The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

by Laurence Sterne

  CHAP. XIX.

  ’Tis a pity, Trim, said my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works,—that we have not a couple of field pieces to mount in the gorge of that new redoubt;——’twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on that side quite complete:——get me a couple cast, Trim.

  Your honour shall have them, replied Trim, before to-morrow morning.

  It was the joy of Trim’s heart,—nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle Toby in his campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last crown, he would have sate down and hammered it into a paderero to have prevented1 a single wish in his Master. The corporal had already,—what with cutting off the ends of my uncle Toby’s spouts—hacking and chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters,—melting down his pewter shaving bason,—and going at last, like Lewis the fourteenth, on to the top of the church, for spare ends, &c.2——he had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three demi-culverins into the field; my uncle Toby’s demand for two more pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages.

  He had dismantled every sash window in my uncle Toby’s house long before, in the very same way,—though not always in the same order; for sometimes the pullies had been wanted, and not the lead,—so then he began with the pullies,—and the pullies being picked out, then the lead became useless,—and so the lead went to pot too.3

  ——A great MORAL might be picked handsomly out of this, but I have not time—’tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began,’twas equally fatal to the sash window.

  CHAP. XX.

  THE corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she could;—true courage is not content with coming off so.——The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the train,—’twas no matter,——had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have happened,— at least in Susannah’s hands;——How would your honours have behaved?——Hedetermined atonce, not to take shelter behind Susannah,—but to give it; and with this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to lay the whole manœuvre before my uncle Toby.

  My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of Steenkirk,1 and of the strange conduct of count Solmes2 in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the loss of the day.

  There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow,—they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic writer;—I mean of ancient days.———

  Trim, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand striking a-cross it at right angles, made a shift to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;3—and the story being told,—the dialogue went on as follows.

  CHAP. XXI.

  ——I would be picquetted1 to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded Susannah’s story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,—’twas my fault, an’ please your honour,—not hers.

  Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the table,——if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done,—’tis I certainly who deserve the blame,——you obeyed your orders.

  Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the retreat,——he had saved thee;——Saved! cried Trim, interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence for him after his own fashion,——he had saved five battalions, an’ please your reverence, every soul of them:——there was Cutts’s—continued the corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand,——there was Cutts’s,——Mackay’s,——Angus’s,——Graham’s——and Leven’s,2 all cut to pieces;——and so had the English life-guards too, had it not been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and received the enemy’s fire in their faces, before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket,——they’ll go to heaven for it,—added Trim.— Trim is right, said my uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick,——he’s perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so strait, and the French had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and fell’d trees laid this way and that to cover them; (as they always have.)—— Count Solmes should have sent us,——we would have fired muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives.——There was nothing to be done for the horse:——he had his foot shot off however for his pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landen.3—Poor Trim got his wound there, quoth my uncle Toby.——’Twas owing, an’ please your honour, entirely to count Solmes,——had we drub’d them soundly at Steenkirk, they would not have fought us at Landen.——Possibly not,——Trim, said my uncle Toby;——though if they have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment’s time to intrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever at you.——There is no way but to march cooly up to them,——receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell——Ding dong, added Trim.——Horse and foot, said my uncle Toby.——Helter skelter, said Trim.——Right and left, cried my uncle Toby.——Blood an’ ounds, shouted the corporal;——the battle raged,——Yorick drew his chairalittle to one side for safety, and after a moment’s pause, my uncle Toby sinking his voice a note,—resumed the discourse as follows.

  CHAP. XXII.

  KING William, said my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly provoked at count Solmes for disobeying his orders, that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after.——I fear, answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count.——But ’twould be singularly hard in this case, continued he, if corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite to count Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace;——too oft in this world, do things take that train.——I would spring a mine, cried my uncle Toby, rising up,——and blow up my fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see it.—— Trim directed a slight,——but a grateful bow towards his master,——and so the chapter ends.

  CHAP. XXIII.

  ——Then, Yorick, replied my uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast,——and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us.——And Susannah, an’ please your honour, said Trim, shall be put in the rear.——’Twas an excellent disposition,—and in this order, without either drums beating, or coloursflying, they marched slowly from my uncle Toby’s house to Shandy-hall.

  ——I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door,—instead of the sash-weights, I had cut off the church-spout, as I once thought to have done.—You have cut off spouts enow, replied Yorick.——

  CHAP. XXIV.

  AS many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him so ever in different airs and attitudes,—not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.—There was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing,—it baffled, Sir, all calculations.——The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled,—that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether di
fferent from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.—In other words,’twas a different object,—and in course was differently considered:

  This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.—She looks at her outside,—I, at her in—. How is it possible we should agree about her value?

  CHAP. XXV.

  ’Tis a point settled,—and I mention it for the comfort of *Confucius,1 who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story—that provided he keeps along the line of his story,—he may go backwards and forwards as he will,—’tis still held to be no digression.

  This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself.

  CHAP. XXVI.

  FIFTY thousand pannier loads of devils1—(not of the Archbishop of Benevento’s,—I mean of Rabelais’s devils) with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did—when the accident befell me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery,—so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.

  Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,—and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet Susannah, in passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook—the cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above,—was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.—I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown;—and so walked up stairs.

  One would imagine from this——(though for my own part I somewhat question it)—that my father before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable chapter in the Tristrapœdia, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book;—and that is the chapter upon sash-windows, with a bitter Philippick2 at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.—I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.

  First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash-window for good an’ all;—which, considering with what difficulty he composed books,—he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his writing the chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,—and it is this.

  ——That, in order to render the Tristrapœdia complete,—I wrote the chapter myself.

  CHAP. XXVII.

  MY father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into the case—all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about, and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon;1 but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading desk, she took it for granted’twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bed side, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.

  —–If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto circumcisionis,——for he had brought up Spencer2 de Legibus Hebrœorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides,3 in order to confront and examine us altogether.—

  ——If it be but right done, quoth he:—Only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs.——For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr.Slop.

  My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows.4

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  * * *——Very well,—said my father,* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *—nay, if it has that convenience ——and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews,—he rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded,—he shut the book, and walked down stairs.—Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it—if the EGYPTIANS,—the SYRIANS,—the PHOENICIANS,— the ARABIANS,—the CAPADOCIANS,5——if the COLCHI, and TROGLODYTES did it——if SOLON and PYTHAGORAS6 submitted,—what is TRISTRAM?——Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter?

  CHAP. XXVIII.

  DEAR Yorick, said my father smiling, (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stept first into the parlour)—this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his religious rites.—Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner.—But he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick.—There has been certainly, continued my father, the duce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed.—That, you are a better judge of than I, replied Yorick.—Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both:—the trine and sextil aspects have jumped awry,—or the opposite of their ascendents have not hit it, as they should,—or the lords of the genitures1 (as they call them) have been at bo-peep,—or something has been wrong above, or below with us.

  ’Tis possible, answered Yorick.—But is the child, cried my uncle Toby, the worse?—The Troglodytes say not, replied my father.—And your theologists, Yorick, tell us—Theologically? said Yorick,—or speaking after the manner of *apothecaries?— †statesmen?—or ‡washer-women?2

  ——I’m not sure, replied my father,—but they tell us, brother Toby, he’s the better for it.——Provided, said Yorick, you travel him into Egypt.——Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when he sees the Pyramids.——

  Now every word of this, quoth my uncle Toby, is Arabick to me.——I wish, said Yorick,’twas so, to half the world.

  —§ILUS,3 continued my father, circumcised his whole army one morning.—Not without a court martial? cried my uncle Toby.——Though the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle Toby’s remark, but turning to Yorick,—are greatly divided still who Ilus was;—some say Saturn;—some the supream Being;—others, no more than a brigadier general under Pharoah-neco.——Let him be who he will, said my uncle Toby, I know not by what article of war he could justify it.

  The controvertists, answered my father, assign two and twenty different reasons for it:—others indeed, who have drawn their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the greatest part of them.—But then again, our best polemic divines4—I wish there was not a polemic divine, said Yorick, in the kingdom;—one ounce of practical divinity5—is worth a painted ship load of all their reverences have imported these fifty years.—Pray, Mr.Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby,—do tell me what a polemic divine is.——The best description, captain Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of ’em, replied Yorick, in the account of the battle fought single hands betwixt Gymnast and captain Tripet;6 which I have in my pocket.——I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle Toby earnestly.—You shall, said Yorick.—And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door,—and I know the description of a battle, will do the poor fellow more good than his supper,—I beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in.—With all my soul, said my father.—— Trim came in, erect and happy as an emperour; and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from his right-hand coat pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows.

  CHAP. XXIX.

  ——“which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the assailant: all this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and therefore, making
as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his short sword by his thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup and performing the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards his horse’s head,—Now (said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot.——Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,—and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,—I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body and overturning it upside-down, and foreside back, without touching any thing, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper——”