had taken place, first this foolish consequence would certainly have followed, that the very wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window money every day of our lives. And secondly, that had the seed glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical beehive, and looked in, viewed the soul stark naked, observed all her motions, her machinations, traced all her maggots from the first and gendering to the crawling fourth, watched her loosen her frisks, her gambles, her capricios, and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, etc., then taken your pen and can set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn to, but this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this planet, in the planet Mercury be like it may be so, if not better still for him, for there the intense heat of the country which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than equal to that of red hot iron, must I think long ago have vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, as the efficient cause, to suit them to the climate which is the final cause, so that betwixt them both, all the tenements of their soul, from top to bottom, may be nothing else, for ought the soundest philosophy can show to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass, baiting the umbilical knot, so that till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the rays of light and passing through them become so monstrously refracted, or return reflected, from their surfaces in such traverse lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through, his soul might as well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the umbilical point gave her, might, upon all other accounts I say, as well play the full outer doors as in her own house. But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this earth, our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapped up here in a dark covering of uncrystallized flesh and blood, so that if we would come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to work, many in good truth, other ways which human wit has been forced to take to do this thing with exactness. Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind instruments. Virgil takes notice of that way in their fear of Dido and Anais, but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame, and moreover bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the Italians pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one particular sort of character among them, from the forte or piano of a certain wind instrument they use, which they say is infallible. I dare not mention the name of the instrument in this place, it is sufficient we have it amongst us, but never think of making a drawing by it. This is enigmatic and intended to be so, at least ad popular, and therefore I beg madame, when you come here that you read on as fast as you can and never stop to make any inquiry about it. There are others again who will draw a man's character from no other helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations, but this often gives a very incorrect outline, unless indeed you take a sketch of his replications too, and by correcting one drawing from the other, compound one good figure out of them both. I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must smell too strong of the lamp, and be rendered still more operose by forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his non-naturals. Why the most natural actions of a man's life should be called as non-naturals is another question. There are others fourthly who disdain every one of these expedience, not from any fertility of their own, but from the various ways of doing it which they have borrowed from the honourable devices which the pentagraphic brethren of the brush have shown in taking copies. These you must know are your great historians. One of these you will see drawing a full length character against the light, that's a liberal dishonest, and hard upon the character of the man who sits. Others to mend matters will make a drawing of you in the camera. That is most unfair of all, because there you are sure to be represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes. To avoid all and every one of these areas in giving you my Uncle Toby's character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help whatever, nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind instrument, whichever was blowing upon, either on this or the other side of the Alps. Nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges, or touch upon his non-naturals, but in a word, I will draw my Uncle Toby's character from his hobby horse. End of Chapter 23 Chapters 3, 4, 3, 5 of Trisham Shandy, Volume 1. This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life and the Perdience of Trisham Shandy, Gentleman Volume 1 by Laurence Stern. Chapters 3, 4 to 3, 5. Chapter 3, 4. If I was not morally sure that a reader must be out of all patience for my Uncle Toby's character, I hear previously have convinced him that there is no instrument still fit to draw such a thing with as at which I have pitched upon. Amen and his hobby horse, though I cannot say that they act and react exactly after the same manner which his soul embodies upon each other, yet doubtless is a communication between them of some kind, and my opinion, rather, is that there is something in it more of a manner of electrified bodies, and that by means of the hated parts of a rider, which can immediately contact with the back of a hobby horse by long journeys and much friction, it so happens that a body of a rider is at length, filled, as full of hobby horseical manner as it can hold, so that if you are able to give out a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and character of the other. Now the hobby horse, which my Uncle Toby always wrote upon, was in my opinion a hobby horse, well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the score of his great singularity, for you might have travelled from York to Dover, from Dover, Penzon to Cornwall, from Penzon to York, back again, and not have seen such a manner upon the road, or if you had seen such a one, by the haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopped to have taken view of him. Instead, they gave and forgave him, was so strange and certainly and like was he, but was said to still, to any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of dispute, whether he was really a hobby horse or not, but as a philosopher would use no other argument as a skeptic, would dispute it with him against reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his legs, and walk in cross room, so that my Uncle Toby used no other argument