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

by Laurence Sterne

  ——“BECAUSE,” quoth my great grandmother, repeating the words again,—–“you have little or no nose, Sir”——

  S’death! cried my great grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose,—’tis not so small as that comes to;—’tis a full inch longer than my father’s.——Now, my great grandfather’s nose was for all the world like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom Pantagruel found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN.1——By the way, if you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so flat-nosed a people,——you must read the book;—find it out yourself, you never can.——

  ——’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs.

  ——’Tis a full inch, continued my great grandfather, pressing up the ridge of his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion,——’tis a full inch longer, madam, than my father’s—. You must mean your uncle’s, replied my great grandmother.

  ——My great grandfather was convinced.—He untwisted the paper, and signed the article.

  CHAP. XXXIII.

  ——WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.

  My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark,1 than there is upon the back of my hand.——

  ——Now, you must know, that my great grandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds half yearly—–(on Michaelmas and Lady day) 2—during all that time.

  No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father.———And as far as the hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty,—he generally gave a loud Hem! —rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of his fore finger,—–inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl3 of his wig,—look’d at both sides of every guinea, as he parted with it,—and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

  Defend me, gracious heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us.— Never,—O never may I lay down in their tents,4 who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors!

  For three generations at least, this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually been taking root in our family.——TRADITION was all along on its side, and INTEREST was every half year stepping in to strengthen it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this in, with his mother’s milk.5 He did his part however.——If education planted the mistake, (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it to perfection.

  He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that he did not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand it out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses.—And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same number of long and jolly noses following one another in a direct line, did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom.——He would often boast that the Shandy family rank’d very high in king Harry the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state engine,—he would say,—but to that only;—–but that, like other families, he would add,—it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never recovered the blow of my great grandfather’s nose.——It was an ace of clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head,——and as vile a one for an unfortunate family, as ever turn’d up trumps.6

  ——Fair and softly, gentle reader!——where is thy fancy carrying thee?——If there is truth in man, by my great grandfather’s nose, I mean the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands prominent in his face,—and which painters say, in good jolly noses and well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third,—that is, measuring downwards from the setting on of the hair.——

  ——What a life of it has an author, at this pass!

  CHAP. XXXIV.

  IT is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is observed in old dogs,——“of not learning new tricks.”

  What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever existed, be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him change sides!

  Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this.— He pick’d up an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple.—It becomes his own,—and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life rather than give it up.——

  I am aware, that Didius the great civilian, will contest this point; and cry out against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple? ex confesso,1 he will say,——things were in a state of nature.—The apple, as much Frank’s apple, as John’s. Pray, Mr. Shandy, what patent has he to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it, when he set his heart upon it? or when he gather’d it? or when he chew’d it? or when he roasted it? or when he peel’d? or when he brought it home? or when he digested?——or when he———?——. For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first picking up of the apple, made it not his,——that no subsequent act could.2

  Brother Didius, Tribonius3 will answer,—(now Tribonius the civilian and church lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three eighths longer than Didius his beard,—I’m glad he takes up the cudgels for me, so I give myself no further trouble about the answer.)—Brother Didius, Tribonius will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it in the fragments of Gregorius and Hermogenes’s codes, and in all the codes from Justinian’s down to the codes of Louis and Des Eaux,4—That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations5 of a man’s brains, are as much a man’s own property, as the breeches upon his backside; ——which said exsudations, &c. being dropp’d upon the said apple by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover indissolubly wafted,6 and as indissolubly annex’d by the picker up, to the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d, eaten, digested, and so on;——’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing, has mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not his own, by which means he has acquired a property;—or, in other words, the apple is John’s apple.

  By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his opinions: he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they lay out of the common way, the better still was his title.——No mortal claim’d them: they had cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truely be said to be his own goods and chattles.——Accordingly he held fast by ’em, both by teeth and claws,——would fly to whatever he could lay his hands on,——and in a word, would intrench and fortify them round with as many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle Toby would a citadel.

  There was one plaguy rub in the way of this,——the scarcity of materials to make any thing of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; inasmuch as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books upon the subject of great noses: by the trotting of my lean horse, the thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my understanding when I am considering what a treasure of precious time and talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects,——and how many millions of books in all languages, and in all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated upon points not half so much tending to the unity and peace-making of the world. What was to be had, however, he set the greater store by; and though my father would oft-times sport with m
y uncle Toby’s library,——which, by the bye, was ridiculous enough,—yet at the very same time he did it, he collected every book and treatise which had been systematically wrote upon noses, with as much care as my honest uncle Toby had done those up on military architecture.——’Tis true, a much less table would have held them,—but that was not thy transgression, my dear uncle.——

  Here,——but why here,——rather than in any other part of my story,——I am not able to tell;——but here it is,——my heart stops me to pay to thee, my dear uncle Toby, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness.—–Here let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the ground, whilst I am pouring forth the warmest sentiments of love for thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom.———Peace and comfort rest for evermore upon thy head!—Thou envied’st no man’s comforts, ——insulted’st no man’s opinions.——Thou blackened’st no man’s character,———devoured’st no man’s bread: gently with faithful Trim behind thee, didst thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy way;——for each one’s service,7 thou hadst a tear,——for each man’s need, thou hadst a shilling.

  Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder,——thy path from thy door to thy bowling green shall never be grown up.—— Whilst there is a rood and a half of land in the Shandy family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle Toby, shall never be demolish’d.

  CHAP. XXXV.

  MY father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was curious; and consequently, he was some time in making it; he had the great good fortune however to set off well, in getting Bruscambille’s prologue1 upon long noses, almost for nothing,—for he gave no more for Bruscambille than three half crowns; owing indeed to the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the moment he laid his hands upon it.—–There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendom, ——said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as lightening,—took Bruscambille into his bosom,——hyed home from Piccadilly to Coleman-street2 with it, as he would have hyed home with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from Bruscambille all the way.

  To those who do not yet know of which gender Bruscambille is,——inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by either,——’twill be no objection against the simile,— to say, That when my father got home, he solaced himself with Bruscambille after the manner, in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with your first mistress,3——that is, from morning even unto night: which by the bye, how delightful so ever it may prove to the inamorato,—is of little, or no entertainment at all, to by-standers,—Take notice, I go no farther with the simile,—my father’s eye was greater than his appetite,—his zeal greater than his knowledge,—–he cool’d—–his affections became divided,——he got hold of Prignitz,—purchased Scroderus, Andrea Paræus, Bouchet’s Evening Conferences, and above all, the great and learned Hafen Slawkenbergius; of which, as I shall have much to say by and bye,——I will say nothing now.

  CHAP. XXXVI.

  OF all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue1 between Pamphagus and Cocles, written by the chaste pen of the great and venerable Erasmus, upon the various uses and seasonable applications of long noses.—— Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, take advantage of any one spot of rising-ground to get astride of your imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to slip on,——let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, to frisk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it,—and to kick it, with long kicks and short kicks, till like Tickletoby’s mare,2 you break a strap or a crupper, and throw his worship into the dirt. ———You need not kill him.——

  ——And pray who was Tickletoby’s mare?—’tis just as discreditable and unscholar-like a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (ab. urb. con.)3 the second Punic war broke out.— Who was Tickletoby’s mare!—Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read,4—or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon5—I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows, I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral6 of the next marbled page (motly7 emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unraval the many opinions, transactions and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.

  CHAP. XXXVII.

  “NIHIL me pœnitet hujus nasi,” quoth Pamphagus;—that is,——“My nose has been the making of me.”——“Nec est cur pœniteat,” replies Cocles; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?”1

  The doctrine, you see, was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity2 of argumentation upon it, which heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to investigate truth and fight for her on all sides.——My father pish’d and pugh’d at first most terribly,—’tis worth something to have a good name. As the dialogue was of Erasmus, my father soon came to himself, and read it over and over again with great application, studying every word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and literal interpretation,—he could still make nothing of it, that way. Mayhaps there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my father.—Learned men, brother Toby, don’t write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.——I’ll study the mystic and the allegoric sense,——here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother.

  My father read on.———

  Now, I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that besides the many nautical uses3 of long noses enumerated by Erasmus, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic conveniences also, for that in a case of distress,—and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, ad excitandum focum, (to stir up the fire.)

  Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had done the seeds of all other knowledge,— so that he had got out his penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he could not scratch some better sense into it.—I’ve got within a single letter, brother Toby, cried my father, of Erasmus his mystic meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all conscience.——— Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on,—I might as well be seven miles off.—I’ve done it,——said my father, snapping his fingers.—See, my dear brother Toby, how I have mended the sense.—But you have marr’d a word, replied my uncle Toby.— My father put on his spectacles,—bit his lip,—and tore out the leaf in a passion.

  CHAP. XXXVIII.

  O Slawkenbergius! thou faithful analyzer of my Disgrázias,1——thou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns, which in one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.——Tell me, Slawkenbergius! what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?—art thou sure thou heard’st it?—which first cried out to thee,—go,—go, Slawkenbergius! dedicate the labours of thy life,—–neglect thy pastimes,—call forth all the powers and faculties of thy nature,——macerate thyself in the service of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject of their noses.

  How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius’s sensorium,——so that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch’d the key,——and whose hand it was that blew the bellows,——as Hafen Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten years,——we can only raise conjectures.

  Slawkenbergius was play�
��d upon, for aught I know, like one of Whitfield’s disciples,2——that is, with such a distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two masters it was, that had been practising upon his instrument,——as to make all reasoning upon it needless.

  ——For in the account which Hafen Slawkenbergius gives the world of his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his life upon this one work—towards the end of his prologomena, which by the bye should have come first, ——but the bookbinder has most injudiciously place dit be twixt the an alitical contents of the book, and the book itself,——he informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the main end and design of his being;——or,——to shorten my translation, for Slawkenbergius’s book is in Latin, and not a little prolix in this passage,——ever since I understood, quoth Slawkenbergius, any thing,——or rather what was what,—–and could perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before;—— have I, Slawkenbergius, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and an unresistible call within me, to gird up myself3 to this undertaking.

  And to do justice to Slawkenbergius, he has entered the list with a stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it, than any one man who had ever entered it before him,——and indeed, in many respects, deserves to be en-nich’d as a prototype for all writers, of voluminous works at least, to model their books by,——for he has taken in, Sir, the whole subject,— examined every part of it, dialectically,—then brought it into full day; dilucidating4 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-stitch’d DIGEST and regular institute of noses; comprehending in it, all that is, or can be needful to be known about them.