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

hands upon his breast⁠⸺⁠made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.

⸺⁠I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠My father smiled.⁠⸻I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠My father looked grave.

V

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of pensions and grenadiers?

VI

When my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed⁠—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam⁠⸺’tis the transition from one attitude to another⁠⸺⁠like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.

For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor⁠⸺⁠pushed the chamberpot still a little farther within the valance⁠—gave a hem⁠—raised himself up upon his elbow⁠—and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby⁠—when recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude⁠⸺⁠he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby: and laying the three first fingers of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows:

VII

When I reflect, brother Toby, upon man; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble⁠—when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance⁠⸻I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father⁠—but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?⁠⸻What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby⁠⸻That’s another concern, said my father testily⁠—But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful Items with which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.⁠⸻’Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together⁠⸺’tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy⁠⸺⁠a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.⁠⸺⁠We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings.

⸺⁠That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it.⁠⸺⁠But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery.

With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.

My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it⁠—for he holds the forefinger of his left hand between the forefinger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the libertine he is reclaiming⁠⸻“You grant me this⁠⸺⁠and this: and this, and this, I don’t ask of you⁠—they follow of themselves in course.”

So stood my father, holding fast his forefinger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs⁠⸺⁠O Garrick!⁠—what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it.

VIII

Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day⁠⸺⁠was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us.⁠—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.⁠—Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other.⁠⸺⁠It makes everything straight for us, answered my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can’t prevent the shock⁠⸺⁠at least it imposes upon our sense of it.

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his forefinger, as he was coming closer to the point⁠⸺⁠had my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him⁠—fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our characters and conducts⁠—Heaven is witness! that in the warmest transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what George or Edward would have spread around it.

But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him⁠⸺⁠I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.

He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.

I wish it may answer⁠⸺⁠replied my uncle Toby, rising up.

IX

What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going downstairs⁠—what a long