to prove his hobby horse was a hobby horse indeed, but by getting upon his back and rising him about, leaving the world after that to determine the point as it thought fit. In good truth, my Uncle Toby mounted him with so much pressure, and he cared my Uncle Toby so well, that he troubled his head very little, with what the world either said or thought about it. It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him, but to go unregulatedly, I only bet you will give me leave, to quake you first, how my Uncle Toby came by him. Chapter 35, the wound in my Uncle Toby's groin, which he received as each of the mule, rendering him unfit for service, it was so exquisite, he should return to England, in order, if possible, to be set to right. He was foyer so that he can find part of it to his bed, and of it to his room, and in the course of his career, which was all that time in hand, suffered unspeakable miseries, owing to a succession of exfoliations from the ospibus, and the outward edge of that part of the coccyandics, called the os-illum, both which wound where the smelly crushed, as much by irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke of the perpet, as bad size, though it was pretty large, which inclined the session all along to think, that great injury which it had done, my Uncle Toby's groin, was more owing to gravity of the stone itself, than a projectile full of it, which he would often tell him was a great heaviness. My father at the time was just beginning business in London, and had taken the house, and as a truest friendship and cordiality subsistence between the two brothers, and that my father taught my Uncle Toby, could know where his own wellness, and taken care of as in his own house, he assigned him the very best apartments in it. And what was a much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend or an acquaintance to settle into a house on that occasion, but he would take him by hand, and lead him upstairs to see his brother Toby, and chat an hour by his bedside. The three other soldiers wound regardless the pain of it, my Uncle Toby's at least thought to, and eventually caused upon him, from the coccyandics arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn this course to that subject, and from that subject, this course would generally roll onto the seat itself. These conversations were infinitely kind, and my Uncle Toby received great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they brought him into some untraceable complexities, which for three months together retarded his cure greatly, and if he had not had upon experience to extricate himself out of them, I very only believe they would have made him as grave, or at least the complexities of my Uncle Toby were just impossible for you to guess, if you could. I should bless not as a relation, as a man, or even as a woman, but I should bless as an author, inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very count, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at anything, and then this, sir, I am of so nice and single, a humour, that if I thought you was able for the least judgment of all conjecture to yourself, I thought I was to come in the next page, out there, out of my book. End of Chapter 24-25. Chapter 26 of Trisham Shandy Volume 1. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Varon Wiel. For life and opinions of Trisham Shandy, Gentlemen, Volume 1 by Lauren Stern. Chapter 26. I have begun a new book, on purpose, that I might have room enough to explain the nature of the perfectities in which my uncle Turbie was involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the Siege of Namur, where he received a spoon. I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King William's Wars, but if he has not, I then inform him, that one of the most memorable attacks in that siege was that which was made by the English and Dutch, upon the point of the advance counter-scope between the Gate of St Nicholas, which enclose the Great St Louis or Waterstop, where the English were terribly exposed to the shot of the counter-guard and demi-vestion of St Rock. This year of which, hot dispute, in three words, was this. That the Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard, and that the English made themselves masters of the covered way before St Nicholas Gate, notwithstanding the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed themselves upon the laser sword and hand. As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Turbie was an eyewitness at Namur, the army of the besiegers being cut off by the confluence of the mass and the from seeing much of the other's operations, my uncle Turbie was generally more eloquent in particular in this account of it, and the many perplexities he was in arose out of the almost intermountable difficulties he found in telling his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences and distinctions between the scarp and counter-scarp, the glazes and covered way, the half moon and revelin, as to make his company fully comprehend where and what he was about. Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms, so that you will the less render, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in the position to many misconceptions, there will also be the off-times for all his visitors, and sometimes himself too. To speak the truth, unless a company my father let upstairs but tolerably clear-headed, all my uncle Turbie was in one of his explanatory mode, to a certificate thing, to what he could, to keep the discourse free from security. What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate my uncle Turbie was this, the early attack of the counter-scarp, before the gate of St Nicholas, extending itself from bank of the mass, quite up to a great water-stop, the ground was cut and cross-cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, revelants and slurses, on all sides, and he would get so badly bewildered, and set fast amongst them, that frequently he could neither get backwards nor forwards to save his life, and less off-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very account only. These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Turbie shanty more perturbations than you would imagine, and as my father, Skynes, to him was continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh inquirers, he had but a very uneasy task of it. No doubt my uncle Turbie had great command of himself, and could guard appearances, I believe, as well as most men, yet anyone may imagine that when he could not retreat out of the rathland without getting into half-moon, or get out of a covered way without falling down the counter-scarp, nor cross the dive