The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [124]
is a dwarf in more articles than one.--And so much for tearing out of chapters.
Chapter 2.LXI.
--See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to light their pipes!--'Tis abominable, answered Didius; it should not go unnoticed, said doctor Kysarcius--> he was of the Kysarcii of the Low Countries.
Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and Yorick--you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a more proper place, Mr. Yorick--or at least upon a more proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with--'twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if 'twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body--'twas certainly Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards.
--I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemma--let him get off as he can.
I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion--that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me--it came from my head instead of my heart--and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this manner--To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsel'd over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth--is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands--'Tis not preaching the gospel--but ourselves--For my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.- -
As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles--when a single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one's ears towards it--a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected--a word I am ashamed to write--yet must be written--must be read--illegal--uncanonical-- guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your invention for ever, you're where you was--In short, I'll tell it in the next chapter.
Chapter 2.LXII.
Zounds!--Z...ds! cried Phutatorius, partly to himself--and yet high enough to be heard--and what seemed odd, 'twas uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in amazement and one in bodily pain.
One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a third or a fifth, or any other chord in musick--were the most puzzled and perplexed with it--the concord was good in itself--but then 'twas quite out of the key, and no way applicable to the subject started;--so that with all their knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it.
Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their ears to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose--and that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on--a third party began to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny oath--without the sin or substance of one.
Others, and especially one or two who sat next him,
Chapter 2.LXI.
--See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to light their pipes!--'Tis abominable, answered Didius; it should not go unnoticed, said doctor Kysarcius--> he was of the Kysarcii of the Low Countries.
Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and Yorick--you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a more proper place, Mr. Yorick--or at least upon a more proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with--'twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if 'twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body--'twas certainly Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards.
--I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemma--let him get off as he can.
I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion--that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me--it came from my head instead of my heart--and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this manner--To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsel'd over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth--is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands--'Tis not preaching the gospel--but ourselves--For my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.- -
As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles--when a single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one's ears towards it--a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected--a word I am ashamed to write--yet must be written--must be read--illegal--uncanonical-- guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your invention for ever, you're where you was--In short, I'll tell it in the next chapter.
Chapter 2.LXII.
Zounds!--Z...ds! cried Phutatorius, partly to himself--and yet high enough to be heard--and what seemed odd, 'twas uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in amazement and one in bodily pain.
One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a third or a fifth, or any other chord in musick--were the most puzzled and perplexed with it--the concord was good in itself--but then 'twas quite out of the key, and no way applicable to the subject started;--so that with all their knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it.
Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their ears to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose--and that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on--a third party began to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny oath--without the sin or substance of one.
Others, and especially one or two who sat next him,