Now these two knobs — or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown the whole entablature — being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all others, as I have proved it, are the most needful — the most priz’d — the most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest to come at — for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding — or so ignorant of what will do him good therein — who does not wish and stedfastly resolve in his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of the one or the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems any way feasible, or likely to be brought to pass.
Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at the one — unless they laid hold of the other, — pray what do you think would become of them? — Why, Sirs, in spite of all their gravities, they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides naked — this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to be supposed in the case we are upon — so that no one could well have been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great perriwigs, had they not raised a hue and cry at the same time against the lawful owners.
I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning and artifice — that the great Locke, who was seldom outwitted by false sounds — was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces, and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one against the poor wits in this matter, that the philosopher himself was deceived by it — it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a thousand vulgar errors; — but this was not of the number; so that instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done, to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it — on the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest.
This has been made the Magna Charta of stupidity ever since — but your reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that the title to it is not worth a groat: — which by the bye is one of the many and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer for hereafter.
As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind too freely — I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration — That I have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture — for any purpose — peace be with them! — [ — >] mark only — I write not for them.
CHAPTER XXI
Every day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have it mended— ’tis not mended yet; — no family but ours would have borne with it an hour — and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of door-hinges. — And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs. — Never did the parlour-door open — but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to it; — three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer, had saved his honour for ever.
— Inconsistent soul that man is! — languishing under wounds, which he has the power to heal! — his whole life a contradiction to his knowledge! — his reason, that precious gift of God to him — (instead of pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities — to multiply his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them — Poor unhappy creature, that he should do so! — Are not the necessary causes of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock of sorrow; — struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him would remove from his heart for ever?
By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of Shandy Hall — the parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign.
CHAPTER XXII
When Corporal Trim had brought his two mortars to bear, he was delighted with his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a pleasure it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to resist the desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour.
Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of hinges, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is this.
Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door should do —
Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its hinges — (that is, in case things have all along gone well with your worship, — otherwise I give up my simile) — in this case, I say, there had been no danger either to master or man, in Corporal Trim’s peeping in: the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle Toby fast asleep — the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs, dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances my father submitted to upon its account — this was one; that he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the door, was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepp’d in betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets of it.
“When things move upon bad hinges, an’ please your lordships, how can it be otherwise?”
Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the moment the door began to creak. — I wish the smith would give a peep at that confounded hinge.— ’Tis nothing, an’ please your honour, said Trim, but two mortars I am bringing in. — They shan’t make a clatter with them here, cried my father hastily. — If Dr. Slop has any drugs to pound, let him do it in the kitchen. — May it please your honour, cried Trim, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which I have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which Obadiah told me your honour had left off wearing. — By Heaven! cried my father, springing out of his chair, as he swore — I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these jack-boots — they were our great grandfather’s, brother Toby — they were hereditary. Then I fear, quoth my uncle Toby, Trim has cut off the entail. — I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried Trim — I hate perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father — but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time) have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil wars; — Sir Roger Shandy wore them at the battle of Marston-Moor. — I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for them. — I’ll pay you the money, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby, looking at the two mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches pocket as he viewed them — I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment with all my heart and soul. —
Brother Toby, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but upon a SIEGE. — Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides my half pay? cried my uncle Toby. — What is that — replied my father hastily — to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots? — twelve guineas for your pontoons? — half as much for your Dutch draw-bridge? — to say nothing of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last week, with twenty other preparations for the siege of Messina: believe me, dear brother Toby, continued my father, taking him kindly by the hand — these military operations of yours are above your strength; — you mean well, brother — but they carry you into greater expences than you were first aware of; — and take my word, dear Toby,
they will in the end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you. — What signifies it if they do, brother, replied my uncle Toby, so long as we know ’tis for the good of the nation? —
My father could not help smiling for his soul — his anger at the worst was never more than a spark; — and the zeal and simplicity of Trim — and the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle Toby, brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant.
Generous souls! — God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth my father to himself.
CHAPTER XXIII
All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs — I hear not one foot stirring. — Prithee, Trim, who’s in the kitchen? There is no one soul in the kitchen, answered Trim, making a low bow as he spoke, except Dr. Slop. — Confusion! cried my father (getting up upon his legs a second time) — not one single thing was gone right this day! had I faith in astrology, brother (which, by the bye, my father had), I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its place. — Why, I thought Dr. Slop had been above stairs with my wife, and so said you. — What can the fellow be puzzling about in the kitchen! — He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied Trim, in making a bridge.— ’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle Toby: — pray, give my humble service to Dr. Slop, Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily.
