Chapters 1 to 2 of Tristram Shandy, Vol. 2. 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 Chileva Valhiem. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen, Vol. 2 by Lauren Stern Monte Thudinis Imperitae nonformile Jutikia, Maze Tamen, Rogo, Parcanto Pusculis, In Qui Pus Fui proposi di Semper, a Yoke's Azzeria, in Seris Выkissim at Yoke's Tanzere, Ioannis Zarezberiances, Episcopus Lugdun. CHAPTER I Great wit's jump! For the moment Dr. Slopp cast his eyes upon his back, which he had not done till the dispute with my Uncle Toby about Midwifery put in their mind of it. The very same thought occurred. Disgot's mercy, grossy to himself, that Mrs. Shandy has had so bad a time of it, else you might have been brought to bed seven times told, before one half of these knots could have gotten tight. But here you must distinguish. The thought floated only in Dr. Slopp's mind, without sailor ballast to it, as a simple proposition, millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the sin dues of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards or forwards, till some little justs of passion or interest drive them to one side. A certain trembling in the room above, near my mother's bed, did the proposition the very service I am speaking of, by all that's unfortunate, goes Dr. Slopp, unless I may cased, the thing will actually befall me as it is. CHAPTER II In the case of knot, by which in the first place, I would not be understood to mean slip knot, because in the cause of my life and opinions, my opinions concerning them will come in more properly, when I mention the catastrophe of my great-uncle Mr. Hammond Shandy, a little man, but of high fancy. He rushed into the Duke of Monmouth's affair. More secondly, in this place, do I mean that particular species of knots called bow knots. There is so little address or skill or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below my giving any opinion at all about them. But by the knots I am speaking of, made pleaser of references to believe, that I mean good honest devilish tied-hard knots, made bona fide, as Obadiah made his, in which there is no quibbling provision made by the duplication and return of the two ends of the strings through the annulus or noose made by the second implication of them, to get them slipped and undone by. I hope you apprehend me. In the case of these knots, then, and of the several obstructions which made pleaser of references, such knots cast in our way in getting through life, every hasty man can whip out his pen-knife and cut through them. There's wrong. Believe me, says, the most virtuous way, and which both reason and conscience dictate, is to take our teeth or our fingers to them. Dr. Slopp had lost his teeth, his favourite instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction or by some mis-application of it, and fortunately slipping, he had formally, in a hard labour, knocked out three of the best of them with a handle of it. He tried his fingers. Alas, the nails of his fingers and thumbs were cut close. The deuce take it. I can make nothing of it either way, cried Dr. Slopp. The trampling overhead near my mother's bedside increased. Pock state the fallow, I shall never get the knot untied as long as I live. My mother gave it groan. Lend me your pen-knife. I must even cut the knot at last. Perhaps! Lord, I have cut my thumb quiet across to the very bone. Curse the fallow! If there was not another man midwife within fifty miles, I am undone for this bout. I wish the scoundrel hanged. I wish he was shot.  My father had great respect for Oberdier, and could not bear to hear him disposed of in such a manner. He had moreover some lesser respect for himself, and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself in it. Had Dr. Slopp cut any part about him but his thumb, my father had passed it by. His prudence had triumphed. As it was, he was determined to have his revenge. Small curses, Dr. Slopp, upon great occasions, with my father condoling with him first upon the accident, are but so much waste of our strength and source health to no man of purpose. I own it, replied Dr. Slopp. They are like sparrowshot, with my Uncle Toby, suspending his whistling, fired against Sebastian. They serve, continued my father, to stir the humours, but carry off none of the recrimony. For my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all. I hold it bad, but if I fall into it by surprise, I generally retain so much presence of mind — right, quits my Uncle Toby — as to make it answer my purpose. That is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wife and a just man, however, would always endeavour to proportion the vent given to these humours, not only to the degree of them stirring within himself, but to the sight and ill intent of the offence upon which if they are to fall. Injuries come only from the heart, quits my Uncle Toby. For this reason, continued my father, with the most inventive gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world, for that gentleman who, in distrust of his own discretion at this point, sat down and composed, that is, at his ledger, fit forms of swearing suitable to all cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which could possibly happen to him, which forms, being well-considered by him, and such moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use. I never apprehended, replied Dr. Slopp, that such a thing was ever thought of, much less executed. I beg your pardon, answered my father. I was reading, though not using one of them to my brother Toby this morning, whilst he poured out the tea, this ear upon the shelf over my head. But if I remember right, just too violent for a cut of the sump. Not at all, goes Dr. Slopp, the devil takes the fallow. Then, answered my father, there's much at your service, Dr. Slopp, on condition you will read it aloud. So, rising up and reaching down a form of excommunication of the Church of Rome, a copy of which my father, who was curious in his collections, had procured out of the ledger-book of the Church of Rochester, read by Ernulfus, the bishop, with the most effective seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled Ernulfus himself, he put it into Dr. Slopp's hands. Dr. Slopp wrapped his sump up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with a writhe face, though without any suspicion, read aloud as follows, my God Toby whistling, Lillia bulliero, as loud as he could all the time. As the genuineness of the consultation of the Sorbonne upon the question of baptism was doubted by some, and denied by others, does a thought proper to rent the original of this excommunication, for the copy of which Mr. Shandy returns thanks to the chapter clerk of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester. End of chapters 1 to 2. Chapter 3 of Tristram Shandy, volume 2. 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 Icy Jumbo. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentlemen. Volume 2 by Lawrence Stern. Chapter 3. Textus De Ecclesia Rhafenzi, per Ernulfum Episcopum. Ex Comunicatio. Ex Autoritate De Omnipotentis, Patris, Et Filii, Et Spiritus Sancti, Et Sanctorum Canonum, Sanctaicoe Et Entemeratae Weginis Dei Genetricis Mariae.  Ex Comunicamus, Anathematisamus, Humcfurem, Vel Humcmalifactorem Nomina, Et Aliminibus Sancti Dei Ecclesiai Sequestramus, Et Aiternis Sublicius Excruciandus, Manchipeto, Comdathan Et Abiram, Et Cumhis, Qu'idixerund Domino Deo, Racheide Anubis, Skientiam Viarum Tuarum Nollumus, Et Sicut Acua Ignis Extinguato, Lucena Eus In Secular Secularum Nisi Rescuerit, Et Azzatisfactiunem Wenerit. Amen. Maledicatilum Deus Pate, Qu'Hominum Creavit, Maledicatilum Dei Filius Qu'Prohomine Pasus Est. Maledicatilum Spiritus Sanctus Qu'In Baptismo Infusus Est. Maledicatilum Sanctacrux, Qu'Am Christus Pro Nostra Salute Hostem Triumphans Ascendit. Maledicatilum Sancta Dei Genetrix, Et Perpetua Huigo Maria. Maledicatilum Sanctus Micael, Animarum Susceptu Sacrarum. Maledicantilum Omnes Angeli, Et Alcengeli, Principatus Et Pottestates, Omnisque Militia Coilestis. Maledicatilum Patriarcharum Et Profitarum Laudibilis Numerus.  Qu'Atua Coqu'Evangelistae, Qu'Sua Pradicatione Mundum Universum Converterunt. Maledicatilum Cuneus Materum Et Confessorum Mirificus, Qu'Deo Bonis Operibus Placitus Inventus Est. Maledicantilum Sacrarum Huiginum Cori, Et Sanctus Pentecostus. Maledicantilum Sacrarum Huiginum Cori, Qu'Mundi Juana Causa Honoris Christi Respwenda Contempserunt. Maledicantilum Omnes Sancti Qu'Avinitio Mundi Usque In Finem Seculi Deo Dilecti Invenientor. Maledicantilum Coili Et Terra Et Omnia Sancta In Eis Manentia. Maledictus Cintubi Conque Fuarit, Siwe In Domo, Siwe In Agro, Siwe In Via, Siwe In Semita, Siwe In Silva, Siwe In Aqua, Siwe In Ecclesia. Maledictus Cid Vivendo, Moriendo, Manducando, Vivendo, Esurriendo, Citiendo, Yeiuando, Domitando, Domiendo, Vigilando, Ambilando, Stando, Sedendo, Yaquendo, Operando, Quiescendo, Mingendo, Kakando, Flebotomando. Maledictus Cid Intotis Viribus Corporis. Maledictus Cid Intus Et Exterios. Maledictus Cid In Capilis. Maledictus Cid In Carebro. Maledictus Cid In Verticae, In Temporibus, In Fronte, In Auriculis, In Superciliis, In Oculus, In Gaines, In Maxiles, In Naribus, In Dentibus, Modakibus. Maledictus Cid In Labris, Siwe, Molibus, In Labris, In Gutere, In Humeris, In Harnis, In Brachis, In Manubus, In Digitis, In Pectore, In Cordae, In Omnibus, In Terioribus, In Tomacotenos, In Renibus, In Inguinibus, In Femore, In Genitalibus, In Coxis, In Genubus, In Cruribus, In Pedibus, Et In Ingui. Maledictus Cid In Totis, Compagibus, Membrorum, In Verticae, Capitis, Usque, At Plantam, Pedis, Non Cid In Eos, Sanitas. Maledicatelum, Christus Filius, Dei, Wiwi, Toto, Sui, Majestatis Imperio, Et In Sorgat, Adversus, Ilum Coelum, Cum Omnibus, Wi Tutibus, Quae In Eum, Ovento, Ad Damnandum Eum, Nisi, Peniturit, Et Ad Satisfactionem, Wenerit. Amen. Fiat. Fiat. Amen. End of Chapter 3. Chapters 4 to 5 of Tristram Shandy, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shaleev Amaliyem. