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

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 oaths and imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two hundred and fifty years last past 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 kings’ oaths, ’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;⁠—else I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus 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 by itself passes very well⁠—“G⁠⸺⁠d damn you.”⁠—Set it beside Ernulphus’s⁠⸺“God Almighty the Father damn you⁠—God the Son damn you⁠—God the Holy Ghost damn you”⁠—you see ’tis nothing.⁠—There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention⁠—possess’d more of the excellencies of a swearer⁠⸺⁠had such a thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, and articulations,⁠⸺⁠that when Ernulphus cursed⁠—no part escaped him.⁠—’Tis true there is something of a hardness in his manner⁠⸺⁠and, as in Michaelangelo, a want of grace⁠⸺⁠but then there is such a greatness of gusto!

My father, who generally look’d upon everything in a light very different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an original.⁠⸺⁠He considered rather, Ernulphus’s anathema, as an institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of swearing in some milder pontificate, Ernulphus, 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 Tribonian to collect the Roman or civil laws all together into one code or digest⁠⸺⁠lest, through the rust 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 ofttimes affirm, there was not an oath, from the great and tremendous oath of William the Conqueror (By the splendour of God) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (Damn your eyes) which was not to be found in Ernulphus.⁠—In short, he would add⁠—I defy a man to swear out of it.

The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious too;⁠⸺⁠nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.

XIII

⸺⁠Bless my soul!⁠—my poor mistress is ready to faint⁠⸺⁠and her pains are gone⁠—and the drops are done⁠—and the bottle of julap is broke⁠⸺⁠and the nurse has cut her arm⁠—(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. Slop,) and the child is where it was, continued Susannah,⁠—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, quoth Dr. Slop.⁠—There is no need of that, replied Susannah,⁠—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. Slop’s head⁠—He had not digested it,⁠—No, replied Dr. Slop, ’twould be full as proper, if the midwife came down to me.⁠—I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby,⁠—and but for it, after the reduction of Lisle, I know not what might have become of the garrison of Ghent, in the mutiny for bread, in the year Ten.⁠—Nor, replied Dr. Slop, (parodying my uncle Toby’s hobbyhorsical reflection; though full as hobbyhorsical himself)⁠⸻do I know, Captain 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.

XIV

Let us go back to the ******⁠⸺⁠in the last chapter.

It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence flourished at 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 want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle pot⁠—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.⁠—Tho’ if it was too young, and the oration as long as Tully’s second Philippick⁠—it must certainly have beshit the orator’s 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.⁠—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the precise age to a minute⁠⸺⁠hid his bambino in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it⁠⸺⁠and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by head and shoulders⁠—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders⁠—It has open’d the sluices, and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politicks of half a nation.

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, may it please your worships, that 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