without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly, he said so, and the little entirely vexations, which may seem traveling, and of no account to the men who has not read Hippocrates, yet whoever has read Hippocrates, Dr. James McKenzie, and as considered by all the effects, which are passions and affections of the mind have upon the digestion, why not of a wound as well as of a dinner, may easily conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle Turbie must have undergone upon that score only. My uncle Turbie cannot first defy the planet, towards the nerve he felt of a soul, and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three months together, he was resolved some way or other to excrete himself. He was one morning lying upon his back and his back, the anguish and nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other position, where the thought came into his head, that if he could purchase such a thing, then Turbie placed it down upon the board, as a large man of the fortification of the town and citizole of Numer, with its environs, it might be a means of giving him ease. I take notice of his desire to have the environs along with the town and citizole, for this reason, because my uncle Turbie's wound was cut in one of the traverses, about 30 toys from the returning angle of trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastian of St. Rock, so that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical spots of ground where he was standing on when a stone struck him. All these succeeded, with wishes, and not only freed him from worlds of set explanations, but in the end, it proved the happy means, as he will read, after curing my uncle Turbie's hobby horse. Chapter 27 of Tristram Shandy, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. More information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume 1 by Laurence Stern Chapter 27 There is nothing so foolish when you are at the expense of making an entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly as to let your critics and gentry of refined taste run it down. Nor is there anything so lightly to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the party, or what is full as offensive of bestowing your attention upon the rest of your guests in so particular a way as if there were no such thing as a critic by occupation at table. I guard against both, for in the first place I have left half a dozen places purposely open for them, and in the next place I pay them all coat. Gentlemen, I kiss your hands. I protest no company could give me half the pleasure. By my soul I am glad to see you. I beg only you will make no strangers of yourself, but sit down without any ceremony and fall on heartily. I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my compliance so far as to have left a seventh open for them, and in this very spot I stand on. But being told by a critic, though not by occupation but by nature, that I had acquitted myself well enough, I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the meantime, that I shall be able to make a great deal of more room next year. How in the name of wonder could your uncle Toby, who it seems was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool, be at the same time such a confused, putting-headed, muddle-headed fellow as? Go look. So, sir critic, I could have replied, but I scorned. It's language unurbane, and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first causes of human ignorance and confusion. It is, moreover, the reply valiant, and therefore I reject it. For though it might have suited my uncle Toby's character as a soldier excellently well, and had he not accustomed himself in such attacks to whizzle the lila buleru, as he wanted no courage, it's the very answer he would have given, yet it would by no means have done for me. You see, as plain as can be, that I write as a man of erudition, that even my similes, my allusions, my illustrations, my metaphors are erudite, and that I must sustain my character properly, and contrast it properly too, else what would become of me? Why, sir, I should be undone at this very moment that I am going here to fill up one place against a critic. I should have made an opening for a couple. Therefore, I answer thus. Pray, sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever read such a book as Locke's essay upon the human understanding? Don't answer me rashly, because many I know quote the book who have not read it, and many have read it who understand it not. If either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will tell you in three words what the book is. It is a history, a history of who, what, where, when. Don't hurry yourself, it is a history book, sir, which may possibly recommend it to the world of what passes in a man's own mind, and if you will say so much of the book and no more, believe me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysical circle. But thus, by the way, now, if you will venture to go along with me and look down into the bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion in the mind of a man is threefold. Dull organs, dear sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and transient impressions made by the objects when the said organs are not dull. And thirdly, a memory like onto a sieve, not able to retain what it has received. Call down dolly or chambermaid and I will give you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that dolly herself should understand it as well as mal branch. When dolly has indicted her piston to Robin and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side, take that opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as that one thing which dolly's hand is in search of. Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you. It's an inch, sir, of red seal wax. When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if dolly fumbles too long for her thimble till the wax is over hardened, it will not receive the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was want to imprint it. Very well. If dolly's wax for want of better is beast wax or of a temper too soft, though it may receive, it will not hold the impression. How hard so ever dolly thrusts against it. And last of all, supposing the wax good and achy the thimble, but applied there too in careless haste as her mistress rings the bell, in any one of these three cases, the print left by the thimble will be as unlike the prototype as a brassjack. Now, you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the confusion in my Uncle Toby's discourse. And it is for this very reason I enlarge upon them so long after the manner of great physiologists to show the world what it did not arise from. What it did arise from