The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [80]
in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d'ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it--I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives-- running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end;--some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks--others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs.--Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way.--What confusion!--what mistakes!- -fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears--admirable!--trusting to the passions excited--in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart-- instead of measuring them by a quadrant.
In the fore-ground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round--against the stream of corruption- -by Heaven!--instead of with it.
In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worse--feeling his patient's pulse, instead of his apothecary's--a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his knees in tears--drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness;-- offering a fee--instead of taking one.
In that spacious Hall, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a damn'd, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way!--kicking it out of the great doors, instead of, in--and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind:--perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still--a litigated point fairly hung up;--for instance, Whether John o'Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o'Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not--rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months--and if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an Action should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein,--such as feints,--forced marches,-- surprizes--ambuscades--mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides-- might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.
As for the Clergy--No--if I say a word against them, I'll be shot.--I have no desire; and besides, if I had--I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject--with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, 'twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account--and therefore 'tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up--and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment.--But mark--I say, reported to be--for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.
This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith make appear.
I hate set dissertations--and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things
In the fore-ground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round--against the stream of corruption- -by Heaven!--instead of with it.
In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worse--feeling his patient's pulse, instead of his apothecary's--a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his knees in tears--drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness;-- offering a fee--instead of taking one.
In that spacious Hall, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a damn'd, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way!--kicking it out of the great doors, instead of, in--and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind:--perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still--a litigated point fairly hung up;--for instance, Whether John o'Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o'Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not--rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months--and if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an Action should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein,--such as feints,--forced marches,-- surprizes--ambuscades--mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides-- might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.
As for the Clergy--No--if I say a word against them, I'll be shot.--I have no desire; and besides, if I had--I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject--with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, 'twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account--and therefore 'tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up--and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment.--But mark--I say, reported to be--for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.
This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith make appear.
I hate set dissertations--and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things