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen, Volume 2 by Lauren Stern. Chapter 4. By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and of the Holy Cannons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, I think there is no necessity, growth Dr. Slopp, dropping the paper down to his knee and addressing himself to my father, as you have read it over, sir, so lately, to read it aloud. And as Captain Shandy seems to have no great inclination to hear it, I may as well read it to myself. That's country to trade, he replied to my father. Besides, there is something so whimsical, especially in the lesser part of it, I should grieve to lose the pleasure of a second reading. Dr. Slopp did not altogether like it, but my Uncle Toby, offering at that instant to give over whistling and read it himself to them, Dr. Slopp thought he might as well read it under the cover of my Uncle Toby's whistling, as suffer my Uncle Toby to read it alone. So, raising up the paper to his face, and holding it quite parallel to it, in order to hide his chagrin, he read it aloud as follows, my Uncle Toby whistling Lillia Bullero, though not quite so loud as before. By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the Celestial Virges, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, jaribans and seraphans, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents who, in the sight of the holy lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints together with the holy and elect of God, may he, Obadiah, be damned for tying these knots. We actually communicate and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the Holy Church of God Almighty, we sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed and delivered over with Dacian and Eberam, and with those who say unto the Lord God, depart from us we design none of thy ways, and as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him, Obadiah, of the knots which he has tied, and make satisfaction for them. Amen. May the Father who created man curse him, may the Son who suffered for us curse him. May the Holy Ghost who was given to us in baptism curse him, Obadiah. May the Holy Cross which Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascendeth, curse him. May the Holy and eternal Virgin Mary, Mother of God, curse him. May St. Michael, the Advocate of Holy Souls, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies curse him. Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried Mankotobi, but nothing to this. For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so. May St. John the Precursor and St. John the Baptist and St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Andrew and all other Christ apostles together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, and made a holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors, who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. Obadiah made a holy choir of the holy virgins who, for the honor of Christ, have despised the things of the world, damn him. May all the saints who, from the beginning of the world, who everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him. May the heavens and earth and all the holy things remaining therein, damn him. Obadiah or her, or whoever else had a hand in tying these knots. May he, Obadiah, be damned wherever he be, whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying. Here, my ingotobi, taking the advantage of a minimum the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued note to the end of the sentence. Dr. Slopp, with his division of curses, is moving under him, like a running bass all the way. May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry and being thirsty, in fasting and sleeping and slumbering and walking, in standing and sitting and lying and working, in resting and pissing and shitting and in bloodletting. May he, Obadiah, be cursed in all the faculties of his body. May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly. May he be cursed in the hair of his head. May he be cursed in his brains and in his vertex. That is a sad curse, ghost, my father.  May he be damned in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and pertinence, down to the very stomach. May he be cursed in his reins and in his groin.  May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. May there be no soundness in him.  By the golden beard of Jupiter and of Juno, if her majesty wore one, and by the beards of the rest of your harem worships, which by the bio was no small number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods and gods aerial and aquatic, to say nothing of the beards of town gods and country gods, or of the celestial goddesses your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines, that is in case they wore them, all which beards, as Farid tells me, upon his word and honor, when mustered up together made no less than thirty thousand effective beards upon the page in establishment, every beard of which claimed the right and privileges of being stroked and sworn by, by all these beards together then, I vow and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as ever sit hammered off at his, to have stood by and heard my ungodtobes accompaniment. Curse him, continued Dr. Slopp, and may heaven with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him, O Badiah, unless you repent and make satisfaction, amen. So be it, so be it, amen. I declare, quotes my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness. He is a father of curses, replied Dr. Slopp.  I am sorry for it, quotes my uncle Toby. Dr. Slopp drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return, my uncle Toby, the compliment of his whew, or interjects and whistle, when the door hastily opening in the next chapter, but one, put an end to the affair. Chapter 5 Now, don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free within this land of liberty of ours are our own, and because we have the spirit to swear them. Imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too. I'll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur, though I declare I object only to a connoisseur's swearing, as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, et cetera, et cetera. The oaths set of them are so hung round and be fetished with the bobs and drinkers of criticism, or to drop my metaphor, which, by and by, is a pity, for I have fetched it as far as from the coast of Guinea.  And how did Garrick speak the sole liqueur last night? Oh, against all rule, my lord, most ungrammatically betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which you'd agree together in number case and gender, he made a breach thus, stopping as if the point wanted settling, and betwixt the nominative case, which your lord, if no, should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three-fifths, by stopwatch, my lord, each time. Admirable grammarian! But in suspending his voice was a sense suspended likewise, that no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm, was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look? I looked only at the stopwatch, my lord. Excellent observer! And what of this new book the whole world makes such a round about? Oh, this out-of-all-plamp, my lord, quite an irregular thing, not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my ruling compasses, etc., my lord, in my pocket. Excellent critic! And for the epic poem your lord should betwixt me look at, upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and drawing them at home upon an exact scale of bussues, does out my lord in every one of its dimensions. Admirable connoisseur! And did you sub-end to take a look at the grand picture in your way back? Does a melancholy dope, my lord, not one principle of the pyramid in any one group? And what a prize! For there is nothing of the colouring of Titian, the expression of Rubens, the grace of Raffles, the purity of Dominic Kino, the corrigicity of Correggio, the learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of Caracas, or the grand contour of Angelo. Grant me patience, just heaven, of all the cans which are canted in this canting world. Though the can of hypocrites may be the worst, the can of criticism is a most tormenting.  Be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore. Great Apollo, if thou art in a given humour, give me, I ask no more, but one stroke of native humour with a single spark of thy own fire along with it, and send Mercury with the rules and compasses, if he can be spared, with my compliments to no matter. Now, to anyone else, I will undertake to prove that all the oats and implications which we have been proving off upon the world these two hundred and fifty years last passed as originals, except St Paul's thumb, God's flesh and God's fish, which were oaths monarchical, and considering who made them, not much amiss, and as King's oaths, it is not much matter whether they were fish or flesh. As I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again enough as a thousand times, but like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original. It is thought to be no bad oath, and right of passes very well.  Said it besides enough as is.  You see, there's nothing. There is an orientality in his. We cannot rise up to. Besides, he is more copious in his invention, possessed more of the excellencies of a swearer, had such a thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, nittings of the joints, and articulations, that when a knelfer's cursed, no part escaped him. That's true, there is something of a hardness in his manner, and, as in Michelangelo, a want of craze. But then, there is such cradeness of gusto. My father, who generally looked upon everything in a light very different from all mankind, would after all never allow this to be an original. He considered rather enough as his anathema, as an institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of swearing in some milder pontificate, a knelfer's, by order of the succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence, collected together all the laws of it. For the same reason that Justinian, in the decline of the empire, had ordered his chancellor-harmonian to collect the Roman or civil laws altogether into one coat or digest. Lest, through the rest of time, and the fatality of all things committed to oral tradition, they should be lost to the world forever. For this reason, my father would often times affirm there was not an oath from the great and tremendous oath of William the Conqueror by the splendor of God, down to the lowest oath of his scavenger, damn your eyes, which was not to be found in an earlfus. In short, he would add, I defy a man to swear out of it. The hypothesis is, like most of my fathers, singular and ingenious too, nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.  