The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [165]
This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.—She looks at her outside,—I, at her in—. How is it possible we should agree about her value?
CHAP. XXV
’Tis a point settled,—and I mention it for the comfort of * Confucius,1 who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story—that provided he keeps along the line of his story,—he may go backwards and forwards as he will,—’tis still held to be no digression.
This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself.
*Mr. Shandy is supposed to mean ***** ******, Esq; member for ******,———and not the Chinese Legislator.
CHAP. XXVI
Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils1—(not of the Archbishop of Benevento’s,—I mean of Rabelais’s devils) with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did—when the accident befell me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery,—so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.
Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,—and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet Susannah, in passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook—the cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above,—was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.—I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown;—and so walked up stairs.
One would imagine from this——(though for my own part I somewhat question it)—that my father before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable chapter in the Tristrapædia, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book;—and that is the chapter upon sash-windows, with a bitter Philippick at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.—I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.
First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash-window for good an’ all;—which, considering with what difficulty he composed books,—he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his writing the chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,—and it is this.
——That, in order to render the Tristrapædia complete,—I wrote the chapter myself.
CHAP. XXVII
My father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into the case—all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about, and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon;1 but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bed side, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.
—If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto circumcisionis,——for he had brought up Spencer de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides,2 in order to confront and examine us altogether.—
——If it be but right done, quoth he:—Only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs.——For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.
My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows.3
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