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

part of it dialectically⁠⸻then brought it into full day; dilucidating it with all the light which either the collision of his own natural parts could strike⁠—or the profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him to cast upon it⁠—collating, collecting, and compiling⁠⸻begging, borrowing, and stealing, as he went along, all that had been wrote or wrangled thereupon in the schools and porticos of the learned: so that Slawkenbergius his book may properly be considered, not only as a model⁠—but as a thorough-stitched digest and regular institute of noses, comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known about them.

For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise) valuable books and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either, plump upon noses⁠⸺⁠or collaterally touching them;⁠⸻such for instance as Prignitz, now lying upon the table before me, who with infinite learning, and from the most candid and scholar-like examination of above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty charnel-houses in Silesia, which he had rummaged⁠⸻has informed us, that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of human noses, in any given tract of country, except Crim Tartary, where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be formed upon them⁠—are much nearer alike, than the world imagines;⁠—the difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking notice of;⁠⸺⁠but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it (bating the case of idiots, whom Prignitz, who had lived many years in Turky, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)⁠—it so happens, and ever must, says Prignitz, that the excellency of the nose is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s fancy.

It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in Slawkenbergius, that I say nothing likewise of Scroderus (Andrea) who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn Prignitz with great violence⁠—proving it in his own way, first logically, and then by a series of stubborn facts, “That so far was Prignitz from the truth, in affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary⁠—the nose begat the fancy.”

—The learned suspected Scroderus of an indecent sophism in this⁠—and Prignitz cried out aloud in the dispute, that Scroderus had shifted the idea upon him⁠⸺⁠but Scroderus went on, maintaining his thesis.

My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he should take in this affair; when Ambrose Paræus decided it in a moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of Prignitz and Scroderus, drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at once.

Be witness⁠⸻

I don’t acquaint the learned reader⁠—in saying it, I mention it only to show the learned, I know the fact myself⁠⸻

That this Ambrose Paræus was chief surgeon and nose-mender to Francis the ninth of France, and in high credit with him and the two preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)⁠—and that, except in the slip he made in his story of Taliacotius’s noses, and his manner of setting them on⁠—he was esteemed by the whole college of physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than anyone who had ever taken them in hand.

Now Ambrose Paræus convinced my father, that the true and efficient cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon which Prignitz and Scroderus had wasted so much learning and fine parts⁠⸺⁠was neither this nor that⁠⸺⁠but that the length and goodness of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse’s breast⁠⸻as the flatness and shortness of puisne noses was to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the hale and lively⁠—which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated, and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive ad mensuram suam legitimam;⁠⸺⁠but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the nurse or mother’s breast⁠—by sinking into it, quoth Paræus, as into so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up, refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing forever.

I have but two things to observe of Paræus; first, That he proves and explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression:⁠—for which may his soul forever rest in peace!

And, secondly, that besides the systems of Prignitz and Scroderus, which Ambrose Paræus his hypothesis effectually overthrew⁠—it overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and everything in it, except my uncle Toby, quite upside down.

Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never surely in any age or country got vent through the keyhole of a street-door.

My mother, you must know⁠⸻but I have fifty things more necessary to let you know first⁠⸺⁠I have a hundred difficulties which I have promised to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick misadventures crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck of another. A cow broke in (tomorrow morning) to my uncle Toby’s fortifications, and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up the sods with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.⁠⸺⁠Trim insists upon being tried by a court-martial⁠—the cow to be shot⁠—Slop to be crucifix’d⁠—myself to be tristram’d and at my very baptism made a martyr of;⁠⸺⁠poor unhappy devils that we all are!⁠⸺⁠I want swaddling⁠⸻but there is no time to be lost in exclamations⁠⸻I have left my father lying across his bed, and