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

Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,⁠—look first into it, and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it.

Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned to obey,⁠—and not to remonstrate;⁠—so taking the book to a side-table, and running over the leaves; An’ please your Honour, said Trim, I can see no such thing;⁠—however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your Honour;⁠—so taking hold of the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves fall down, as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound shake.

There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an’ please your Honour;⁠—but it is not a chariot, or anything like one:⁠—Prithee, Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?⁠—I think, answered Trim, stooping to take it up,⁠⸺’tis more like a sermon,⁠⸻for it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;⁠—and then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly.

The company smiled.

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing as a sermon to have got into my Stevinus.

I think ’tis a sermon, replied Trim;⁠—but if it please your Honours, as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page;⁠—for Trim, you must know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk.

I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these;⁠—and as we have nothing better to do, at least till Obadiah gets back, I shall be obliged to you, brother, if Dr. Slop has no objection to it, to order the Corporal to give us a page or two of it,⁠—if he is as able to do it, as he seems willing. An’ please your Honour, quoth Trim, I officiated two whole campaigns, in Flanders, as clerk to the chaplain of the regiment.⁠⸺⁠He can read it, quoth my uncle Toby, as well as I can.⁠⸺⁠Trim, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s misfortune. Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to his master;⁠—then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,⁠⸺⁠he advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could best see, and be best seen by his audience.

XVI

—If you have any objection,⁠—said my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop. Not in the least, replied Dr. Slop;⁠—for it does not appear on which side of the question it is wrote;⁠⸺⁠it may be a composition of a divine of our church, as well as yours,⁠—so that we run equal risques.⁠⸺’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth Trim, for ’tis only upon Conscience, an’ please your Honours.

Trim’s reason put his audience into good-humour,⁠—all but Dr. Slop, who turning his head about towards Trim, looked a little angry.

Begin, Trim,⁠—and read distinctly, quoth my father.⁠—I will, an’ please your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking attention with a slight movement of his right hand.

XVII

⸺⁠But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude;⁠⸺⁠otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in an uneasy posture,⁠—stiff,⁠—perpendicular,⁠—dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs;⁠⸺⁠his eye fixed, as if on duty;⁠—his look determined,⁠—clenching the sermon in his left hand, like his firelock.⁠⸺⁠In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action.⁠—His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.

He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon;⁠—which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to be the true persuasive angle of incidence;⁠—in any other angle you may talk and preach;⁠—’tis certain;⁠—and it is done every day;⁠—but with what effect,⁠—I leave the world to judge!

The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical exactness,⁠⸺⁠does it not show us, by the way, how the arts and sciences mutually befriend each other?

How the duce Corporal Trim, who knew not so much as an acute angle from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;⁠⸺⁠or whether it was chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, etc., shall be commented upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffeehouse, the bedchamber, and fireside, fall under consideration.

He stood,⁠⸺⁠for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,⁠—his right leg from under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,⁠⸻the foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a little,⁠—not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them;⁠—his knee bent, but that not violently,⁠—but so as to fall within the limits of the line of beauty;⁠—and I add, of the line of science too;⁠—for consider, it had one eighth part of his body to bear up;⁠—so that in this case the position of the leg is determined,⁠—because the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too.

☞ This I recommend to painters:⁠—need I add,⁠—to orators!⁠—I think not; for unless they practise it,⁠⸻they must fall upon their noses.

So much for Corporal Trim’s body and legs.⁠⸺⁠He held the sermon loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his stomach, and detached a little from his breast;⁠⸺⁠his right arm falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered it,⁠⸺⁠but