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It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.

——That she is not a woman of science, my father would say—is her misfortune—but she might ask a question.—

My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.——My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,—but she always forgot.

For these reasons a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes, (as in the affair of the breeches) and then went on again.

If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my mother.

Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else.

——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition,—the reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you of.

It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my father.

A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.——

——Lord have mercy upon me,—said my father to himself * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.

CHAP. XL

I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegitable diet, with a few of the cold seeds,1 I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,

Inv.T.S

Scul. TS2

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes.——In the fifth volume I have been very good,——the precise line I have described in it being this:

By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,—and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,—I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse’s devils led me the round you see marked D.—for as for c c c c c they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,—or with my own transgressions at the letters A B D—they vanish into nothing.

In this last volume I have done better still—for from the end of Le Fever’s episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby’s campaigns,—I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.

If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible——by the good leave of his grace of Benevento’s devils——but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus;

which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writingmaster’s ruler, (borrowed for that purpose) turning neither to the right hand or to the left.

This right line,—the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines3——

——The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero4——

——The best line! say cabbage-planters5——is the shortest line, says Archimedes,6 which can be drawn from one given point to another.——

I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart in your next birth-day suits!7

——What a journey!

Pray can you tell me,—that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines——by what mistake——who told them so——or how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line, with the line of GRAVITATION.

End of the SIXTH VOLUME.

THE

LIFE

AND

OPINIONS

OF

TRISTRAM SHANDY,

GENTLEMAN.

Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est.1

PLIN. Lib. quintus Epistola sexta.

VOL. VII

LONDON:

Printed for T. BECKET and P. A. DEHONT,

in the Strand. MDCCLXV

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.

CHAP. I

No——I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread