The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [157]
Chapter 3.XXXVI.
The whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us;--the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the school-men confounded the task, merely (as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies.
Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle, 'Quod omne animal post coitum est triste.'
Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but whether vice versa, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness--or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.--So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of 'em threaten his destruction,--'twill be all that is needful to be done upon that head.--
Chapter 3.XXXVII.
The description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter;--his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;--he never mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question,-- aside.--. . .. It was at the siege of Limerick, an' please your honour, replied the corporal, making a bow.
The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention.--Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried my father, mentally.--By Heaven! continued he, communing still with himself, it would puzzle an Oedipus to bring it in point.--
I believe, an' please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off;--And the geneva, Trim, added my uncle Toby , which did us more good than all--I verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an' please your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them too.--The noblest grave, corporal! cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in.--But a pitiful death for him! an' please your honour, replied the corporal.
All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites of the Colchi and Troglodites had been before to my uncle Toby; my father could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile.
my uncle Toby, turning are Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun it,--and so settled the point for my father at once.
Chapter 3.XXXVIII.
It was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was upon us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better.--My father drew in his lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as slowly as he possibly could.--
--It was Heaven's mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal's head to maintain that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its ground