The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Penguin Classics)

by Laurence Sterne

  But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,––measuring their distance,—and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have power to think of nothing else,––-common-place infirmity of the greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with.

  The ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door, struck likewise strong upon the sensorium5 of my uncle Toby,—but it excited a very different train of thoughts;—the two irreconcileable pulsations instantly brought Stevinus,6 the great engineer, along with them, into my uncle Toby’s mind:——What business Stevinus had in this affair,—is the greatest problem of all;—it shall be solved,—but not in the next chapter.

  CHAP. XI.

  WRiting, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation: As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;—so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

  For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

  ’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop’s sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back parlour;—his imagination must now go on with it for a while.

  Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. Slop has told his tale; ——and in what words, and with what aggravations his fancy chooses:——Let him suppose that Obadiah has told his tale also, and with such rueful looks of affected concern, as he thinks will best contrast the two figures as they stand by each other: Let him imagine that my father has stepp’d up stairs to see my mother:—And, to conclude this work of imagination,—let him imagine the Doctor wash’d,——rubb’d down,—condoled with,—felicitated,—got into a pair of Obadiah’s pumps,1 stepping forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action.

  Truce!—truce, good Dr. Slop! —stay thy obstetrick hand;2— return it safe into thy bosom to keep it warm;—little do’st thou know what obstacles;—little do’st thou think what hidden causes retard its operation!—Hast thou, Dr. Slop,—hast thou been intrusted with the secret articles of this solemn treaty which has brought thee into this place?—Art thou aware that, at this instant, a daughter of Lucina 3 is put obstetrically over thy head? Alas! ’tis too true.—Besides, great son of Pilumnus! 4 what can’st thou do?—Thou has come forth unarm’d;—thou hast left thy tire-tête,—thy new-invented forceps,—thy crotchet,— thy squirt, and all thy instruments of salvation and deliverance behind thee.5——By heaven! at this moment they are hanging up in a green bays6 bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at thy bed’s head!—Ring;—call;—send Obadiah back upon the coach-horse to bring them with all speed.

  —Make great haste, Obadiah, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a crown;—and, quoth my uncle Toby, I’ll give him another.

  CHAP. XII.

  YOUR sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, (all three of them sitting down to the fire together, as my uncle Toby began to speak)––––instantly brought the great Stevinus into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite author with me.——— Then, added my father, making use of the argument Ad Crumenam,1––-I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown piece, (which will serve to give away to Obadiah when he gets back) that this same Stevinus was some engineer or other,––––or has wrote something or other, either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.

  He has so,—replied my uncle Toby.—I knew it, said my father;—tho’, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be betwixt Dr. Slop’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what we will, brother,—or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,––-you are sure to bring it in: I would not, brother Toby, continued my father,––-I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and horn-works.—That, I dare say, you would not, quoth Dr. Slop, interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.

  Dennis 2 the critick could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;——he would grow testy upon it at any time;––but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;—he saw no difference.

  Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addres sing himself to Dr.Slop,—— the curtins3 my brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with bed-steads;—tho’, I know, Du Cange says, “That bed-curtains, in all probability, have taken their name from them;”––-nor have the horn-works, he speaks of, any thing in the world to do with the horn-works of cuckoldom:—But the curtin, Sir, is the word we use in fortification, for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions and joins them.––––Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well flanked; (’tis the case of other curtins, quoth Dr. Slop, laughing) however, continued my uncle Toby, to make them sure, we generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to extend them beyond the fossé or ditch:—The common men, who know very little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon together,––-tho’ they are very different things;––-not in their figure or construction, for we make them exactly alike in all points;––-for they always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges, not straight, but in form of a crescent.—Where then lies the difference? (quoth my father, a little testily)––In their situations, answered my uncle Toby: ––For when a ravelin, brother, stands before the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion, then the ravelin is not a ravelin;––it is a half-moon;— a half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its bastion;—but was it to change place, and get before the curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.—I think, quoth my father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides,––––as well as others.

  —As for the horn-works (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my uncle Toby, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of an outwork;––-they are called by the French engineers, Ouvrage á corne, and we generally make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;––’tis form’d by two epaulments or demi-bastions,—they are very pretty, and if you will take a walk, I’ll engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.——I own, continued my uncle Toby, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground; so that, in my opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; otherwise the double tenaille———By the mother who bore us!——brother Toby, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,—you would provoke a saint;—here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse into the middle of the old subject again:—But so full is your head of these confounded works, that tho’ my wife is this momentin the pains of labour,—and you hear her cry out,—yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the man-midwife.——Accoucheur,4—if you please, quoth Dr. Slop.––-With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they call you,——but I wish the whole science of fortification, with all its inventors, at the Devil;—it has been the death of thousands,——and it will be mine, in the end.––I would not, I would not, brother Toby, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, palisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all the towns in Flanders with it.

 
My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of courage,—I have told you in the fifth chapter5 of this second book, “That he was a man of courage:”——And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth, ––-I know no man under whose arm I would sooner have taken shelter; nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;––for he felt this insult of my father’s as feelingly as a man could do;––––but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mix’d up so kindly within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retalliate upon a fly.

  —Go,––-says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzz’d about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;––-I’ll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going a-cross the room, with the fly in his hand,––-I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head:––-Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go poor Devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?––––This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

  I was but ten years old when this happened;—but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;—or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;—or in what degree, or by what secret magick,—a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not;—this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the study of the Literas humamores,6 at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;—yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy7 to that one accidental impression.

  This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon the subject.

  I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle Toby’s picture, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,—that taking in no more than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness;—this is a part of his moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with a little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him to any thing which looked like malignancy;—yet, in the little rubs and vexations of life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty kind of peevishness:—He was, however, frank and generous in his nature,——at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my uncle Toby, whom he truly loved;—he would feel more pain, ten times told, (except in the affair of my aunt Dinah, or where an hypothesis was concerned) than what he ever gave.

  The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected light upon each other, and appear’d with great advantage in this affair which arose about Stevinus.

  I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HOBBY-HORSE,—that a man’s HOBBY-HORSE is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these unprovoked strokes, at my uncle Toby’s could not be unfelt by him.—No;—as I said above, my uncle Toby did feel them, and very sensibly too.

  Pray, Sir, what said he?—How did he behave?—Oh, Sir!—it was great: For as soon as my father had done insulting his HOBBY-HORSE,—he turned his head, without the least emotion, from Dr. Slop, to whom he was addressing his discourse, and look’d up into my father’s face, with a countenance spread over with so much good nature;—so placid;—so fraternal;—so inexpressibly tender towards him;—it penetrated my father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair, and seizing hold of both my uncle Toby’s hands as he spoke:—Brother Toby, said he,—I beg thy pardon;—forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour which my mother gave me.8—My dear, dear brother, answer’d my uncle Toby, rising up by my father’s help, say no more about it;—you are heartily welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis ungenerous, replied my father, to hurt any man;—a brother worse;—but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners,—so unprovoking,—and so unresenting;—’tis base:—By heaven, ’tis cowardly.——You are heartily welcome, brother, quoth my uncle Toby,—had it been fifty times as much. ——Besides, what have I to do, my dear Toby, cried my father, either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless it was in my power (which it is not) to increase their measure?

  —Brother Shandy, answer’d my uncle Toby, looking wistfully in his face,—you are much mistaken in this point;—for you do increase my pleasure very much, in begetting children for the Shandy Family at your time of life.——But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy increases his own.———Not a jot, quoth my father.

  CHAP. XIII.

  My brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle.—In a family-way,1 I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop.— Pshaw!— said my father,—’tis not worth talking of.

  CHAP. XIV.

  At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both standing, like Brutus and Cassius at the close of the scene making up their accounts.

  As my father spoke the three last words,—he sat down;—my uncle Toby exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he rung the bell, to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step home for Stevinus;––-my uncle Toby’s house being no further off than the opposite side of the way.

  Some men would have dropp’d the subject of Stevinus;—but my uncle Toby had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, to shew my father that he had none.

  Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, resuming the discourse, instantly brought Stevinus into my head. (My father, you may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus’s head)——Because, continued my uncle Toby, the celebrated sailing chariot,1 which belonged to Prince Maurice, and was of such wonderful contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty German miles, in I don’t know how few minutes,—was invented by Stevinus, that great mathematician and engineer.

  You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. Slop, (as the fellow is lame) of going for Stevinus’s account of it, because, in my return from Leyden thro’ the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.

  —That’s nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it,—and nothing else.

  Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

  The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark,––’twas out of no contempt of Peireskius at all;—but that Peireskius’s indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. Slop, in that affair, to nothing;—the more fool Peireskius, said he again:—Why so?— replied my father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my father’s mind;—but partly, that my father began really to interest himself in the discourse;——Why so?—said he. Why is Peireskius, or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other morsel of sound knowledge? For, notwithstanding I know nothing of the chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he has atchiev’d it;—yet certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not have answer’d at the rate my brother mentions.

  It answered, replied my uncle Toby, as well, if not better; for, as Peireskius elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its motion, Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus; which, unless I have forgot my Latin, is, th
at it was as swift as the wind itself.

  But pray, Dr. Slop, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle, (tho’ not without begging pardon for it, at the same time) upon what principles was this self-same chariot set a-going?––––Upon very pretty principles to be sure, replied Dr. Slop;—and I have often wondered, continued he, evading the question, why none of our Gentry, who live upon large plains like this of ours,––-(especially they whose wives are not past child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is subject,—if the wind only served,—but would be excellent good husbandry to make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than horses, which (the Devil take ’em) both cost and eat a great deal.

  For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing, and because they eat nothing,”—the scheme is bad;— it is the consumption of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread to the hungry, circulates trade,—brings in money, and supports the value of our lands;— and tho’, I own, if I was a Prince, I would generously recompence the scientifick head which brought forth such contrivances;— yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them.

  My father here had got into his element,—and was going on as prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had before, upon his of fortification;—but, to the loss of much sound knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father that day;——for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence,