The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [127]
—That is cutting the knot,3 said my father, instead of untying it.—But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into this mystery.
With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.
My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens;4 which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it—for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the forefinger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the libertine he is reclaiming—“You grant me this—and this: and this, and this, I don’t ask of you—they follow of themselves in course.”
So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs—O Garrick!5 what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it.
CHAP. VIII
Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day—was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.—Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other—It makes every thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby—Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can’t prevent the shock—at least it imposes upon our sense of it.1
Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger, as he was coming closer to the point,—had my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him—fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistably impress upon our characters and conducts—heaven is witness! that in the warmest transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour, than what GEORGE or EDWARD2 would have spread around it.
But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him—I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.
He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.
I wish it may answer—replied my uncle Toby, rising up.
CHAP. IX
What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs——what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly—I know no more of calculations than this balluster, said my uncle Toby, (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)—’twas a hundred to one—cried my uncle Toby.——I thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin) you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby.—’twas a meer chance, said my uncle Toby—Then it adds