The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [218]
Toby (poor soul!) had well march'd above half a dozen toises with it.
--It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.
The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, as in the first case, with the end of her fore-finger against the end of my uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, along the lines, from Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby's lines reach'd so far, without any effect: For as there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment--it could neither give fire by pulsation--or receive it by sympathy--'twas nothing but smoke.
Whereas, in following my uncle Toby's forefinger with hers, close thro' all the little turns and indentings of his works--pressing sometimes against the side of it--then treading upon its nail--then tripping it up--then touching it here--then there, and so on--it set something at least in motion.
This, tho' slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it, close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place her's close beside it; this at once opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or re-pass, which a person skill'd in the elementary and practical part of love-making, has occasion for--
By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby's--it unavoidably brought the thumb into action--and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in 'ts right place--Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving--to get it press'd a hair breadth of one side out of her way.
Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it was her leg (and no one's else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, which slightly press'd against the calf of his--So that my uncle Toby being thus attack'd and sore push'd on both his wings--was it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?--
--The duce take it! said my uncle Toby.
Chapter 4.XLI.
These attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different kinds; varying from each other, like the attacks which history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to be attacks at all--or if he did, would confound them all together--but I write not to them: it will be time enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for some chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings which my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall be kept so, whilst I have power to preserve any thing), upon the lower corner of which, on the right hand side, there is still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to imagine, were Mrs. Wadman's; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose to have been my uncle Toby's, is absolutely clean: This seems an authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia of the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are unquestionably the very holes, through which it has been pricked up in the sentry-box--
By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its stigmata and pricks, more than all the relicks of the Romish church--always excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered the flesh of St. Radagunda in the desert, which in your road from Fesse to Cluny, the nuns of that name will shew you for love.
Chapter 4.XLII.
I think, an' please
--It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.
The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, as in the first case, with the end of her fore-finger against the end of my uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, along the lines, from Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby's lines reach'd so far, without any effect: For as there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment--it could neither give fire by pulsation--or receive it by sympathy--'twas nothing but smoke.
Whereas, in following my uncle Toby's forefinger with hers, close thro' all the little turns and indentings of his works--pressing sometimes against the side of it--then treading upon its nail--then tripping it up--then touching it here--then there, and so on--it set something at least in motion.
This, tho' slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it, close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place her's close beside it; this at once opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or re-pass, which a person skill'd in the elementary and practical part of love-making, has occasion for--
By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby's--it unavoidably brought the thumb into action--and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in 'ts right place--Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving--to get it press'd a hair breadth of one side out of her way.
Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it was her leg (and no one's else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, which slightly press'd against the calf of his--So that my uncle Toby being thus attack'd and sore push'd on both his wings--was it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?--
--The duce take it! said my uncle Toby.
Chapter 4.XLI.
These attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different kinds; varying from each other, like the attacks which history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to be attacks at all--or if he did, would confound them all together--but I write not to them: it will be time enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for some chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings which my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall be kept so, whilst I have power to preserve any thing), upon the lower corner of which, on the right hand side, there is still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to imagine, were Mrs. Wadman's; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose to have been my uncle Toby's, is absolutely clean: This seems an authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia of the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are unquestionably the very holes, through which it has been pricked up in the sentry-box--
By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its stigmata and pricks, more than all the relicks of the Romish church--always excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered the flesh of St. Radagunda in the desert, which in your road from Fesse to Cluny, the nuns of that name will shew you for love.
Chapter 4.XLII.
I think, an' please