The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

by Laurence Sterne

  Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the confusion in my uncle Toby’s discourse; and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists,—to shew the world what it did not arise from.

  What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of obscurity it is,––-and ever will be,––-and that is the unsteady uses of words which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings.

  It is ten to one, (at Arthur’s)4 whether you have ever read the literary histories of past ages;—if you have,—what terrible battles, ’yclept5 logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink-shed,––-that a good natured man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes.

  Gentle critick! when thou hast weigh’d all this, and consider’d within thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has been pestered and disordered, at one time or other, by this, and this only:——What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about 8`σι`α and ύπόασις in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit;—about essences, and about quintessences;——about substances, and about space.6——What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little meaning, and as indeterminate a sense;––-when thou considers this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby’s perplexities,— thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp;—his glacis and his covered-way;—his ravelin and his half-moon: ’Twas not by ideas,——by heaven! his life was put in jeopardy by words.

  CHAP. III.

  WHEN my uncle Toby got his map of Namur to his mind, he began immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the study of it; for nothing being of more importance to him than his recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to talk upon it without emotion.

  In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did my uncle Toby’s wound, upon his groin, no good,— he was enabled, by the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant,1 together with Gobesius’s2 military architecture and pyroballogy, translated from the Flemish, to form his discourse with passable perspicuity; and, before he was two full months gone,—he was right eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced counterscarp with great order;——but having, by that time, gone much deeper into the art, than what his first motive made necessary,— my uncle Toby was able to cross the Maes and Sambre; make diversions as far as Vauban’s line, the abbey of Salsines,3 &c. and give his visiters as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of the gate of St. Nicolas, where he had the honour to receive his wound.

  But the desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he took a liking to it;—by the same process and electrical assimulation,4 as I told you, thro’ which I ween the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition,5 have the happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d,—be-pictur’d,—be-butterflied, and be-fiddled.

  The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet fountain of science, the greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that, before the first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a fortified town in Italy or Flanders, of which, by one means or other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their demolitions, their improvements and new works, all which he would read with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner.

  In the second year my uncle Toby purchased Ramelli and Cataneo, translated from the Italian;——likewise Stevinus, Marolis, the Chevalier de Ville, Lorini, Coehorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel,6 with almost as many more books of military architecture, as Don Quixote was found to have of chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library.7

  Towards the beginning of the third year,8 which was in August, ninety-nine, my uncle Toby found it necessary to understand a little of projectiles:—And having judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain-head, he began with N. Tartaglia, 9 who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball’s doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line.—This N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing.

  ————Endless is the Search of Truth!

  No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannon-ball did not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he was obliged to set off afresh with old Maltus, and studied him devoutly.—He proceeded next to Gallileo and Torricellius, wherein, by certain geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be a PARABOLA,—or else an HYPERBOLA,—and that the parameter, or latus rectum,10 of the conic section of the said path, was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct ratio, as the whole line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, form’d by the breech upon an horizontal plane;—and that the semi-parameter,———stop! my dear uncle Toby,—stop!—go not one foot further into this thorny and bewilder’d track,—intricate are the steps! intricate are the mases11 of this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this bewitching phantom, KNOWLEDGE, will bring upon thee.—O my uncle! fly––fly––fly from it as from a serpent.12—Is it fit, good-natur’d man! thou should’st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with hectic watchings?—Alas! ’twill exasperate thy symptoms,—check thy perspirations,— evaporate thy spirits,— waste thy animal strength,—dry up thy radical moisture,—bring thee into a costive habit of body, impair thy health,—and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age.13—O my uncle! my uncle Toby.

  CHAP. IV.

  I Would not give a groat1 for that man’s knowledge in pencraft, who does not understand this,——That the best plain narrative in the world, tack’d very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby,—would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter,—though I was in the middle of my story.

  ——Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters.—Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than beauty.—This is to be understood cum grano salis;2 but be it as it will,——as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the apostrophe cool, than any thing else,—’tis not very material whether upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.

  In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section, angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force.

  It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt,3——to dismiss his barber unshaven,——and to allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times dressing how it went on: When, lo!—all of a sudden, for the change was as quick as lightening, he began to sigh heavily for his recovery,—complain’d to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon;—and one morning as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate with him upon the protraction of his cure, which, he told him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time:—He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years melancholy imprisonment;—adding, that had it not been for the kind looks, and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,—he had long since sunk under his mis
fortunes.— My father was by: My uncle Toby’s eloquence brought tears into his eyes;—’twas unexpected.—My uncle Toby, by nature, was not eloquent;——it had the greater effect.—The Surgeon was confounded;—not that there wanted grounds for such, or greater, marks of impatience,—but ’twas unexpected too; in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in my uncle Toby’s carriage;—he had never once dropp’d one fretful or discontented word;—he had been all patience,—all submission.

  —We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;——but we oftener treble the force:—The Surgeon was astonished;—but much more so, when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his healing up the wound directly,——or sending for Monsieur Ronjat,4 the King’s Serjeant-Surgeon, to do it for him.

  The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature;— the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister passion to it: These my uncle Toby had in common with his species;——and either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of doors;—but I have told you before that nothing wrought with our family after the common way;—and from the time and manner in which this eager desire shew’d itself in the present case, the penetrating reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my uncle Toby’s head:—There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when that’s done, ’twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, where we left my uncle Toby in the middle of his sentence.

  CHAP. V.

  WHEN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,——or, in other words, when his Hobby Horse grows head-strong,——farewell cool reason and fair discretion!1

  My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much—he told him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate;2 and that if no fresh exfoliation happen’d, which there was no signs of,— it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many olympiads twelve hours before, would have convey’d an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Toby’s mind.3—The succession of his ideas was now rapid,—he broil’d with impatience to put his design in execution;—and so, without consulting further with any soul living,——which, by the bye, I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice,—he privately ordered Trim, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot and four to be at the door exactly by twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change.4——So leaving a bank-note upon the table for the surgeon’s care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s,——he pack’d up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c. —and, by the help of a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other,——my uncle Toby embark’d for Shandy-Hall.

  The reason, or rather the rise, of this sudden demigration,5was as follows:

  The table in my uncle Toby’s room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c. about him,—being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crouded upon it;—he had the accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers;—and as the dice took a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling,—he thrust Monsieur Blondel off the table and Count de Pagan o’top of him.

  ’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of redressing all these evils by himself,—he rung his bell for his man Trim;— Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, pri’thee see what confusion I have here been making.—I must have some better contrivance, Trim.—Can’st not thou take my rule and measure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again?—Yes, an’ please your Honour, replied Trim, making a bow;——but I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country seat, where,— as your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage this matter to a T.

  I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle Toby’s, who went by the name of Trim, had been a Corporal in my uncle’s own company,——his real name was James Butler,6——but having got the nick-name of Trim in the regiment, my uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name.

  The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by awound on his left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair of Namur;—and as the fellow was well beloved in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle Toby took him for his servant, and of excellent use was he, attending my uncle Toby in the camp and in his quarters as valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection.

  My uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge:— For Corporal Trim, (for so, for the future, I shall call him) by four years occasional attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans, &c. exclusive and besides what he gained Hobby-Horsically, as a body-servant, Non Hobby-Horsical per se;——had become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strong-holds as my uncle Toby himself.

  I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal Trim’s character,––and it is the only dark line in it.—The fellow lov’d to advise,—or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going,—you had no hold of him;—he was voluble;––the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim’s manner, interceeding so strong in behalf of his elocution,—that tho’ you might have been incommoded,—you could not well be angry. My uncle Toby was seldom either the one or the other with him,—or, at least, this fault, in Trim, broke no squares7 with ’em. My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the man;—and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant,——but as a humble friend,—he could not bear to stop his mouth.——Such was Corporal Trim.

  If I durst presume, continued Trim, to give your Honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this matter.—Thou art welcome, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,—speak,—speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without fear. Why then, replied Trim, (not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a country lout, but) stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division.——I think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little for-wards,—and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was pinn’d against the hangings,—I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment,—that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and horn-works make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it, were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued Trim, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography——(call it ichnography,8 quoth my uncle)—of the townorcitadel, your Honour was pleased to sitdown before,9— and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your Honour’s mind.—I dare say thou would’st Trim, quoth my uncle.—For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the polygon,10 with its exact lines and angles,——that I could do very well, quoth my uncle.—I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me the proper depth and breadth,—I can to a hair’s breadth, Trim, replied my uncle,—I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign11 for the counterscarp,—very rig
ht, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,—and when I had sloped them to your mind,— an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods,—and as your Honour knows they should be,——and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too;—the best engineers call them gazons, Trim, said my uncle Toby;—whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied Trim, your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or stone;—— I know they are, Trim, insome respects,—quoth my uncle Toby, nodding his head;—for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right on wards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at St. Nicolas’s Gate) and facilitate the passage over it.

  Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal Trim, better than any officer in his Majesty’s service;——but would your Honour please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse, and make fortifications for you something like a tansy,12 with all their batteries, saps, ditches, and pallisadoes, that it should be worth all the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.

  My uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet13 as Trim went on;— but it was not a blush of guilt,—of modesty,—or of anger;—it was a blush of joy;—he was fired with Corporal Trim’s project and description.— Trim! said my uncle Toby, thou hast said enough.—We might begin the campaign, continued Trim, on the very day that his Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish ’em town by town as fast as——Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, say no more.—Your Honour, continued Trim, might sit in your arm-chair, (pointing to it) this fine weather, giving me your orders, and I would——Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby.——Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure and good pastime,—but good air, and good exercise, and good health,—and your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, Trim,—quoth my uncle Toby, (putting his hand into his breeches-pocket)—I like thy project mightily;—and if your Honour pleases, I’ll, this moment, go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down with us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-ax, and a couple of———Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture,——and thrusting a guinea into Trim’s hand.——Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more;––but go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.