You must know, my uncle Toby mistook the bridge — as widely as my father mistook the mortars; — but to understand how my uncle Toby could mistake the bridge — I fear I must give you an exact account of the road which led to it; — or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more dishonest in an historian than the use of one) — in order to conceive the probability of this error in my uncle Toby aright, I must give you some account of an adventure of Trim’s, though much against my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in, either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle Toby’s amours with widow Wadman, in which corporal Trim was no mean actor — or else in the middle of his and my uncle Toby’s campaigns on the bowling-green — for it will do very well in either place; — but then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my story — I ruin the story I’m upon; — and if I tell it here — I anticipate matters, and ruin it there.
— What would your worships have me to do in this case?
— Tell it, Mr. Shandy, by all means. — You are a fool, Tristram, if you do.
O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too) — which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing — that kindly shew him, where he is to begin it — and where he is to end it — what he is to put into it — and what he is to leave out — how much of it he is to cast into a shade — and whereabouts he is to throw his light! — Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into; — will you do one thing?
I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here — that at least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take.
CHAPTER XXIV
Tho’ the shock my uncle Toby received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in his affair with widow Wadman, had fixed him in a resolution never more to think of the sex — or of aught which belonged to it; — yet corporal Trim had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed in my uncle Toby’s case there was a strange and unaccountable concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay siege to that fair and strong citadel. — In Trim’s case there was a concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and Bridget in the kitchen; — though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had my uncle Toby employed his time and genius in tagging of points — I am persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle Toby sat down before the mistress — corporal Trim incontinently took ground before the maid.
Now, my dear friend Garrick, whom I have so much cause to esteem and honour — (why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter) — can it escape your penetration — I defy it — that so many playwrights, and opificers of chit-chat have ever since been working upon Trim’s and my uncle Toby’s pattern. — I care not what Aristotle, or Pacuvius, or Bossu, or Ricaboni say — (though I never read one of them) — there is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam Pompadour’s vis-à-vis; than betwixt a single amour, and an amour thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand drama — Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind — is quite lost in five acts; — but that is neither here nor there.
After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my uncle Toby’s quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle Toby, honest man! found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly.
Corporal Trim, as I said, had made no such bargain either with himself — or with any one else — the fidelity however of his heart not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgust — he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a blockade; — that is, he kept others off; — for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her — or (as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand — or ask her lovingly how she did — or would give her a ribbon — and now-and-then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a —
Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that is, from the demolition of Dunkirk in the year 13, to the latter end of my uncle Toby’s campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of. — When Trim, as his custom was, after he had put my uncle Toby to bed, going down one moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his fortifications — in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly — he espied his Bridget.
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby’s curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch — was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night.
My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby’s hobby-horse, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never think of it once, without smiling at it — so that it could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father’s imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him. — Well — but dear Toby! my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened. — How can you tease me so much about it? my uncle Toby would reply — I have told it you twenty times, word for word as Trim told it me. — Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, turning to Trim. — It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour; — I was shewing Mrs. Bridget our fortifications, and in going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in — Very well, Trim! my father would cry — (smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod — but without interrupting him) — and being link’d fast, an’ please your hono
ur, arm in arm with Mrs. Bridget, I dragg’d her after me, by means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge — and Trim’s foot (my uncle Toby would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too. — It was a thousand to one, my uncle Toby would add, that the poor fellow did not break his leg. — Ay truly, my father would say — a limb is soon broke, brother Toby, in such encounters. — And so, an’ please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.
At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards — my father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients — the VINEA which Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy. — He would tell my uncle Toby of the CATAPULTÆ of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundation: — he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the BALLISTA which Marcellinus makes so much rout about! — the terrible effects of the PYROBOLI, which cast fire; — the danger of the TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins. — But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal Trim? — Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge, or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery.
My uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle Toby leap’d up without feeling the pain upon his groin — and, with infinite pity, stood beside his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket. — The affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little offices — cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him. — May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself — if ever I insult this worthy soul more!
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 25