I have hinted about and a fertile source of obscurity it is and ever will be, and that is the unsteady uses of words which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings. It is tend to one at others whether you have ever read the literary histories of past ages. If you have, what terrible battles yet klept logomashies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink shed that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes. Gentle Critic, When thou hast weighed all this and considered within thyself, how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has been bestowed and disordered at one time or other by this and this only, what a pudder and racket in counsels about Greek and in the schools of the learned about power and about spirit, about essences and about quintessences, about substances and about space. What confusion in greater theatres from words of little meaning and as indeterminate a sense when thou considerest this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's perplexities. Thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarf and his counterscarp, his glasses and his covered wave, his ravelin and his halfmole. It was not by ideas by heaven his life was put in jeopardy by words. End of Chapter, Chapter 28, 29 of Christram Shandy, Volume 1 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 Christram Shandy, Gentlemen, Volume 1 by Laurence Stern, Chapter 28 When my uncle Toby got his map of Lamore to his mind, he began immediately to apply himself and with the utmost diligence to the study of it, for nothing being of more importance to him than his recovery and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the passions and affections of his mind. It behoved him to take the nicest care to make himself so far master of his subject as to be able to talk upon it without emotion. In a fortnight's close and painful application, which, by the by, did my uncle Toby's wound upon his groin, no good, he was enabled by the help of some marginal document at the feet of the elephant, together with Gobi's military architecture and pyrobiology translated from the Flemish to form his discourse with passable perspic cutie. And before he was two full months gone, he was right eloquent upon it and could make not only the attack of the advanced counterscarp with great order, but having by that time gone much deeper into the art than what his first motive made necessary, my uncle Toby was able to cross the maze in Sambur, make diversions as far as Wabon's line, the Abbey of Salsons and Co, and give his visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks as that of the Gate of Saint Nicholas where he had the honor to receive his wound. But desire of knowledge like the thirst of riches increases ever upon the acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby poured over his map, the more he took a liking to it. By the same process and electrical assimilation as I told you, through which I weaned the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and in conviction have the happiness at length to get all bewitched, be pictured, be butterflyed and befuddled. The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet fountain of science, the greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a fortified town in Italy of Flanders of which by one means or other he had not procured a plan reading over as he got them and carefully collating therewith the histories of their seizures, their demolitions, their improvements and new works, all which he could read with that intense application and delight that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner. In the second year, my uncle Toby purchased Ramele and Cattonew, translated from the Italian, likewise, Stevinus Morales, De Chevalet de Ville, Lorini, Cocon, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Waubon, Gonzia Blondel, with almost as many more books of military architecture as Dan Quixote was found to have of chivalry when the curate in Barber invaded his library. Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August 1999, my uncle Toby found it necessary to understand a little of projectiles and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain head, he began with N. Tatagalia, who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon's balls doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line. This N. Tatagalia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing. Endless is the search of truth. No sooner had my uncle Toby satisfied which wrote the cannon ball did not go, but he was insensibly led on and resolved in his mind to inquire and find out which road the ball did go, for which purpose he was obliged to set off a fresh with old malters and studied him devoutly. He proceeded next to Galileo and Torricellius, wearing by certain geometrical rules infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be a parabola, or else a hyperbola, and that the parameter or lattice rectum, the conic section of the safe path was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct ratio as the whole line to the sign of double the angle of incidence formed by the breach upon a horizontal plane, and that the semi-parameter stopped. My dear uncle Toby, stop. Go not one foot farther into this thorny and bewildered track. Intricate are the steps. Intricate are the mazes of this labyrinth. Intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this bewitching phantom knowledge will bring upon thee. Oh my uncle, fly, fly, fly from it as from a serpent. Is it fit, good-natured man, thou should sit up with the wound upon thy groin? All nights, baking thy blood with hectic watchings, last, it will exasperate thy symptoms, check thy perspirations, evaporate thy spirits, waste thy animal strength, pry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive habit of body, impair thy health, and hasten all the informities of thy old age. Oh my uncle, my uncle Toby. Chapter 29 I would not give a groat for that man's knowledge in pencraft who does not understand this, that the best plane narrative in the world tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palette. Therefore I forewithput an end to the chapter, though I was in the middle of my story. Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil, deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth than beauty. This is to be understood, come grano salis, but be it as it will, as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the apostrophe cool than anything else. It's not very material whether upon any scholar reader approves of that or not. In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby, perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only, the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force. It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt, to dismiss his barber unshaven, and to allow his surgeon scarce times efficient to dress his wound concerning himself so little about us, as not to ask him once in seven times dressing how it went on. When low, all of a sudden, for the change was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his recovery. Complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon, and one morning, as he heard his foot coming upstairs, he shut up his books and thrust aside his instruments in order to extostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time. He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years melancholy imprisonment, adding that, had it not been for the kind looks and fraternal cheerings of the best of brothers, he had long since sunk under his misfortunes. My father was by. My uncle Tobias Eloquence brought tears into his eyes. It was an expected. My uncle Tobias, by nature, was not eloquent. It had the greater effect. The surgeon was confounded, not that there wanted grounds for such or greater marks of impatience, but it was unexpected too. In the four years he had attended him, he had never seen anything like it in my uncle Tobias' carriage. He had never once dropped one fretful or discontented word. He had been all patience, all submission. We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it, but we often rebel of force. The surgeon was astonished, but much more so when he heard my uncle Tobias go on and pre-emptorily insist upon his healing up the wound directly, or sending Pumansia Ranjath, the king's surgeon to do it for him. The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature. The love of liberty and enlargement is a sister passion to it. These my uncle Tobias had in common with his species, but either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of the doors. But I have told you before that nothing wrought with our family after the common way, and from the time and manner in which this eager desire shoot itself in the present case, the penetrating reader will suspect there was some other cause or crochet for it in my uncle Tobias' head. There was so, and it is the subject of the next chapter to set forth what that cause and crochet was. I own. When that's done, it'll be time to return back to the parlor far side where we left my uncle Tobias in the middle of his sentence. Chapter 30 of Tristram Shandy Volume 1 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 Tristram Shandy Gentlemen Volume 1 by Laurence Turn Chapter 30 When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, or in other words, when his hobby horse grows headstrong, fair well cool reason and fair discretion. My uncle Tobias' wound was near well and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprise and could get leave to say as much, he told him. It was just beginning to incarnate and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of, it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympians 12 hours before would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Tobias' mind. The succession of his ideas was now rapid. He broiled with impatience to put his design in execution and so without consulting father with any soul living, which by the by I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul's advice, he privately ordered trim his man to pack up a bundle of length and dressings and hire a chariot and four to be at the door exactly by twelve o'clock that day when he knew my father would be upon change. So leaving a bank note upon the table for the surgeon's care of him and a letter of tender thanks for his brothers, he packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments and co, and by the help of a crush on one side and trim on the other, my uncle Tobias embarked for Chandy Hall. The reason or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as follows. The table in my uncle Tobias' room and at which the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps and co about him, being somewhat of the smallest for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it. He had the accident in reaching over for his tobacco box to throw down his compasses and in stooping to take the compasses up with his sleeve, he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers and as the dais took a run against him in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, he thrust onto a bundle of the table and count de Pagan atop of him. It was to no purpose for a man lame as my uncle Tobias was to think of redressing these evils by himself. He rang his bell for his man Trim. Trim caught upon my uncle Tobias' prithee, see what confusion I have here been making, I must have some better contravance, Trim. Can't thou take my rule and measure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again? Yes, and please your honour replied Trim making a bow. But I hope your honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country seat, where as your honour takes so much pleasure and fortification, we could manage this matter to a tea. I must here inform you that this servant of my uncle Tobias who went by the name of Trim had been a corporal in my uncle Tobias' own company. His real name was James Butler. But having got the nickname of Trim in the regiment, my uncle Tobias unless, when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name. The poor fellow had been disabled for the service by a wound on his left knee by a musket bullet at the battle of Landon which was two years before the affair of Namur, and as the fellow was well beloved in the regiment and had the fellow into the bar game. My uncle Tobias took him for his servant, and of an excellent use was he. Attending my uncle Tobias in the camp and in his quarters was a valet, groom, barber, cook, semester, and nurse, and indeed from the first to last waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection. My uncle Tobias loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still was the similitude of their knowledge for corporal Trim, for so, for the future I shall call him. By four years occasional attention to his masters discurs upon fortified towns and the advantage of crying and peeping continually into his masters' plans and co, exclusive and besides what he gained, hobby-horsical he has a body servant, non-hobby-horsical per se had become no main proficient in his science and was thought by the cook and chambermaid to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle Tobias himself. I have but one more straw to give to finish Corporal Trim's character, and it is the only dark line in it. The fellow loved to advise, or