The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

by Laurence Sterne

  Thus,---thus my fellow labourers and associates in this great harvest of our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending, as these do, in ical) have, for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping upwards towards that Aχμή4 of their perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off.

  When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of writings whatsoever;—the want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading;---and that in time, As war begets poverty, poverty peace,5——must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge,---and then——we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be exactly where we started.

  ———Happy! thrice happy Times! I only wish that the æra of my begetting, as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter’d,--or that it could have been put off with any convenience to my father or mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance.———

  But I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes out of his tobacco pipe.

  His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appear’d too many strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he derived the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I have, therefore, oft times wondered, that my father, tho’ I believe he had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of excentricity in my course when I was a boy,—should never once endeavour to account for them in this way; for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original character throughout;——I mean the males,—the females had no character at all,6—except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH,7 who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of Christian names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.

  It will seem very strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my father and my uncle Toby. One would have thought, that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the family at first,—as is generally the case:—But nothing ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lye waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its office.———Observe, I determine nothing upon this.———My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic Fescue,8—or in the decisive Manner of Tacitus,9 who outwits himself and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive;--to them I write,—— and by them I shall be read,——if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long, to the very end of the world.

  Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself, so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows:

  My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude,—possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extream and unparallel’d modesty of nature;10——tho’ I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing; and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or acquir’d.———Which ever way my uncle Toby came by it, ’twas nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,—but to things;——and this kind of modesty so possess’d him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours.

  You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this from this very source;----that he had spent a great part of his time in converse with your sex; and that, from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistable,---he had acquired this amiable turn of mind.

  I wish I could say so,----for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my father’s wife and my mother,——my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words with the sex in as many years;——no, he got it, Madam, by a blow.——A blow!---Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur,11 which struck full upon my uncle Toby’s groin.---Which way could that effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;----but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.——’Tis for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it in its proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you:----’Till then, it is not in my power to give further light into this matter, or say more than what I have said already,-----That my uncle Toby was a gentleman of unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and rarified by the constant heat of a little family-pride,-----they both so wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the affair of my aunt DINAH touch’d upon, but with the greatest emotion. ——The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face;---but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do,----the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would set my uncle Toby’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him any thing in the world, only to let the story rest.

  My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle Toby, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of another, to have made my uncle Toby’s heart easy in this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power.

  ——My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,— speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets12 to Copernicus:—The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, call’d so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be call’d the Shandean System, after his.

  In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say, Copernicus, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed, as they thought, to truth.— Amicus Plato, my father would say, construing the words to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus Plato; that is, DINAH was my aunt;—sed magis amica veritas——but TRUTH is my sister.13

  This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fr
aternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace recorded,———and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end without some hint at it.

  For God’s sake, my uncle Toby would cry,——and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother Shandy,—do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;——how can you,———how can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family:——What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.—— Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family:——— The life of a family!—my uncle Toby would say, throwing himself back in his arm-chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg.——Yes the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many thousands of ’em are there every year that comes cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)——and consider’d as nothing but common air, incompetition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my uncle Toby, would answer,——every such instance is downright MURDER, let who will commit it.——There lies your mistake, no my father would reply;——for, in Foro Scientiæ14 there is such thing as MURDER,——’tis only DEATH,15 brother.

  My uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of Lillabullero. 16——You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprised him;——but especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offer’d.

  As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this particular species of argument, —I here take the liberty to do it myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every other species of argument, ———as the Argumentum ad Verecundiam,17 ex Absurdo,18 ex Fortiori,19 or any other argument whatsoever:——And, secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head is laid to rest,----that their learned grand-father’s head had been busied to as much purpose once, as other people’s:—That he had invented a name,---and generously thrown it into the Treasury of the Ars Logica,20 for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And if the end of disputation21 is more to silence than convince,--they may add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.

  I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it be known and distinguished by the name and title of the Argumentum Fistulatorium,22 and no other;---and that it rank hereafter with the Argumentum Baculinum,23 and the Argu-mentum ad Crumenam,24 and for ever hereafter be treated of in the same chapter.

  As for the Argumentum Tripodium,25 which is never used but by the woman against the man;---and the Argumentum ad Rem, which, contrarywise, is made use of by the man only against the woman:—As these two are enough in conscience for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best answer to the other, ---let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves.

  CHAP. XXII.

  THE learned Bishop Hall,1 I mean the famous Dr. Joseph Hall, who was Bishop of Exeter in King James the first’s reign, tells us in one of his Decads, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at London, in the year 1610, by John Beal, dwelling in Aldersgate-street, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to commend himself;”---and I really think it is so.

  And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;---I think it is full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head.

  This is precisely my situation.

  For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a masterstroke of digressive skill,2 the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader,--not for want of penetration in him,—but because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression;---and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far and as often too as any writer in Great-Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so, that my main business does not stand still in my absence.

  I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of my uncle Toby’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt Dinah and the coachman came a-cross us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this, you perceive that the drawing of my uncle Toby’s character went on gently all the time;---not the great contours of it,—that was impossible,---but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, were here and there touch’d in, as we went along, so that you are much better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before.

  By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.

  This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;---though I own it suggested the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries have come from some such trifling hints.

  Digressions, incontestably, are the sun-shine;——they are the life, the soul of reading;---take them out of this book for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them;— one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;-----he steps forth like a bridegroom,3—bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.4

  All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress, in this matter, is truely pitiable: For, if he begins a digression,---from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock-still;—and if he goes on with his main work,----then there is an end of his digression.

  ——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;---and, what’s more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

  CHAP. XXIII.

  I Have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.—Accordingly I set off thus.

  If the fixure of Momus’s glass,1 in the human breast, according to the proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,——first, This foolish consequence would certainly have followed,--That the very wisest and the very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-money2 every day of our lives.

  And, secondly, That had the said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical3 bee-hive, and look’d in,--view’d the soul stark naked;---observ’d all her motions,—her machinations;—traced all her maggots from their first engendering to their crawling forth;---watched her loose in her frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.——then taken your pen and ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn to:---But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this planet,—in the planet Mercury 4(belike) it may be so, if not better still for him;----for there the intense heat of the country, which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than equal to that of
red hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them for the climate (which is the final cause);5 so that, betwixt them both, all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot);---so, that till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the rays of light, in passing through them, become so monstrously refracted,---or return reflected from their surfaces in such transverse lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen thro’;---his soul might as well, unless, for more6 ceremony,---or the trifling advantage which the umbilical point gave her,----might, upon all other accounts, I say, as well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house.7