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

by Laurence Sterne

  Pray do, added my uncle Toby.

  CHAP. XVII.

  ——AND pray good woman after all will you take upon you to say it may not be the child’s hip as well as the child’s head?——’Tis most certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. Slop, (turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally are,——’tis a point very difficult to know,1—and yet of the greatest consequence to be known;——because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for the head,— there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps ***************************.

  ——What the possibility was, Dr. Slop whispered very low to my father, and then to my uncle Toby.——There is no such danger, continued he, with the head.—No, in truth, quoth my father,——but when your possibility has taken place at the hip, ——you may as well take off the head too.

  ——It is morally impossible the reader should understand this,——’tis enough Dr. Slop understood it;——so taking the green bays bag in his hand, with the help of Obadiah’s pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for a man of his size, across the room to the door,——and from the door was shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother’s apartment.

  CHAP. XVIII.

  IT is two hours, and ten minutes,—and no more,—— cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived,——and I know not how it happens, brother Toby,——but to my imagination it seems almost an age.

  ——Here——pray, Sir, take hold of my cap,—nay, take the bell along with it, and my pantoufles1 too.——

  Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present of ’em, on condition, you give me all your attention to this chapter.

  Though my father said, “he knew not how it happen’d,”—— yet he knew very well, how it happen’d;——and at the instant he spoke it, was pre-determined in his mind, to give my uncle Toby a clear account of the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of duration and its simple modes,2 in order to shew my uncle Toby, by what mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid succession3 of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse from one thing to another, since Dr. Slop had come into the room, had lengthened out so short a period, to so inconceivable an extent.——“I know not how it happens,—— cried my father,——“but it seems an age.”

  —’Tis owing, entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the succession of our ideas.

  My father, who had an itch in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it too,——proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of his hands by my uncle Toby, who (honest man!) generally took every thing as it happened;——and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and space,——or how we came by those ideas,——or of what stuff they were made,—or whether they were born with us,4——or we pick’d them up afterwards as we went along,—or whether we did it in frocks,— or not till we had got into breeches,—with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about INFINITY, PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY,5 and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories, so many fine heads have been turned and crack’d,—never did my uncle Toby’s the least injury at all; my father knew it,——and was no less surprised, than he was disappointed with my uncle’s fortuitous solution.

  Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.

  Not I, quoth my uncle.

  ——But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about.——

  No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.

  Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together,——there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby,—’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.———But I’ll tell thee.——

  To understand what time is aright, without which we never can comprehend infinity, insomuch as one is a portion of the other,——we ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is, we have of duration, so as to give a satisfactory account, how we came by it.—What is that to any body? quoth my uncle Toby. *For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind, continued my father, and observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking and smoaking our pipes: or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or any thing else commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing co existing with our thinking,——and so according to that preconceived 6——You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle Toby.—

  ——’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of time, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months,——and of clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us,——that ’twill be well, if in time to come, the succession of our ideas be of any use or service to us at all.7

  Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like ——A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby.—A train of a fiddle stick!—quoth my father,—which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle.8— I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoak-jack.9 ——Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon the subject, said my father.

  CHAP. XIX.

  ——WHAT a conjuncture was here lost!——My father in one of his best explanatory moods,—in eager pursuit of a metaphysic point into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about; ———my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;—his head like a smoak-jack;——the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!—— By the tomb stone of Lucian ——if it is in being,——if not, why then, by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes,1——my father and my uncle Toby’s discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY,—was a discourse devoutly to be wished for!2 and the petulancy of my father’s humour in putting a stop to it, as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic 3 treasury, of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men, are ever likely to restore to it again.

  CHAP. XX.

  THO’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse,—yet he could not get my uncle Toby’s smoak-jack out of his head,—piqued as he was at first with it;——there was something in the comparison at the bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand, ——but looking first stedfastly in the fire,——he began to commune with himself and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the discourse,——the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down,——so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about.

  As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also.——Peace be with them both.——Dr. Slop is engaged with the midwife, and my mother above stairs.— Trim is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars to be employed in the siege of Messina 1next summer,——and is this instant boring the touch holes with the point of a hot poker.——All my heroes are off my hands;——’tis the first time I have had a moment to spare,— and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface.

  THE

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

  NO, I’ll not say a word
about it,—here it is;——in publishing it,——I have appealed to the world,——and to the world I leave it;——it must speak for itself.

  All I know of the matter is,——when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out,—a wise, aye, and a discreet, ——taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the great author and bestower of them had thought fit originally to give me,—— so that, as your worships see,—’tis just as God pleases.

  Now, Agelastes2 (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in it, for aught he knows,——but no judgment at all. And Triptolemus3 and Phutatorius4 agreeing thereto, ask, How is it possible there should? for that wit and judgment5 in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.—So, says Locke,—so are farting and hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, Didius the great church lawyer, in his code de fartandi et illustrandi fallaciis,6 doth maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no argument,—nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean, to be a syllogism; ——but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it,——so that the main good these things do, is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular7 matter, which if left swiming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil all.

  Now, my dear Anti-Shandeans, and thrice able critics,8 and fellow-labourers, (for to you I write this Preface)——and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do—pull off your beards) renowned for gravity and wisdom;—Monopolos, my politician,—Didius, my counsel; Kysarcius, my friend;— Phutatorius, my guide;—Gastripheres, the preserver of my life; Somnolentius,9 the balm and repose of it,—not forgetting all others as well sleeping as waking,—ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no resentment to you, I lump all together. ———Believe me, right worthy,

  My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in case the thing is not done already for us,——is, that the great gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with every thing which usually goes along with them,———such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment without stint or measure, let or hinderance, be poured down warm as each of us could bear it,—scum and sediment an’ all; (for I would not have a drop lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains,—in such sort, that they might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great and small, be so replenished, saturated and fill’d up therewith, that no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be got either in or out.10

  Bless us!—what noble work we should make!—–how should I tickle it off!——and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for such readers!—and you,—just heaven!——with what raptures would you sit and read,——but oh!——’tis too much,——I am sick,——I faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it!——’tis more than nature can bear!——lay hold of me,—I am giddy,—I am stone blind,——I’m dying,——I am gone.——Help! Help! Help!—–But hold,—I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits,—we should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an end:——there would be so much satire and sarcasm,11——scoffing and flouting, with raillying and reparteeing of it,——thrusting and parrying in one corner or another,——there would be nothing but mischief amongst us.—Chaste stars! what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should make, what with breaking of heads, and rapping of knuckles, and hitting of sore places,—–there would be no such thing as living for us.

  But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we should abominate each other, ten times worse than so many devils or devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy and kindness,——milk and honey,12——’twould be a second land of promise,——a paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had,—so that upon the whole we should have done well enough.

  All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships well know, that of these heavenly emanations of wit and judgment, which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and myself,—there is but a certain quantum stored up for us all, for the use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of ’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in one by corner or another,—and in such narrow streams, and at such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so many great states, and populous empires.

  Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, which lie more directly under the artick and antartick circles,——where the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months together, within the narrow compass of his cave,13——where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing,——and where the passions of a man, with every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself;14—there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business,—and of wit,—there is a total and an absolute saving,—for as not one spark is wanted,—–so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!15 What a dismal thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a match,16 or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! for mercy’s sake! let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we can southwards into Norway,——crossing over Swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angermania to the lake of Bothnia; coasting along it through east and west Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north east of the Baltick, up to Petersbourg, and just stepping into Ingria;———then stretching over directly from thence through the north parts of the Russian empire—leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand till we get into the very heart of Russian and Asiatick Tartary.17

  Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have just left:—for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain houshold judgment, which taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with,—and had they more of either the one or the other, it would destroy the proper ballance betwixt them, and I am satisfied moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.

  Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island,18 where you perceive the spring tide of our blood and humours runs high,—where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason,—the height of our wit and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our necessities,19—and accordingly, we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and creditable plenty, that no one thinks he has any cause to complain.

  It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and cold,——wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way;——so that sometimes for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or judgment, either to be seen or heard of amongst us:——the small channels of them shall seem quite dried up,—the
n all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of running again like fury,—–you would think they would never stop:—— and then it is, that in writing and fighting, and twenty other gallant things, we drive all the world before us.

  It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectick induction,20—that I draw and set up this position as most true and veritable:

  That of these two luminaries, so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us; as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses every thing in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships21 now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d’ye 22 of a caressing prefacer stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it—I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives,—running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end;——some falling with their noses perpendicularly into stinks,—others horizontally with their tails into kennels.23 Here one half of a learned profession tilting full butt24 against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs.25——Here the brethren, of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way.— What confusion!—what mistakes!—fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears,—admirable!—trusting to the passions excited in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart,—– instead of measuring them by a quadrant.