rather to hear himself talk. His carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful it was easy to keep him silent when you had him so. But set his tongue going, you have no hold of him. He was wallable, the eternal, interladings of your honor with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner interceding so strong in behalf of his ill-accution that, though you might have been incommodated, you could not well be angry. My uncle Tobias was seldom either the one or the other with him, or at least this fault in Tim broke no squares with him. My uncle Tobias, I said, loved the man and besides as he ever looked upon a faithful servant, but as an humble friend he could not bear to stop his mouth. Such was Corporal Trim. If I just presume, continue Trim, to give your honor my advice and speak my opinion in this matter, thou art welcome Trim, quote my uncle Tobias. Speak, speak what thou thinkest upon the subject man without fear. Why then replied Trim, not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a country loud, but stroking his hair back from his forehead and standing erect as before his division, I think, quote Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards, and pointing with his right hand opened towards a map of Dunkirk, which was pinned against the hangings, I think, quote Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your honor's better judgment, that these revelants, bastions, curtains, and hornworks, make but a poor contemptible fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper. Compared to what your honor and I could make of it, worrying the country by ourselves and had but a rude or a rude and a half of ground to do what we pleased with. As the summer is coming on, continued Trim, your honor might sit out of doors, give me the no-graphy, call it iconography, quote my uncle. Of the town or citadel, your honor was pleased to sit down before, and I will be shot by your honor upon the glasses of it if I did not fortify it to your honor's mind. I dare say thou would, Trim, quote my uncle, for if your honor continued the corporate code, but mark me the polygon with its exact lines and angles that I could do very well, quote my uncle. I would begin the foray, and if your honor could tell me the proper depth and breadth, I can to a haste breath, Trim, replied my uncle. I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp, and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp. Very right, Trim, quote my uncle Toby, and when I had sloped them to your mind, and pleased your honor, I would place the glasses, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders with swords, and as your honor knows they should be, and I would make the walls and parapets with swords too. The best engineers called them Gazons, Trim, said my uncle Toby, whether they are Gazons or swords, as not much matter, replied Trim. Your honor knows they are ten times beyond a facing aider of breakout stone. I know they are, Trim, in some respects, quote my uncle Toby, nodding his head, for a cannonball enters into the Gazon right onwards without bringing any rubbish down from it, which might fill the forcing, as was the case at St. Nicholas Gate, and facilitate the passage over it. Your honor understands these matters, replied Corporal Trim, better than any officer in his majesty's service, but would your honor please to let them be speaking of the table alone, and let us but go into the country? I would work under your honor's directions like a horse, and make fortifications for your something like a tancy, with all their batteries sapped, ditches and pallet saddles that it should be worth all the world's riding twenty miles to go and see it. My uncle Toby blushed as red as colored as Trim went on, but it was not a blush of guilt, of modesty or of anger, it was a blush of joy. He was fired with Corporal Trim's project in description. Trim, said my uncle Toby, thou hast said enough. We might begin the campaign, continued Trim, on the very day that his majesty and the allies take the field, and demolish them town by town fast as Trim caught my uncle Toby, say no more. Your honor, continued Trim, might sit in your arm chair pointing to it, thus fine weather giving me your orders, and I would say no more Trim caught my uncle Toby. Besides, your honor would get not only pleasure and good pastime, but good air and good exercise and good health, and your honor's wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, Trim, caught my uncle Toby, putting his hand into his precious pocket. I like thy project mightily, and if your honor pleases, I'll this moment go and buy a pioneers' bed to take down with us, and I'll bespeak a shovel and a pickaxe, and a couple of say no more Trim, caught my uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture and thrusting a guinea into Trim's hand. Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more, but go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant. Trim ran down and brought up his master's supper to no purpose. Trim's plan of operation ran so in my uncle Toby's head he could not taste it. Trim, caught my uncle Toby, get me to bed. It was all one. Corporal Trim's description had fired his imagination. My uncle Toby could not shut his eyes. The more he considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him, so that two full hours before daylight he had come to a final determination and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decampment. My uncle Toby had a little neat country house of his own in the village where my father's estate lay in Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a year. Behind his house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen garden of about half an acre and at the bottom of the garden and cut off from it by a tall U hedge was a bowling green containing just about as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for. So that as Trim uttered the words a rude and a half of ground to do what they would live, this identical bowling green instantly presented itself and became curiously painted all at once upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy, which was the physical cause of making him change color or at least of heightening his blush to that immoderate degree I spoke of. Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and expectation than my uncle Toby did to enjoy this self-same thing in private. My sane private for it was sheltered from the house as I told you by a tall U hedge and was covered on the other three sides from mortal sight by rough holly and thick set flowering shrubs. So the idea of not being seen did not a little contribute to the idea of pleasure preconceived in my uncle Toby's mind. Wayne thought, however thick it was planted about a private so ever it might seem, to think dear uncle Toby of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rude and a half of ground and not have it known. How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter with the history of their campaigns which were no way barren of events may make no uninteresting underplot in the epitaphs and working up of this drama. At present the scene must drop and change for the parlor fireside. Please visit LibriVox.org The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Volume 1 by Lawrence Stern, chapters 31 and 32, chapter 31 What can they be doing, brother, said my father. I think replied my uncle Toby, taking as I told you his pipe from his mouth and striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence. I think replied he, it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. Pray, what's all that racket over our heads, Obadiah, quoth my father. My brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak. Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow towards his left shoulder. My mistress is taken very badly. And where's Susanna running down the garden there, as if they were going to ravish her. Sir, she's running the shortest cut into the town, replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife. Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go directly for Dr. Slopp, the man midwife, with all our services, and let him know your mistress is fallen into labor, and that I desire he will return with you with all speed. It's very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle Toby, as Obadiah shut the door. As there is so expert an operator, as Dr. Slopp so near, that my wife should persist to the very last in this obstinate humour of hers, entrusting the life of my child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old woman. And not only the life of my child, brother, but her own life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, her adventure, have begot out of her hereafter. May hat, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the expense. A pudding's end, replied my father, the doctor must be paid the same for inaction as action, if not better, to keep him in temper. Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his heart, but modesty. My sister, I daresay, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her. I will not say whether my uncle Toby had completed the sentence or not, tis for his advantage to suppose he had, as I think he could have added no one word, which would have improved it. If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period's end, then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco pipe, for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which rhetoricians style the Aposio Pisces. Just heaven, how does the Pocco Piu and the Pocco Menor of the Italian artists, the insensible more or less, determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue? How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-stick, etc. give the true swell, which gives the true pleasure? Oh, my countrymen, be nice, be cautious of your language, and never, oh, never, let it be forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your fame depend. My sister may have, with my uncle Toby, does not choose to let a man come so near her, make this dash, tis an Aposio Pisces, take the dash away, and write, backside, tis bawdy, scratch backside out, and put covered way in, tis a metaphor, and I daresay, as fortification ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, that if he had been left to have added one word to the sentence, that word was it. But whether that was the case or not the case, or whether the snapping of my father's tobacco pipe so critically happened through accident or anger will be seen in due time. End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Though my father was a good natural philosopher, yet he was something of a moral philosopher too, for which reason, when his tobacco pipe snapped short in the middle, he had nothing to do as such but to have taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of the fire. He did no such thing, he threw them with all the violence in the world, and to give the action still more emphasis, he started upon both his legs to do it. This looked something like heat, and the manner of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying proved it was so. Not Jews, worth my father, repeating my uncle Toby's words, to let a man come so near her by heaven, brother Toby, you would try the patience of Job, and I think I have the plagues of one already without it. Why? Where? Where in? Where for? Upon what account? replied my uncle Toby, in the utmost astonishment. To think, said my father, of a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little about women. I know nothing at all about them, replied my uncle Toby. And I think, continued he, that the shock I received a year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with a widow-wardman, which shock you know I should not have received, but from my total ignorance of the sex, has given me just cause to say that I neither know, nor do pretend to know, anything about them, or their concerns either. Me thinks, brother, replied my father, you might at least know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong. It is said in Aristotle's masterpiece, that when a man doth think of anything which is past, he looketh down upon the ground, but that when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards the heavens. My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither, for he looked horizontally, right end, was my uncle Toby, muttering the two words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the chimney-piece, right end of a woman. I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is than the man in the moon. And if I was to think, continued my uncle Toby, keeping his eyes still fixed upon the bad joint, this month together, I'm sure I should not be able to find out. Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you, Everything in this world, continued my father, fitting a fresh pipe. Everything in this world, my dear brother Toby, has two handles. Not always, quoth my uncle Toby. At least, replied my father, everyone has two hands, which comes to the same thing. Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make, the shape, the construction, comatability, and convenience of all the parts, which constitute the whole of that animal, called woman, and compare them analogically, I never understood rightly the meaning of that word, quoth my uncle Toby. Analogy, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which different. Here, a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father's definition, like his tobacco pipe, in two, and at the same time crushed the head of his notable and curious a dissertation, as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation. It was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it, and at this hour it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself, considering the confusion and distresses of our domestic misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another, whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third volume or not. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen. Volume 1 by Lawrence Stern. Chapters 33 and 34 Chapter 33 It is about an hour and a half's tolerable good reading, since my uncle Toby rung the bell, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a horse and go for Dr Slopp, the man midwife, so that no one can say, with reason, that I have not allowed Obadiah time enough, poetically speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and to come, though morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce had time to get on his boots. If the hypercritic will go upon this, and is resolved after all to take a pendulum and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the bell and the wrap at the door, and, after finding it to be no more than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three-fifths, should take upon him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity or rather probability of time, I would remind him that the idea of duration, and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of our ideas, and is the true scholastic pendulum, and by which, as a scholar, I will be tried in this matter, of during and detesting the jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever. I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from Shandy Hall to Dr Slopp, the man midwife's house, and that whilst Obadiah has been going those said miles and back, I have brought my uncle Toby from Namur quite across all Flanders into England, that I have had him ill upon my hands near four years, and have since travelled him and corporal trim, in a chariot and four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into Yorkshire, all which, put together, must have prepared the reader's imagination for the entrance of Dr Slopp upon the stage, as much at least, I hope, as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts. If my hypercritic is intractable, alleging that two minutes and thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds, when I have said all I can about them, and that this plea, though it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my book from this very moment a professed romance, which before was a book apocryphal, if I am thus pressed, I then put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once, by acquainting him that Obadiah had not got above three score yards from the stable yard before he met with Dr Slopp, and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too. Imagine to yourself, but this had better begin a new chapter. Imagine to yourself a little squat uncourtly figure of a Dr Slopp, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a sergeant in the horse-guards. Such were the outlines of Dr Slopp's figure, which, if you have read Hogarth's analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would. You must know, may I certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to the mind by three strokes as three hundred. Imagine such a one, for such I say were the outlines of Dr Slopp's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebrae of a little diminutive pony of a pretty colour, but of strength, a lack scarce able to have made an amble of it under such a faddle had the roads been in an ambling condition, they were not. Imagine to yourself, Obadiah, mounted upon a strong monster of a coach horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way. Praise her, let me interest you a moment in this description. Had Dr Slopp beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that monstrous rate, splashing and plunging like a devil through thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a phenomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it round its axis, have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr Slopp in his situation than the worst of Winston's comets, to say nothing of the nucleus, that is of Obadiah and the coach horse. In my idea the vortex alone of him was enough to have involved and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor's pony, quite away with it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr Slopp have been, when you read, which you are just going to do, that he was advancing thus wearily along towards Shandy Hall, and had approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden wall, and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane, when Obadiah and his coach horse turned the corner rapid, furious, pop, full upon him. Nothing, I think, in nature can be supposed more terrible than such a ren counter, so imprompte, so ill-prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr Slopp was. What could Dr Slopp do? He crossed himself, per, but the Dr Sir was a papist. No matter, he had better have kept hold of the pummel. He had so, nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all, for, in crossing himself, he let go his whip, and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup, in losing which he lost his seat, and in the multitude of all these losses, which by the by shows what little advantage there is in crossing, the unfortunate Dr lost his presence of mind, so that without waiting for Obadiah's onset, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the style and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other consequence from the fall save that of being left, as it would have been with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the mire. Obadiah pulled off his cap twice to Dr Slopp, once as he was falling, and then again when he saw him seated, ill-timed complacence, had not the fellow better have stopped his horse and got off and helped him. Sir, he did all that his situation would allow, but the momentum of the coach horse was so great, that Obadiah could not do it all at once. He rode in a circle three times round Dr Slopp, before he could fully accomplish it anyhow, and at the last, when he did stop his beast, to has done with such an explosion of mud, that Obadiah had better been a league of. In short, never was a Dr Slopp so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came into fashion. And of Chapter Thirty-Four