The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [212]
But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible and insensible, gets vent--in this land, my dear Eugenius--in this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing my ink- horn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with all the meanders of Julia's track in quest of her Diego, in full view of my study window--if thou comest not and takest me by the hand--
What a work it is likely to turn out!
Let us begin it.
Chapter 4.XXVI.
It is with Love as with Cuckoldom--
But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the Comparison may be imparted to him any hour in the day)--I'll just mention it, and begin in good earnest.
The thing is this.
That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best--I'm sure it is the most religious--for I begin with writing the first sentence--and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows the whole.
I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up--catching the idea, even sometimes before it half way reaches me--
I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man.
Pope and his Portrait (Vid. Pope's Portrait.) are fools to me--no martyr is ever so full of faith or fire--I wish I could say of good works too--but I have no Zeal or Anger--or Anger or Zeal-- And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name--the errantest Tartuffe, in science--in politics--or in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting, than what he will read in the next chapter.
Chapter 4.XXVII.
--Bon jour!--good morrow!--so you have got your cloak on betimes!--but 'tis a cold morning, and you judge the matter rightly--'tis better to be well mounted, than go o' foot--and obstructions in the glands are dangerous--And how goes it with thy concubine--thy wife,--and thy little ones o' both sides? and when did you hear from the old gentleman and lady--your sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins--I hope they have got better of their colds, coughs, claps, tooth-aches, fevers, stranguries, sciaticas, swellings, and sore eyes.
--What a devil of an apothecary! to take so much blood--give such a vile purge--puke--poultice--plaister--night-draught--clyster--blister?--And why so many grains of calomel? santa Maria! and such a dose of opium! peri- clitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to tail--By my great- aunt Dinah's old black velvet mask! I think there is no occasion for it.
Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off and on, before she was got with child by the coachman--not one of our family would wear it after. To cover the Mask afresh, was more than the mask was worth--and to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be half seen through, was as bad as having no mask at all--
This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that in all our numerous family, for these four generations, we count no more than one archbishop, a Welch judge, some three or four aldermen, and a single mountebank--
In the sixteenth century, we boast of no less than a dozen alchymists.
Chapter 4.XXVIII.
'It is with Love as with Cuckoldom'--the suffering party is at least the third, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing about the matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen words for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the human frame, is Love--may be Hatred, in that--Sentiment