And the child is where it was, continued Susanna, and the midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender and bruised her hip as black as your hat. I'll look at it, quas Dr. Slopp. There is no need of that, replied Susanna. You had better look at my mistress, but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you would go upstairs and speak to her this moment. Human nature is the same in all professions. The midwife had just before been put over Dr. Slopp's head. He had not digested it. No, replied Dr. Slopp, it would be full as proper and to me. I like subordination, quas my Uncle Toby, and but for it, after the reduction of Lyle, I know not what might have become of the garrison of Ghent in the mutiny for bread in the year ten. Nor, replied Dr. Slopp, parodying my Uncle Toby's hobby-horsical reflection, though fully as hobby-horsical himself, do I know, Caps and Shandy, what might have become of the garrison above stairs? In the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to the application of which, sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so apropos, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by the Shandy family as long as the Shandy family had a name. Chapter 7 Let us go back to the story. It is a singular stroke of eloquence. At least it was so when eloquence flourished in Athens and Rome, and would be so now, did orators wear mantles. Not to mention the name of a thing when you had the thing about you in petto, ready to produce, pop, in the place you wanted it. A scar and axe, a sword, a pinked doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot ashes in an urn, was three happening pickle pot, but above all a tender infant, royally occluded. Though if it was too young and the oration as long as Tully's second Philippic, it must certainly have beshit the orators mantle. And then again, if too old, it must have been unwieldy and incommodious to his action, so as to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it.  These feats, however, are not to be done except in those states and times, I say, where orators wore mantles and pretty large ones, too, my brethren, with some twenty or five and twenty yards of good purple, superfine, marketable cloth in them, with large flowing folds and doubles, and in a great style of design. All which plainly shows, made pleasier worships, the decay of eloquence and the little good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats and the disuse of trunk-hose. We can conceal nothing under ours, madam, worth showing.  It was as good as the best mantel in the world to him, for which purpose when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new invented forceps, he thrust his hand into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in. When your reverences took so much notice of the which had he managed, my Uncle Toby had certainly been overthrown the sentence and the argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin. Dr. Slopp would never have given them up and my Uncle Toby would as soon have thought of flying as taking them by force, but Dr. Slopp fumbled so violently and pulling them out. It took off the holy effect and what was a ten times worse evil for they seldom come alone in this life in pulling out his forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it. When a proposition can be taken in two senses, tis a law in disputation that the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases or finds most convenient for him. This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my Uncle Toby's side. Good God! cried my Uncle Toby, our children brought into the world with a squirt.  Tissue and fault, said Dr. Slopp, you should have clinched your two fists together into the form of a child's head as I told you and sat firm. I did so, answered my Uncle Toby. Then the points of my forceps have not been sufficiently armed or the rivet once closing or else the cut on my thumb has made me a little awkward or possibly, tis well, caused my father, interrupting the details of possibilities, that the experiment was not first made upon my child's headpiece. It would not have been a cherry stone the worse, answered Dr. Slopp. I maintain it, said my Uncle Toby, it would have broke the cerebellum unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado and turned it all into a perfect poset. Pshah! replied Dr. Slopp, a child's head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple. The sutures give way, and besides I could have extracted by the feet after. Not you, said she. I rather wish you would begin that way, crossed my father. Pray do! added my Uncle Toby. CHAPTER X And pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say it may not be the child's hip as well as the child's head? Tis most certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. Slopp, turning to my father, as positive as these old ladies generally are, tis a point very difficult to know, and yet of the greatest consequence to be known, because, sir, if the hip is mistaken for the head, there is a possibility, if it is a boy, that the forceps what the possibility was, Dr. Slopp whispered very low to my father, and then to my Uncle Toby. There is no such danger, continued he, with the head. No in truth, crossed my father, but when your possibility has taken place at the hip, you may as well take off the head too. It is morally impossible, the reader should understand this. Tis enough, Dr. Slopp understood it. So, taking the green bay's bag in his hand, with the help of Obadiah's pumps, he tripped pretty nimbly, for a man of his size, across the room to the door, and from the door was shown the way by the good old midwife to my mother's apartments. End of CHAPTERS 6 TO 10 CHAPTERS 11 TO 12 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 11 It is two hours and ten minutes, and no more," cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slopp and Obadiah arrived, and I know not how it happened, brother Toby, but to my imagination it seems almost an age. Here, pray, sir, take hold of my cap, nay, take the bell along with it, and my point to foot, too.  Though my father said, I knew not how it happened, yet he knew very well how it happened, and that the instant he spoke it was predetermined in his mind to give my Uncle Toby a clear account of the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of duration and its simple modes, in order to show my Uncle Toby by what mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid succession of their ideas and the eternal scumpering of the discourse from one thing to another, since Dr. Slopp had come into the room, had lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent. I know not how it happens, cried my father, but it seems an age, to his owing entirely, to the succession of our ideas. My father, who had an age in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon everything which happened, and accounting for it, too, proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this of the succession of ideas and had not the least apprehension of having it snatched out of his hands by my Uncle Toby, who, honest man, generally took everything as it happened, and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking, the ideas of time and space, or how we came by these ideas, or of what stuff they were made, or whether they were born with us, or we picked them up afterwards as we went along, or whether we did it in frocks, or not till we had gotten to britches, with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about infinity prescience, liberty, necessity, and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine heads have been turned and cracked. Never did my Uncle Toby's the least injury at all. My father knew it, and was no less surprised than he was disappointed with my Uncle's fortuitous solution. "'Do you understand the theory of that affair?' replied my father. "'Not I,' quashed my Uncle. "'But you have some ideas,' said my father, of what you talk about.' "'No more than my horse,' replied my Uncle Toby. "'Gracious heaven!' cried my father, looking upwards and clasping his two hands together. "'There is a worth in thy honest ignorance, Brother Toby. Twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge. "'But I'll tell thee. To understand what time is a right, without which we never can comprehend infinity, in so much as one is a portion of the other, we ought seriously to sit down and consider what ideas we have of duration, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it. "'What is that to anybody?' quashed my Uncle Toby. "'For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind,' continued my father, and observe attentively, you will perceive, Brother, that whilst you and I are talking together and thinking and smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist. And we do estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or anything else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds, to the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing coexisting with our thinking, and so according to that preconceived, you puzzle me to death,' cried my Uncle Toby. "'Tis owing to this,' replied my father, that in our computations of time we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months, and of clocks. I wish there were not a clock in the kingdom, to measure out the several portions to us, and to those who belong to us, that it will be well, if in time to come the succession of our ideas be of any use or service to us at all. Now whether we observe it or know,' continued my father, in every sound man's head, there was a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like, "'A train of artillery?' said my Uncle Toby. "'A train of a fiddle stick,' crossed my father, which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lance-horn turned round by the heat of a candle. "'I declare,' quoth my Uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoke-jack. "'Then, Brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon that subject,' said my father. Chapter 12. What a conjuncture was here lost! My father, in one of his best explanatory moons, in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about. My Uncle Toby, in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world, his head like a smoke-jack, the funnel unswept and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter. By the tombstone of Lucian, if it is in being, if not, why then, by his ashes, by the ashes of my dear Rabbley and dear Arservantes. My father and my Uncle Toby's discourse upon time and eternity was a discourse devoutly to be wished for, and the petulancy of my father's humour in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the ontologic treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again. End of chapters 11 and 12. Chapter 13 of Tristram Shandy, Volume 2 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, Gentleman, Volume 2 by Lawrence Stern. Chapter 13 Though my father persisted in not going on with the discourse, yet he could not get my Uncle Toby's smoke-jack out of his head, peaked as he was at first with it. There was something in the comparison, at the bottom, which hit his fancy. For which purpose, resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand, but looking first, steadfastly in the fire, he began to commune with himself, and philosophise about it. But his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the discourse, the idea of the smoke-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down, so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about. As for my Uncle Toby, his smoke-jack had not made a dozen revolutions before he fell asleep also. Peace be with them both. Dr. Slopp is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs. Trim is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars to be employed in the Siege of Messina next summer, and is this instant boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker. All my heroes are off my hands. Tis the first time I have had a moment to spare, and I'll make use of it, and write my preface. The author's preface. No, I'll not say a word about it. Here it is. In publishing it, I have appealed to the world, and to the world, I leave it. It must speak for itself. All I know of the matter is, when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book, and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out, a wise eye and a discreet, taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wet and the judgment, be it more or less, which the great author and bestower of them had thought fit originally to give me, so that, as your worships see, tis just as God pleases. Now, Agalastes, speaking disbrazingly, saith that there may be some wet in it for oughty noes, but no judgment at all, and Tryptolamus and Futitorius agreeing there too, ask, how is it possible there should, for that wet and judgment in this world never go together, inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other, as wide as east from west? So says Locke. So are farting and hiccuping, saith I, but in answer to this, Didius, the great church lawyer, in his code, day far tende et illustrande falaki, doth maintain and make fully appear, that an illustration is no argument. Nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean, to be a syllogism, but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it, so that the main good these things do, is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in order to free it from any little moats or specks of our parculamatter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil all.  Monopolis, my politician, Didius, my council, Kisaacius, my friend, Futitorius, my guide, Gastriferes, the preserver of my life, Somnolentius, the balm and repose of it, not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no resentment to you, I lump all together, believe me, right worthy. My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in case the thing is not done already for us, is that the great gifts and endowments, both of wit and judgment, with everything which usually goes along with them, such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, quick parts, and whatnot, may this precious moment, without stint or measure, let or hindrance, be poured down, warm as each of us could bear it, scum and sediment and all, for I would not have a drop lost, into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refractories, and spare places of our brains, in such sort that they might continue to be injected and tuned into, according to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great and small, be so replenished, saturated, and filled up therewith, that no more would it save a man's life, could possibly be got either in or out. Bless us, what noble work we should make, how should I tickle it off, and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for such readers, and you, just heaven, with what raptures would you sit and read, but oh, it is too much, I am sick, I faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it, it is more than nature can bear, lay hold of me, I am giddy, I am stone blind, I am dying, I am gone, help, help, help, but hold, I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits, we should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an end, there would be so much satire and sarcasm, scoffing and flouting, with railing and reparteeing of it, thrusting and parrying in one corner or another, there would be nothing but mischief amongst us, chaste stars, what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should make, what with breaking of heads, wrapping of knuckles and hitting of sore places, there would be no such thing as living for us. But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong, and though we should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or devileses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, build courtesy and kindness, milk and honey, to be a second land of promise, and a paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had, so that upon the whole we should have done well enough. All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at present, is how to bring the point itself to bear, for, as your worships well know, that of these heavenly emanations of wit and judgment, which I have so bountifully wished, both for your worships and myself, there is but a certain quantum stored up for us all, for the use and behoof of the whole race of mankind, and such small modicums of them are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in one by-corner or another, and in such narrow streams, and at such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so many great states and populous empires. Indeed, there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, nor Flatland, and in all those cold and dreary tracks of the globe, which lie more directly under the arctic and Antarctic circles, where the whole province of a man's concernments lies for near nine months together within the narrow compass of his cave, where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing, and where the passions of a man, with everything which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself, there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business, and of wit there is a total and an absolute saving, for as not one spark is wanted, so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers of grace defend us, what a dismal thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us. For mercy's sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we can southwards, into Norway, crossing over into swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angomania, to the lake of Bothnia, coasting along it through eastern west Bothnia, down to Karelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces, which border upon the far side of the gulf of Finland, and the northeast of the Baltic, up to Petersburg, and just stepping into Ingria, then stretching over directly from thence through the north parts of the Russian Empire, leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we got into the very heart of Russian and Asiatic Tartary. Now, through this long tour, which I have led you, you observe the good people are better off by far than in the polar countries which we have just left, for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings, as it were, of wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain household judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with, and had they more of either the one or the other, it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied, moreover, they would want occasions to put them to use. Now, sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring tide of our blood and humours runs high, where we have more ambition and pride and envy and lechery and other whoresun passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason, the height of our wit and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our necessities, and accordingly we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and creditable plenty, that no one thinks he has any cause to complain. It must, however, be confessed on this head, that as our air blows hot and cold, wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way, so that sometimes, for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of amongst us. The small channels of them shall seem quite dried up, then, all of a sudden, the sluices shall break out and take a fit of running again like fury, you would think they would never stop, and then it is that in writing and fighting and twenty other gallant things we drive all the world before us. It is by these observations and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectic induction, that I draw and set up this position as most true and veritable. That of these two luminaries, so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us, as he whose infinite wisdom, which dispenses everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity, so that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, that the fervent wish in your behalf, with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating haudier of a caressing professor stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress into silence. For alas, could this effusion of light have been as easily procured as the Exordium wished it, I tremble to think how many thousands, for it, of benighted travellers in the learned sciences at least, must have groped and blundered on in the dark all the nights of their lives, running their heads against posts and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journey's end, some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks, others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs. Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way. What confusion, what mistakes fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears, admirable, trusting to the passions excited in an air sung or a story painted to the heart instead of measuring them by a quadrant. In the foreground of the picture a statesman turning the political wheel like a brute the wrong way round against the stream of corruption by heaven instead of with it. In this corner a son of the divine Ischulapius writing a book against predestination, perhaps worse feeling his patience pulsed instead of his apothecaries. A brother of the faculty in the background upon his knees in tears, drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness, offering a fee instead of taking one. In that spacious hall a coalition of the gown from all the bars of it, driving a damned dirty vexatious cause before them with all their might and main, the wrong way, kicking it out of the great doors instead of in, and with such fury in their looks and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind. Perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still, a litigated point fairly hung up, for instance whether John Anoxi's nose could stand in Thomas Starr's face without a trespass or not, rashly determined by them in five and twenty minutes, which, with the cautious prose and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months. And if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an action should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein, such as faints, forced marches, surprises, ambuscades, mask batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides, might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a kentum rewrite of the profession. As for the clergy, no, if I say a word against them I'll be shot, I have no desire, and besides if I had, I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject, with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, to be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account, and therefore it is safer to draw a curtain across and hasten from it, as fast as I can to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up, and that is how it comes to pass that men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgement, but mark I say reported to be, for it is no more my dear sirs than a report, and which like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain. This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already weighed and prepended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith make appear. I hate set dissertations, and above all things in the world tis one of the silliest things in one of them to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall opaque words, one before another, in a right line betwixt your own and your reader's conception, when in all likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something standing or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at once. For what hindrance, hurt or harm, doth the laudable desire of knowledge bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, a winter mitten, a truckle for a pulley, the lid of a goldsmith's crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair. I am this moment sitting upon one. Would you give me leave to illustrate this affair of wit and judgment by the two knobs on the top of the back of it? They are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into two gimlet holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a light as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole preface, as plainly as if every point and particle of it was made of sunbeams. I enter now directly upon the point. Here stands wit, and there stands judgment close beside it, just like the two knobs I'm speaking of upon the back of this self-same chair on which I am sitting. You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its frame, as wit and judgment are of ours, and like them too, indubitably, both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say, in all such cases of duplicated embellishments, to answer one another. Now, for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this matter, let us for a moment take off one of these two curious ornaments. I cannot which, from the point or pinnacle of the chair, it now stands on. Nay, don't laugh at it. But did you ever see, in the whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made of it? Why, tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear, and there is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the other. Do, pray, get off your seats, only to take a view of it.  Nay, lay your hands upon your hearts and answer this plain question, whether this one single knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the other, and let me father ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it would be ten times better without any knob at all. Now, these two knobs, or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown the whole entablature, being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all others, as I have proved it, are the most needful, the most prized, the most calamitous to be without, and consequently, the hardest to come at. For all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding, or so ignorant of what will do him good therein, who does not wish and steadfastly resolve, in his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of the one or the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems anyway feasible, or likely to be brought to pass. Now, your graver gentry have little or no kind of chance in aiming at the one, unless they laid hold of the other. Pray, what do you think would become of them? Why, sirs, in spite of all their gravities, they must in have been contented to have gone with their insides naked. This was not to be born, but by an effort of philosophy, not to be supposed in the case we are upon, so that no one could well have been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they could have snatched up, and secreted under their cloaks and great periwigs, had they not raised a hue and cry at the same time against the lawful owners. I need not tell your worships that this was done with so much cunning and artifice, that the great lock, who was seldom outwitted by false sounds, was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep and solemner one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces, and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one against the poor wits in this matter, that the philosopher himself was deceived by it. It was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a thousand vulgar eras, but this was not of the number, so that instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done, to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it, on the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the cry, and hallowed it as boisterously as the rest.  It has been obtained in such a manner that the title to it is not worth a groat, which, by the by, is one of the many and violent positions which gravity and grave folks have to answer for hereafter. As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind too freely, I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said to their dispraise or prejudice by one general declaration. That I have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abdure either great wigs or long beards, any further than when I see they are bespoke and let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture. For any purpose, peace be with them, mark only, I write not for them. End of Chapter 13. Chapters 14, 15 and 16 of Tristram Shandy Volume 2. 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, Gentleman Volume 2 by Lawrence Stern Chapter 14. Every day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have it mended. It is not mended yet. No family but ours would have borne with it an hour. And what is most astonishing? There was not a subject in the world upon which my father was so eloquent as upon that of door hinges. And yet, at the same time, he was certainly one of the greatest bubbles to them I think that history can produce. His rhetoric and conduct were at perpetual handicuffs. Never did the parlour door open, but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to it. Three drops of oil with a feather and a smart stroke of a hammer had saved his honour forever. Inconsistent soul that man is, languishing under wounds which he has the power to heal, his whole life a contradiction to his knowledge. His reason, that precious gift of God to him instead of pouring in oil, serving but to sharpen his sensibilities to multiply his pains and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them. Poor unhappy creature that he should do so, are not the necessary causes of misery in this life in our, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock of sorrow, struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit to others which a tenth part of the trouble they create him would remove from his heart forever. By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be got and a hammer to be found within ten miles of Shandy Hall, the parlour door hinge shall be mended this rain. Chapter 15 When Corporal Trim had brought his two mortars to bear, he was delighted with his handiwork above measure, and knowing what a pleasure it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to resist the desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour. Now, next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of hinges, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is this. Had the parlour door opened and turned upon its hinges as the door should do, or, for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its hinges, that is, in case things have all along gone well with your worship, otherwise I give up my simile. In this case I say there had been no danger either to master or man in Corporal Trim's peeping in. The moment he had beheld my father and my uncle Toby fast asleep, the respectfulness of his carriage was such he would have retired as silent as death, and left them both in their armchairs, dreaming as happy as he had found them. But the thing was, morally speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances my father submitted to upon its account, this was one, that he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the door was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepped in, betwixt him, and the first barmy presage of his repose as to rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets of it. When things move upon bad hinges, and please your Lordships, how can it be otherwise? Pray, what's the matter, who is there? grove my father, waking, the moment the door began to creak. I wish the Smith would give a peep at that confounded hinge. "'Tis nothing, and please your honour,' said Trim, but two mortars I'm bringing in. They shalt make a clatter with them here,' grove my father hastily. If Dr Slopp has any drugs to pound, let him do it in the kitchen.  "'By heaven,' grove my father, springing out of his chair, as he swore. I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so much store by, as I do by these jack boots. They were our great-grandfather's brother Toby. They were hereditary. Then I fear,' quoth my uncle Toby, Trim has cut off the entail. "'I've only cut off the tops, and please your honour,' grove Trim. "'I hate perpetuities as much as any man alive,' cried my father, but these jack boots,' continued he, smiling, though very angry at the same time, "'have been in the family, brother, ever since the Civil Wars, so Roger Shandy wore them at the Battle of Marston Moor. I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for them. "'I'll pay you the money, brother Shandy,' quoth my uncle Toby, looking at the two mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breech's pocket as he viewed them.  "'Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides my half-pay?' cried my uncle Toby. "'What is that?' replied my father hastily, "'to ten pounds for a pair of jack boots. "'Twelve guineas for your pontoons, half as much for your Dutch drawbridge.  "'You mean well, brother, but they carry you into greater expenses than you were first aware of. "'And take my word, dear Toby, "'they will in the end quite ruin your fortune and make a beggar of you.' "'What signifies it if they do, brother?' replied my uncle Toby, "'so long as we know, tis for the good of the nation.' "'My father could not help smiling for his soul, "'his anger at the worst was never more than a spark. "'And the zeal and simplicity of trim and the generous, though hobby-horsicle gallantry of my uncle Toby, "'brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant. "'Generous souls, God prosper you both, "'and your mortar-pieces too,' quoth my father to himself.' "'End of Chapter 15, Chapter 16.' "'All is quiet and hush,' cried my father, "'at least above stairs. "'I hear not one foot stirring. "'Pretty trim, who's in the kitchen?' "'There is no soul in the kitchen,' answered trim, "'making a low bow,' as he spoke, "'except Dr. Slopp.' "'Confusion,' cried my father, "'getting upon his legs a second time. "'Not one single thing has gone right this day. "'Had I faith in astrology, brother?' "'Which, by the by, my father had, "'I would have sworn some retrograde planet "'was hanging over this unfortunate house of mine "'and turning every individual thing in it out of its place. "'Why, I thought Dr. Slopp had been above stairs "'with my wife, and so said you. "'What can the fellow be puzzling about in the kitchen?' "'He's busy, and please your honour,' replied trim, "'in making a bridge.' "'It is very obliging in him,' quoth my uncle Toby. "'Pray, give my humble service to Dr. Slopp, "'trim, and tell him I thank him heartily.' "'You must know my uncle Toby mistook the bridge, "'as widely as my father mistook the mortars. "'But to understand how my uncle Toby could mistake the bridge, "'I fear I must give you an exact account "'of the road which led to it, or to drop my metaphor, "'for there is nothing more dishonest "'in an historian than the use of one. "'In order to conceive the probability of this error "'in my uncle Toby a right, "'I must give you some account of an adventure of trims, "'though much against my will, I say, much against my will, "'only because the story, in one sense, "'is certainly out of its place here, "'for, by right it should come in, "'either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle Toby's amours "'with the widow-wardman, "'in which Corporal Trim was no mean actor, "'or else in the middle of his and my uncle Toby's campaigns "'on the bowling-green, "'for it will do very well in either place. "'But then, if I reserve it for either of those parts "'of my story, I ruin the story I'm upon. "'And if I tell it here, I anticipate matters "'and ruin it there. "'What would your worship have me do in this case? "'Tell it, Mr. Shandy, by all means. "'You're a fool, Tristram, if you do. "'Oh, ye powers, for powers ye are, and great ones, too, "'which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing "'that kindly show him where he is to begin it "'and where he is to end it, "'what he is to put into it, "'and what he is to leave out, "'how much of it he is to cast into a shade, "'and whereabouts he is to throw his light. "'Ye who preside over this vast empire "'of biographical freebooters, "'and see how many scrapes and plunges "'your subjects hourly fall into, will you do one thing? "'I beg and beseech you, "'in case you will do nothing better for us, "'that wherever in any part of your dominions "'it so falls out that three several roads "'meet in one point, as they have done just here, "'that at least you set up a guidepost in the centre of them, "'in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil, "'which of the three he is to take?' Chapter 17 of Tristram Shandy, Volume 2 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen, Volume 2 by Lawrence Stern Chapter 17 Though the shock my uncle Toby received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in his affair with widow Woodman, had fixed him in a resolution never more to think of the sex, or of ought which belonged to it, yet Corporal Trim had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed, in my uncle Toby's case, there was a strange and unaccountable concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him to lay siege to that fair and strong citadel. In Trim's case, there was a concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and Bridget in the kitchen. Though in truth the love and veneration he bore his master was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did. That had my uncle Toby employed his time and genius in tagging of points, I am persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms and followed his example with pleasure. When, therefore, my uncle Toby sat down before the mistress, Corporal Trim incontinently took the ground before the maid. Now, my dear friend Garrick, whom I have so much cause to esteem and honour, why, or wherefore, it is no matter, can it escape your penetration, I defy it, that so many playwrights and orpifices of chitchat have ever since been working upon Trim's and my uncle Toby's pattern. I care not what Aristotle or Pachuvius or Bosu or Riccaboni say, though I never read one of them. There is not a greater difference between a single horse chair and Madame Pompadour's vis-a-vis than betwixt a single amour, and an amour, thus nobly doubled and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand drama. Sir, a simple single silly affair of that kind is quite lost in five acts, but that is neither here nor there. After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my uncle Toby's quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle Toby, honest man, found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly. Corporal Trim, as I said, had made no such bargain, either with himself or with anyone else. The fidelity, however, of his heart, not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgust. He contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a blockade, that is, he kept others off. For though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink or smile or look kindly at her, or, as circumstances directed, he would shake her by the hand or ask her lovingly how she did, or would give her a ribbon, and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a... Precisely in this situation did these things stand for five years, that is, from the demolition of Dunkirk in the year 13 to the latter end of my Uncle Toby's campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I'm speaking of. When Trim, as his custom was, after he had put my Uncle Toby to bed, going down one moon-shiny night, to see that everything was right at his fortifications, in the lane, separated from the bowling green with flowering shrubs and holly, he aspired his Bridget. As the corporal thought, there was nothing in the world so well worth showing as the glorious works, which he and my Uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand and led her in. This was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouthed trumpet of fame carried it from ear to ear, to that length it reached my father's, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my Uncle Toby's curious drawbridge constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch, was broke down and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night. My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my Uncle Toby's hobby horse. He thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentlemen mounted, and indeed, unless my Uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never think of it once without smiling at it, so that it could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father's imagination beyond measure. But this being an accident much more to his humour than any one which had yet befallen it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him. Well, but dear Toby, my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened. How can you tease me so much about it? My Uncle Toby would reply, I have told you it was twenty times word for word as Trim told me. Pretty, how was it that then, Corporal? My father would cry, turning to Trim. It was a mere misfortune, and please your honour. I was showing Mrs Bridget our fortifications, and in going too near the edge of the Foss, I unfortunately slipped in. Very well, Trim, my father would cry, smiling mysteriously, giving a nod, but without interrupting him. And being linked fast, and please your honour, arm in arm with Mrs Bridget, I dragged her after me, by means of which she fell backwards, sauce against the bridge. And Trim's foot, my Uncle Toby would cry, taking the story out of his mouth, getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too. It was a thousand to one, my Uncle Toby would add, that the poor fellow did not break his leg. I truly, my father would say, a limb is soon broke, Brother Toby, in such encounters. And so, and please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces. At other times, but especially when my Uncle Toby was so unfortunate, as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs or pitards, my father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence, which indeed were very great, in a panagyric upon the battering rams of the ancients, the veneer which Alexander made use of at the Siege of Troy. He would tell my Uncle Toby of the catapulte of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundation. He would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the balista, which Marcelinas makes so much rout about. The terrible effects of the pirabuli, which cast fire, the danger of the terebra and scorpio, which cast javelins. But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal trim? Believe me, Brother Toby, no bridge or bastion or saliport, that was ever constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery. My Uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoking his pipe, in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little physical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing.  The affectionate and endearing manner, in which my Uncle Toby did these little offices, cut my father through his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him. May my brains be knocked out with a battering ram or catapulta, I care not which quoth my father to himself, if ever I insult this worthy soul more. CHAPTER XVIII The drawbridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about another, but not upon the same model. For cardinal Albaroni's intrigues at that time being discovered, and my Uncle Toby rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out betwixt Spain and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing campaign must in all likelihood be either in Naples or Sicily, he determined upon an Italian bridge. My Uncle Toby by the by was not far out of his conjectures. But my father, who was infinitely the better politician, and took the lead as far of my Uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my Uncle Toby took it of him in the field, convinced him that if the king of Spain and the emperor went together by the ears, England and France and Holland must, by force of their pre-engagement, all enter the lists too. And if so, he would say, the combatants, Brother Toby, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it again, pal-mal, upon the old prize-fighting stage of Flanders. Then what will you do with your Italian bridge? We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my Uncle Toby. When Corporal Trim had about half finished it in that style, my Uncle Toby found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the Foss, and the other to the other, the advantage of which was this, that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it empowered my Uncle Toby to raise it up or let it down, with the end of his crutch and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as much as he could well spare. But the disadvantages of such a construction were insurmountable, for by this means, he would say, I leave one half of my bridge in my enemy's possession, and pray of what use is the other. The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only at one end with hinges, so that the hole might be lifted up together and stand bolt upright, but that was rejected for the reason given above. For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that particular construction, which is made to draw back horizontally to hinder a passage, and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage, of which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its destruction, and one now at Brizak, if I mistake not, but my father advising my Uncle Toby with great earnestness to have nothing more to do with thrusting bridges, and my Uncle foreseeing moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the corporal's misfortune. He changed his mind for that of the Marquis d'Opital's invention, which the younger Bernoulli has so well and learnedly described, as your worships may see, Acta eruditorium, Leipzig, Anno, 1695. To these a led weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of sentinels, in as much as the construction of them was a curved line approximating to a cycloid if not a cycloid itself. My Uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man in England, but was not quite such a master of the cycloid. He talked, however, about it every day. The bridge went not forwards. We'll ask somebody about it, cried my Uncle Toby to Trim. CHAPTER XIX When Trim came in and told my father that Dr. Slopp was in the kitchen and busy in making a bridge, my Uncle Toby, the affair of the jackboots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his brain, took it instantly for granted that Dr. Slopp was making a model of the Marquis d'Opital's bridge. Tis very obliging in him, quote my Uncle Toby, pray give my humble service to Dr. Slopp, Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily. Had my Uncle Toby's head been a savoyard's box, and my father peeping in all the time at one end of it, it could not have given him a more distinct conception of the operations of my Uncle Toby's imagination than what he had. So notwithstanding the catapulta and battering-ram and his bitter implication about them, he was just beginning to triumph when Trim's answer in an instant tore the laurel from his brows and twisted it to pieces.  Lead me, Brother Toby, cried my father, to my room this instant. From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my father, a tide of little evils and distresses has been setting in against him. Not one thing, as he observed himself, has gone right, and now is the storm thickened and going to break and pour down full upon his head. I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with. My nerves relax as I tell it, every line I write I feel an abatement of the quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, which every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things I should not. And this moment that I last dipped my pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and solemnity there appeared in my manner of doing it. Lord, how different from the rash jerks and hair-brain squirts thou art won't Tristram to transact it with in other humours, dropping thy pen, spurting thy ink about thy table and thy books, as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and furniture cost thee nothing? I won't go about to argue the point with you, to so, and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, that both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, and, for ought I know, pleasure too, best in a horizontal position. The moment my father got up into his chamber he threw himself prostrate across his bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the same time in the most lamentable attitude of a man born down with sorrows that ever the eye of pity dropped a tear for. The palm of his right hand as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead and covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head, his elbow giving way backwards, till his nose touched the quilt. His left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot which peeped out beyond the valance. His right leg, his left being drawn up towards his body, hung over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon his shin bone, he felt it not. A fixed, inflexible sorrow took possession of every line of his face. He sighed once, heaved his breast often, but uttered not a word. An old set-stitched chair, balanced and fringed about with party-coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed's head opposite to the side where my father's head reclined. My Uncle Toby sat him down in it. Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever comes too soon, and after it is digested it comes too late. So that you see, madam, there is but a mark between these two as fine almost as a hair for a comforter to take aim at. My Uncle Toby was always either on this side or on that of it, and would often say he believed in his heart he could has soon hit the longitude. For this reason, when he sat down in the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear at every one's service, he pulled out a camber cankerchief, gave a low sigh, but held his peace. CHAPTER XXIII All is not gain that has got into the purse. So that, notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books in the universe, and had moreover in himself the oddest way of thinking that ever a man in it was blessed with, yet it had this drawback upon him, after all, that had laid him open to some of the oddest and most whimsical distresses, of which this particular one, which he sunk under at present, is as strong an example as can be given. No doubt the breaking down of the bridge of a child's nose by the edge of a pair of forceps, however scientifically applied, would vex any man in the world who was at so much pains in begetting a child as my father was. Yet it will not account for the extravagance of his affliction, nor will it justify the un-Christian manner he abandoned and surrendered himself up to. To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour, and my uncle Toby in his old fringed chair sitting beside him. I think it a very unreasonable demand, cried my great grandfather twisting up the paper and throwing it upon the table. By this account, madam, you have but two thousand pounds fortune and not a shilling more, and you insist upon having three hundred pounds a year jointure for it. Because, replied my great grandmother, you have little or no nose, sir. Now, before I venture to make use of the word nose a second time, to avoid all confusion in what will be said upon it in this interesting part of my story, it may not be a miss to explain my own meaning and define with all possible exactness and precision what I would willingly be understood to mean by the term. Being of opinion that is owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising this precaution and to nothing else, that all the polemical writings in divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon a will of the wisp or any other sound part of philosophy and natural pursuit. In order to which what have you to do before you set out unless you intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment, but to give the world a good definition and stand to it of the main word you have most occasion for. Changing it, sir, as you would a guinea into small coin, which done, let the father of confusion puzzle you if he can, or put a different idea either into your head or your reader's head if he knows how. In books of strict morality and close reasoning such as I am engaged in, the neglect is inexcusable, and heaven is witness how the world has revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings to equivocal structures, and for depending so much as I have done all along upon the cleanliness of my reader's imaginations. Here are two senses, cried Eugenius as we walked along, pointing with the forefinger of his right hand to the word crevice in the one hundred and seventy-eighth page of the first volume of this book of books. Here are two senses, quote he. And here are two roads, replied I, turning short upon him, a dirty and a clean one which shall we take. The clean by all means replied Eugenius. Eugenius said I, stepping before him and laying my hand upon his breast, to define is to distrust.  