The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne (short novels to read .txt) 📖

them something else to do⁠—and so had my uncle Toby⁠—till Fate⁠—till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus’s and the rest,⁠—she basely patched up the peace of Utrecht.

⸺⁠Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she did that year.

XXXI

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary’s heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby’s. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,⁠—or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great motive-monger, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,⁠—for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself⁠—would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which showed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his hobbyhorse.⁠⸺⁠Never mind, brother Toby, he would say,⁠—by God’s blessing we shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does,⁠—the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.⁠⸺⁠I defy ’em, my dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns,⁠⸺⁠or towns without sieges.

My uncle Toby never took this backstroke of my father’s at his hobbyhorse kindly.⁠⸺⁠He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:⁠⸺⁠I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.⁠—He was not eloquent,⁠—it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,⁠—and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus⁠⸺⁠but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby’s, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father’s papers, with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus [    ], and is endorsed,

My Brother Toby’s Justification of His Own Principles and Conduct in Wishing to Continue the War

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle Toby’s a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence,⁠—and shows so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.

XXXII My Uncle Toby’s Apologetical Oration

I am not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,⁠—it has an ill aspect to the world;⁠⸺⁠and that, how just and right soever his motives and intentions may be,⁠—he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in doing it.

For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe him.⁠⸺⁠He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,⁠—lest he may suffer in his esteem:⁠⸺⁠But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I hope, I have been in all these, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say:⁠⸺⁠much worse, I know, have I been than I ought,⁠—and something worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the same breasts with me,⁠—and with whom I have been brought up from my cradle,⁠—and from whose knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it⁠⸺⁠Such as I am, brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my understanding.

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht, and grieved the war was not carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain,⁠—more slaves made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own pleasure:⁠⸺⁠Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it? [The devil a deed do I know of, dear Toby, but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed sieges.]

If, when I was a schoolboy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart beat with it⁠—was it my fault? Did I plant the propensity there?⁠⸺⁠Did I sound the alarm within, or Nature?

When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and Parismenus, and Valentine