The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

by Laurence Sterne

  CHAP. VI.

  WHEN Tom, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it, but a poor negro girl,1 with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies—not killing them.——’Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle Toby—she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy——

  ——She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor friendless slut that would melt a heart of stone, said Trim; and some dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall be told you with the rest of Tom’s story, for it makes a part of it——

  Then do not forget, Trim, said my uncle Toby.

  A Negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the Corporal (doubtingly).

  I am not much versed, Corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me——

  ——It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the Corporal.

  It would so; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an’ please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?

  I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby———

  ——Only, cried the Corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her——

  ——’Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,—— which recommends her to protection——and her brethren with her; ’tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now——where it may be hereafter, heaven knows!—— but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly.

  ——God forbid, said the Corporal.

  Amen, responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon his heart.

  The Corporal returned to his story, and went on———but with an embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sportable2 key of his voice which gave sense and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and aiding Nature at the same time with his left arm a-kimbo on one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the other—the Corporal got as near the note as he could; and in that attitude, continued his story.

  CHAP. VII.

  AS Tom, an’ please your honour, had no business at that time with the Moorish girl, he passed on into the room beyond to talk to the Jew’s widow about love——and his pound of sausages; and being, as I have told your honour, an open, cheary hearted lad, with his character wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the table, and sat down.

  There is no thing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your honour, whilst she is making sausages——So Tom began a discourse upon them; first gravely,——“as how they were made——with what meats, herbs and spices”—Then a little gayly—as, “With what skins——and if they never burst—— Whether the largest were not the best”——and so on—taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, rather under, than over;——that he might have room to act in——

  It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim’s shoulder, That Count de la Motte lost the battle of Wynendale:1 he pressed too speedily into the wood; which if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed her example; it was so late in the year, continued my uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perished in the open field.——

  ——Why therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?2—My uncle Toby mused.——

  Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply exactly to his mind——my uncle Toby said nothing at all; and the Corporal finished his story.

  As Tom perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them.——First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her hand——then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one——then, by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them——and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.——

  ——Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it.

  She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage:——Tom instantly laid hold of another——

  But seeing Tom’s had more gristle in it——

  She signed the capitulation——and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.

  CHAP. VIII.

  ALL womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.1——

  ——I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby, better than the thing itself——

  ——Because your honour, quoth the Corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure.

  I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world——and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of AMBITION,2and intrench the lives and fortunes of the few, from the plun-derings of the many——whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, Corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling as to face about and march.

  In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and march’d firmly as at the head of his company——and the faithful Corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first step——march’d close behind him down the avenue.

  ——Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother——by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation.

  I dare say, quoth my mother——But stop, dear Sir——for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion——and what my father did say upon it——with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, commented and discanted upon—or to say it all in a word, shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart——I say, by Posterity—and care not, if I repeat the word again—for what has this book done more than the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub,3 that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?

  I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more——every thing presses on ——whilst thou art twisting that lock,——see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.4——

  ——Heaven have mercy upon us both!

  CHAP. IX.

  NOW, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation1——I would not give a groat.

  CHAP. X.

  MY mother had gone with her left arm t
wisted in my father’s right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor Slop was over thrown by Obadiah on the coach-horse: as this was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman’s house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle Toby and the Corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about——“Let us just stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their first entry——it will not detain us, added my father, a single minute:”——No matter, if it be ten minutes, quoth my mother.

  ——It will not detain us half a one; said my father.

  The Corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother Tom and the Jew’s widow: the story went on—and on ——it had episodes in it——it came back, and went on—— and on again; there was no end of it——the reader found it very long——

  ——G— help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to as many devils as chose to accept of them.

  When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out.

  Curiosity governs the first moment; and the second moment is all œconomy to justify the expence of the first——and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment—’tis a point of HONOUR.

  I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience; but that VIRTUE methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles which HONOUR has left him upon the earth.

  My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries to the end of Trim’s story; and from thence to the end of my uncle Toby’s panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, that instead of marching up to Mrs. Wadman’s door, they both faced about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his expectation—he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of humour which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from that of all other men.

  CHAP. XI.

  ——“NOW what can their two noddles be about?” cried my father – – &c. – – – –

  I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications——

  ——Not on Mrs. Wadman’s premises! cried my father, stepping back——

  I suppose not: quoth my mother.

  I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts———

  ——They are foolish things——said my mother.

  Now she had a way, which by the bye, I would this moment give away my purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your reverences would imitate—and that was never to refuse her assent and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no ideas to the principal word1 or term of art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her2—but no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together—and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it.

  This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than could have done the most petulant contradiction ——the few which survived were the better for the cuvetts——

  —“They are foolish things;” said my mother.

  ——Particularly the cuvetts;3 replied my father.

  ’Twas enough—he tasted the sweet of triumph—and went on.

  —Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. Wadman’s premises, said my father, partly correcting himself—because she is but tenant for life——

  ——That makes a great difference—said my mother——

  —In a fool’s head, replied my father——

  Unless she should happen to have a child—said my mother——

  ——But she must persuade my brother Toby first to get her one—

  ——To be sure, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother.

  ——Though if it comes to persuasion—–said my father— Lord have mercy upon them.

  Amen: said my mother, piano.

  Amen: cried my father, fortissimè.

  Amen: said my mother again—–but with such a sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my father—he instantly took out his almanack; but before he could untie it, Yorick’s congregation coming out of church, became a full answer to one half of his business with it—and my mother telling him it was a sacrament day4—left him as little in doubt, as to the other part—He put his almanack into his pocket.

  The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of ways and means, could not have returned home, with a more embarrassed look.

  CHAP. XII.

  UPON looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year: nor is it a poor creeping digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as well going on in the king’s highway) which will do the business——no; if it is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a frisky subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be caught, but by rebound.

  The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the service: FANCY is capricious—WIT must not be searched for—and PLEASANTRY (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was an empire to be laid at her feet.

  ——The best way for a man, is to say his prayers——

  Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well ghostly as bodily—for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse after he has said them than before—for other purposes, better.

  For my own part there is not away either moralor mechanical under heaven that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in this case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself, and arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of her own faculties——

  ——I never could make them an inch the wider——

  Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the body, by temperance, soberness and chastity:1These are good, quoth I, in themselves—they are good, absolutely;—they are good, relatively;—they are good for health— they are good for happiness in this world—they are good for happiness in the next——

  In short, they were good for every thing but the thing wanted; and there they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven made it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it courage; but then that sniveling virtue of Meekness2 (as my father would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you started.

  Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have found to answer so well as this——

  ——Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me, merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing that all mankind should write as well as myself.

  ——Which they certainly will, when they think as little.

  CHAP. XIII.

  NOW in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous1 through my pen——

  Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetapho
rical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift2 out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator3 to the end of the chapter, unless something be done——

  ——I never stand confering with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of snuff or a stride or two across the room will not do the business for me—I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt—put on a better coat—send for my last wig—put my topaz ring4 upon my finger; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.

  Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider, Sir, as every man chuses to be present at the shaving of his own beard (though there is no rule without an exception) and unavoidably sits overagainst himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand in it—the Situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put into the brain.——

  ——I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man, are seven years more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity—How Homer could write with so long a beard, I don’t know——and as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little care——But let us return to the Toilet.

  Ludovicus Sorbonensis5 makes this entirely an affair of the body (εξωlεζιχnπζaοις) as he calls it——but he is deceived: the soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him—so that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself.