The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [131]
would new fore front his house, and add a new wing to make it even--There was a fine water-mill on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other side of the river in full view to answer it- -But above all things in the world, he would inclose the great Ox-moor, and send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels.
But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thing--and in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the one or the other.
This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though 'tis certain my father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my brother's education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the second creation of actions in the Missisippi-scheme, in which he was an adventurer--yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning it likewise to some account.
But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their claims--like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project at this crisis--the two old projects, the Ox-moor and my Brother, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mind--which of the two should be set o'going first.
--People may laugh as they will--but the case was this.
It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage--not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise and change of so much air--but simply for the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been abroad--tantum valet, my father would say, quantum sonat.
Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgence--to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore--and thereby make an example of him, as the first Shandy unwhirl'd about Europe in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad--would be using him ten times worse than a Turk.
On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard.
Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds-- it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation.
It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy-family ever since the middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by the projected wind-mill spoken of above--and for all these reasons seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as the ground they tread on--it had all along most shamefully been overlook'd; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.
However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground--nor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father's doing--he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair--till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed
But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thing--and in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the one or the other.
This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though 'tis certain my father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my brother's education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the second creation of actions in the Missisippi-scheme, in which he was an adventurer--yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning it likewise to some account.
But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their claims--like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project at this crisis--the two old projects, the Ox-moor and my Brother, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mind--which of the two should be set o'going first.
--People may laugh as they will--but the case was this.
It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage--not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise and change of so much air--but simply for the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been abroad--tantum valet, my father would say, quantum sonat.
Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgence--to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore--and thereby make an example of him, as the first Shandy unwhirl'd about Europe in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad--would be using him ten times worse than a Turk.
On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard.
Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds-- it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation.
It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy-family ever since the middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by the projected wind-mill spoken of above--and for all these reasons seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as the ground they tread on--it had all along most shamefully been overlook'd; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.
However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground--nor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father's doing--he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair--till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed