The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [79]
The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the next year,—when a series of things will be laid open which he little expects.
END of the SECOND VOLUME.
*The author is here twice mistaken;—for Lithopædus should be wrote thus, Lithopædii Senonensis Icon. The second mistake is, that this Lithopædus is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by Albosius, 1580, may be seen at the end of Cordæus’s works in Spachius. Mr. Tristram Shandy has been led into this error, either from seeing Lithopædus’s name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr.——, or by mistaking Lithopædus for Trinecavellius,—from the too great similitude of the names.
THE
LIFE
AND
OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY,
GENTLEMAN.
Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia; meis tamen, rogo, parcant opusculis——in quibus fuit propositi semper, a jocis ad seria, a seriis vicissim ad jocos transire.
JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS, Episcopus Lugdun.1
VOL. III
LONDON:
Printed for R. and J. DODSLEY in Pall-Mall.
M.DCC.LXI
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.
CHAP. I
——“I wish, Dr. Slop,” quoth my uncle Toby (repeating his wish for Dr. Slop a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of wishing, than he had wished it at first*)——“I wish, Dr. Slop,” quoth my uncle Toby, “you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders.”
My uncle Toby’s wish did Dr. Slop a disservice which his heart never intended any man,———Sir, it confounded him—and thereby putting his ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for the soul of him.
In all disputes,——male or female,——whether for honour, for profit or for love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more dangerous, madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the wish, is, for the party wished at, instantly to get up upon his legs—and wish the wisher something in return, of pretty near the same value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were—nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.
This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.——
Dr. Slop did not understand the nature of this defence;——he was puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four minutes and a half;——five had been fatal to it:—my father saw the danger——the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born without a head or with one:”——he waited to the last moment to allow Dr. Slop, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning it; but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare with,——first in my uncle Toby’s face——then in his—then up—then down—then east——east and by east, and so on,——coasting it along by the plinth of the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the compass,—and that he had actually begun to count the brass nails upon the arm of his chair——my father thought there was no time to be lost with my uncle Toby, so took up the discourse as follows.
*Vid. Vol. II. p. 111.
CHAP. II
“—What prodigious armies you had in Flanders!”——
Brother Toby, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with his right hand, and with his left pulling out a striped India handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as he argued the point with my uncle Toby.———
——Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give you my reasons for it.
Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “Whether my father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his left,”——have