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

the worse for ’em.⁠⸺⁠But pray, quoth my uncle Toby,⁠—who’s can this be?⁠—How could it get into my Stevinus? A man must be as great a conjurer as Stevinus, said my father, to resolve the second question:⁠—The first, I think, is not so difficult;⁠—for unless my judgment greatly deceives me,⁠⸺⁠I know the author, for ’tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish.

The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his conjecture,⁠—proving it as strongly, as an argument à priori could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was Yorick’s and no one’s else:⁠—It was proved to be so, a posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my uncle Toby’s house to enquire after it.

It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelessly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to keep him company.

Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thro’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down into a treacherous and a tattered lining,⁠—trod deep into the dirt by the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou falledst;⁠—buried ten days in the mire,⁠⸺⁠raised up out of it by a beggar,⁠—sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,⁠⸺⁠transferred to his parson,⁠⸺⁠lost forever to thy own, the remainder of his days,⁠⸺⁠nor restored to his restless Manes till this very moment, that I tell the world the story.

Can the reader believe, that this sermon of Yorick’s was preached at an assize, in the cathedral of York, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and actually printed by him when he had done,⁠⸺⁠and within so short a space as two years and three months after Yorick’s death?⁠—Yorick indeed, was never better served in his life;⁠⸻but it was a little hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.

However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with Yorick,⁠—and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give away;⁠—and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one himself, had he thought fit,⁠—I declare I would not have published this anecdote to the world;⁠⸺⁠nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his character and advancement in the church;⁠⸺⁠I leave that to others;⁠—but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.

The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to Yorick’s ghost;⁠⸺⁠which⁠—as the country-people, and some others, believe,⁠⸺⁠still walks.

The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I gain an opportunity of informing it,⁠—That in case the character of parson Yorick, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,⁠⸺⁠there are now in the possession of the Shandy family, as many as will make a handsome volume, at the world’s service,⁠⸺⁠and much good may they do it.

XVIII

Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute; for he came in jingling, with all the instruments in the green bays bag we spoke of, slung across his body, just as Corporal Trim went out of the room.

It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. Slop (clearing up his looks), as we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. Shandy, to send upstairs to know how she goes on.

I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us upon the least difficulty;⁠—for you must know, Dr. Slop, continued my father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in this affair,⁠—and not so much as that,⁠—unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without you.⁠—Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the species,⁠—they claim a right of deciding, en Souveraines, in whose hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it.

They are in the right of it,⁠⸺⁠quoth my uncle Toby. But, Sir, replied Dr. Slop, not taking notice of my uncle Toby’s opinion, but turning to my father,⁠—they had better govern in other points;⁠⸺⁠and a father of a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of it.⁠⸺⁠I know not, quoth my father, answering a little too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said,⁠—I know not, quoth he, what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the world, unless that,⁠—of who shall beget them.⁠⸻One would almost give up anything, replied Dr. Slop.⁠—I beg your pardon,⁠⸺⁠answered my uncle Toby.⁠—Sir, replied Dr. Slop, it would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the fœtus,⁠⸺⁠which has received such lights, that, for my part (holding up his hands) I declare I wonder how the world has⁠⸺⁠I wish, quoth my uncle Toby, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders.

XIX

I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,⁠⸺⁠to remind you of one thing,⁠⸺⁠and to inform you of another.

What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;⁠⸺⁠for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage here than elsewhere.⁠—Writers had need look before them, to keep