Piss my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one. Therefore I define a nose, as follows, in treating only beforehand and beseeching my readers both male and female of what age, complexion, and condition so ever, for the love of God and their own souls to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or while to put any other ideas into their minds than what I put into my definition.  CHAPTER XXV BECAUSE, quote my great grandmother, repeating the words again, you have little or no nose, sir. Steath! cried my great grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose. Tis not so small as that, comes to. Tis a full inch longer than my father's. Now my great grandfather's nose was for all the world like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children whom Pantagruel found dwelling upon the island of Anacin. By the way, if you would know the strange way of getting a kin amongst so flat nose to people, you must read the book, find it out yourself, you never can.  Tis a full inch longer, madam, than my father's. You must mean your uncle's, replied my great grandmother. My great grandfather was convinced. He untwisted the paper and signed the article. CHAPTER XXVI What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours, quote my grandmother to my grandfather. My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark than there is upon the back of my hand. Now you must know that my great grandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years, so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds half-yearly on Michaelmas and Lady Day, during all that time. No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father, and, as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous souls and generous souls only, are able to fling down money. But, as soon as ever he entered upon the odd fifty, he generally gave a loud hymn, rubbed the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of his forefinger, inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the call of his wig, looked at both sides of every guinea as he parted with it, and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds without pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his temples. Defend me, gracious heaven, from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us. Never, oh, never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine and feel pity for the force of education and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors. For three generations at least, this tenet in favor of long noses, had gradually been taking root in our family. Tradition was all along on its side and interest was every half year stepping in to strengthen it. So that the whimsicality of my father's brain was far from having the whole honor of this, as it had of almost all his other strange notions. For in a great measure he might be said to have sucked this in with his mother's milk. He did his part, however, if education planted the mistake, in case it was one, my father watered it and ripened it to perfection. He would often declare in speaking his thoughts upon the subject that he did not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand it out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses, and, for the contrary reason, he would generally add that it must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line, did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom. He would often boast that the Shandy family ranked very high in King Harry VIII's time, but owed its rise to no state engine, he would say, but to that only. But that, like other families, he would add, it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never recovered the blow of my great grandfather's nose. It was an ace of clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head, and as vial a one for an unfortunate family as ever turned up trumps. Fair and softly, gentle reader, where is thy fancy carrying thee? If there is truth in man by my great grandfather's nose, I mean the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands prominent in his face, and which painters say in good jolly noses and well-proportioned faces should comprehend a full third, that is, measured downwards from the setting on of the hare. What a life of it has an author at this pass. CHAPTER 27 It is a singular blessing that nature has formed the mind of men with the same happy backwardness and renaissance against conviction which is observed in old dogs of not learning new tricks. What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever existed be whisked into at once. Did he read such books and observe such facts and think such thoughts as would eternally be making him change sides?  He picked up an opinion, sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple. It becomes his own, and if he is a man of spirit he would lose his life rather than give it up. I am aware that Didius, the great civilian, will contest this point and cry out against me, whence comes this man's right to this apple, ex confesso, he will say, things were in a state of nature. The apple is as much Frank's apple as John's. Pray, Mr. Shandy, what patent has he to show for it? And how did it begin to be his? Was it when he set his heart upon it, or when he gathered it, or when he chewed it, or when he roasted it, or when he peeled, or when he brought it home, or when he digested, or when he— Fort his plain, sir, if the first picking up of the apple made it not his, that no subsequent act could. Brother Didius, Trebonius will answer. Now, Trebonius, the civilian and church lawyer's beard, being three inches and a half and three-eighths longer than Didius his beard, I'm glad he takes up the cudgels for me, so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer. Brother Didius, Trebonius will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it in the fragments of Gregorius and Hermogenes's codes, and in all the codes from Justinians down to the codes of Louis and Dezot, that the sweat of a man's brows and the exudations of a man's brains are as much a man's own property as the breeches upon his backside, which said exudations, etc., being dropped upon the said apple by the labour of finding it and picking it up, and being more over in desolubly wasted and as in desolubly annexed, by the picker up to the thing picked up, carried home, roasted, peeled, eaten, digested, and so on, tis evident that the gatherer of the apple in so doing has mixed up something which was his own, with the apple which was not his own, by which means he has acquired a property, or in other words, the apple is John's apple. By the same learned chain of reasoning, my father stood up for all his opinions. He had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they lay out of the common way the better still was his title. No mortal claimed them. They had cost him, moreover, as much labour in cooking and digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truly be said to be of his own goods and chattels. Accordingly he held fast by him, both by teeth and claws, would fly to whatever he could lay his hands on, and in a word would entrench and fortify them round with as many circumvalations and breastworks as my Uncle Toby would a citadel. There was one plaguey rub in the way of this, the scarcity of materials to make anything of a defence with, in case of a smart attack, in as much as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books upon the subject of great noses. By the trotting of my lean horse the thing is incredible, and I am quite lost in my understanding when I am considering what a treasure of precious time and talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects, and how many millions of books in all languages and in all possible types and bindings have been fabricated upon points not half so much tending to the unity and peacemaking of the world. What was to be had, however, he set the greater store by, and though my father would often sport with my Uncle Toby's library, which by the by was ridiculous enough, yet at the very same time he did it he collected every book and treatise which had been systematically wrote upon noses, with as much care as my honest Uncle Toby had done those upon military architecture. Tis true, a much less table would have held them, but that was not thy transgression, my dear Uncle. Here, but why here, rather than in any other part of my story I am not able to tell, but here it is, my heart stops me to pay to thee, my dear Uncle Toby, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness. Here let me thrust my chair aside and kneel upon the ground, whilst I am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and nature kindled in a nephew's bosom. Peace and comfort rest for evermore upon thy head.  Gently, with faithful trim behind thee, didst thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy way, for each one's sorrows thou hadst to tear, for each man's need thou hadst to shelling. Whilst I am worth one to pay a weeder, thy path from thy door to thy bowling-green shall never be grown up. Whilst there is a rude and a half of land in the shandy family, thy fortifications, my dear Uncle Toby, shall never be demolished.