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

and short kicks, till, like Tickletoby’s mare, you break a strap or a crupper and throw his worship into the dirt.⁠—You need not kill him.⁠—

—And pray who was Tickletoby’s mare?⁠—’tis just as discreditable and unscholarlike a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (ab. urb. con.) the second Punic war broke out.⁠—Who was Tickletoby’s mare?⁠⸺⁠Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read⁠—or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon⁠—I tell you beforehand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.

XXXVII

“Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi,” quoth Pamphagus;⁠⸺⁠that is⁠—“My nose has been the making of me.”⁠⸺⁠⸻“Nec est cur pœniteat,” replies Cocles; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?”

The doctrine, you see, was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtlety or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.⁠⸺⁠My father pish’d and pugh’d at first most terribly⁠⸻’tis worth something to have a good name. As the dialogue was of Erasmus, my father soon came to himself, and read it over and over again with great application, studying every word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and literal interpretation⁠—he could still make nothing of it, that way. Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my father.⁠⸺⁠Learned men, brother Toby, don’t write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.⁠⸻I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick sense⁠⸺⁠here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother.

My father read on.⁠⸻Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by Erasmus, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic conveniencies also; for that in a case of distress⁠—and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, ad ixcitandum focum (to stir up the fire).

Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had done the seeds of all other knowledge⁠⸻so that he had got out his penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he could not scratch some better sense into it.⁠⸺⁠I’ve got within a single letter, brother Toby, cried my father, of Erasmus his mystic meaning.⁠—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all conscience.⁠⸻Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on⁠⸺⁠I might as well be seven miles off.⁠—I’ve done it⁠—said my father, snapping his fingers⁠—See, my dear brother Toby, how I have mended the sense.⁠⸺⁠But you have marr’d a word, replied my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠My father put on his spectacles⁠⸺⁠bit his lip⁠⸻and tore out the leaf in a passion.

XXXVIII

O Slawkenbergius! thou faithful analyzer of my Disgrazias⁠—thou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which in one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.⁠—Tell me, Slawkenbergius! what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?⁠⸺⁠art thou sure thou heard’st it?⁠⸺⁠which first cried out to thee⁠⸻go⁠⸻go, Slawkenbergius! dedicate the labours of thy life⁠⸺⁠neglect thy pastimes⁠⸻call forth all the powers and faculties of thy nature⁠⸺⁠macerate thyself in the service of mankind, and write a grand folio for them, upon the subject of their noses.

How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius’s sensorium⁠⸺⁠so that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch’d the key⁠—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows⁠⸺⁠as Hafen Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten years⁠⸻we can only raise conjectures.

Slawkenbergius was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of Whitefield’s disciples⁠⸺⁠that is, with such a distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two masters it was that had been practising upon his instrument⁠⸻as to make all reasoning upon it needless.

⸻For in the account which Hafen Slawkenbergius gives the world of his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his life upon this one work⁠—towards the end of his prolegomena, which by the by should have come first⁠⸺⁠but the bookbinder has most injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book, and the book itself⁠—he informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the main end and design of his being;⁠⸺⁠or⁠—to shorten my translation, for Slawkenbergius’s book is in Latin, and not a little prolix in this passage⁠—ever since I understood, quoth Slawkenbergius, anything⁠⸺⁠or rather what was what⁠⸺⁠and could perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before;⁠⸺⁠have I, Slawkenbergius, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird up myself to this undertaking.

And to do justice to Slawkenbergius, he has entered the list with a stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man who had ever entered it before him⁠⸺⁠and indeed, in many respects, deserves to be en-nich’d as a prototype for all writers, of voluminous works at least, to model their books by⁠⸺⁠for he has taken in, Sir, the whole subject⁠—examined every