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

least a master⁠⸺⁠When he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way.

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby’s, as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco⁠⸺⁠he had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe.

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under⁠⸺⁠but the French every one of ’em to a man, who believe in it, almost, as much as the real presence, “That talking of love, is making it.”

⸻I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt.

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she did it⁠⸺⁠she took up the gauntlet⁠⸺⁠or the discourse (if you like it better) and communed with my uncle Toby, thus:

The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great. I suppose so⁠—said my uncle Toby: and therefore when a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you are⁠—so happy, captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends and your amusements⁠—I wonder, what reasons can incline you to the state⁠⸻

⸺⁠They are written, quoth my uncle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book.

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulf as she pleased.

⸺⁠As for children⁠—said Mrs. Wadman⁠—though a principal end perhaps of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent⁠—yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heartaches⁠—what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother who brings them into life? I declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God⁠⸺⁠

A fiddlestick! quoth she.

Chapter the Nineteenth

Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents with which the word fiddlestick may be pronounced in all such causes as this, every one of ’em impressing a sense and meaning as different from the other, as dirt from cleanliness⁠—That Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong.

Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby’s modest blood into his cheeks⁠—so feeling within himself that he had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopped short; and without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they were, and share them along with her.

When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again; so casting his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of all others the most interesting to him⁠—which was the siege of Jericho⁠—he set himself to read it over⁠—leaving his proposal of marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug which nature had bestowed upon the world⁠—in short, it work’d not at all in her; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there before⁠⸺⁠Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen times; but there is fire still in the subject⁠⸺⁠allons.

XXVI

It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh, to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to York; which is about the half way⁠⸺⁠nor does anybody wonder, if he goes on and asks about the corporation, etc.⁠—

It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in the one case than in the other.

She had accordingly read Drake’s anatomy from one end to the other. She had peeped into Wharton upon the brain, and borrowed39 Graaf upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it.

She had reason’d likewise from her own powers⁠⸺⁠laid down theorems⁠⸺⁠drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion.

To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop, “if poor captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his wound⁠⸺?”

⸺⁠He is recovered, Doctor Slop would say⁠⸺⁠

What! quite?

Quite: madam⁠⸺⁠

But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say.

Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself.

There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls Suspicion to rest⁠⸺⁠and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the sex to be deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold chat with the devil, without it⁠⸺⁠But there is an accent of humanity⁠⸺⁠how shall I describe it?⁠—’tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular with it, as your body-surgeon.

“⁠⸺⁠Was it