The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [186]
about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke silence.--
'--My brother Toby,' quoth she, 'is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.'
--Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.
It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.
--That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her misfortune--but she might ask a question.--
My mother never did.--In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.--My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,--but she always forgot.
For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,--a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.
If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,--quoth my mother.
Not a cherry-stone, said my father,--he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else,
--To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition--the reply,-- and the rejoinder, I told you of.
It will be some amusement to him, too,--said my father.
A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.--
--Lord have mercy upon me,--said my father to himself--. . ..
Chapter 3.LXXXIII.
I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,
(four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S)
These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes (Alluding to the first edition.)--In the fifth volume I have been very good,--the precise line I have described in it being this:
(one very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D)
By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,--and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,--I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's devils led me the round you see marked D.--for as for C C C C C they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,--or with my own transgressions at the letters ABD--they vanish into nothing.
In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of Le Fever's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns,--I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.
If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible--by the good leave of his grace of Benevento's devils--but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus:
(straight line across the page)
which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master's ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand or to the left.
This right line,--the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines--
--The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero--
--The best line! say cabbage planters--is the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one given point to another.--
I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth- day suits!
--What a journey!
Pray can you tell me,--that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines--by what mistake--who told them so--or how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line, with the line of Gravitation?
Chapter 3.LXXXIV.
No--I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the devil, would but give me leave--and in another place--(but where, I can't recollect now) speaking
'--My brother Toby,' quoth she, 'is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.'
--Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.
It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.
--That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her misfortune--but she might ask a question.--
My mother never did.--In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.--My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,--but she always forgot.
For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,--a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.
If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,--quoth my mother.
Not a cherry-stone, said my father,--he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else,
--To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition--the reply,-- and the rejoinder, I told you of.
It will be some amusement to him, too,--said my father.
A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.--
--Lord have mercy upon me,--said my father to himself--. . ..
Chapter 3.LXXXIII.
I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,
(four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S)
These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes (Alluding to the first edition.)--In the fifth volume I have been very good,--the precise line I have described in it being this:
(one very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D)
By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,--and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,--I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's devils led me the round you see marked D.--for as for C C C C C they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,--or with my own transgressions at the letters ABD--they vanish into nothing.
In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of Le Fever's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns,--I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.
If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible--by the good leave of his grace of Benevento's devils--but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus:
(straight line across the page)
which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master's ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand or to the left.
This right line,--the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines--
--The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero--
--The best line! say cabbage planters--is the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one given point to another.--
I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth- day suits!
--What a journey!
Pray can you tell me,--that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines--by what mistake--who told them so--or how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line, with the line of Gravitation?
Chapter 3.LXXXIV.
No--I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the devil, would but give me leave--and in another place--(but where, I can't recollect now) speaking