The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman quotes

On the fifth day of November, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected,—was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and disasterous world of ours.⸺

I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather)

for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours,—which, o’ my conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up …

I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other:

As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.

—O diem praeclarum!—then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling.

The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise.

Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable guess at the grounds of this procedure.

Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the midwife’s licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an account,—the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk by a breach of all decorum, which he had …

But it is as certain at the same time, that Rocinante’s continency (as may be demonstrated from the adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and orderly current of his blood.—

And let me tell you, Madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which you could not say more for your life.

Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do extra justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work,—I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote’s horse;⸺in all other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was …

My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.—

’Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,⁠—and of obstinacy in a bad one

: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance,—so she e’en resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it.

He was almost at his wit’s end;⸺talked it over with her in all moods;—placed his arguments in all lights;—argued the matter with her like a christian,—like a heathen,—like a husband,—like a father,—like a patriot,—like a man:—

My mother answered everything only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her;⁠—for as she could not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of characters,⁠—’twas no fair match:⁠—’twas seven to one.

—What could my mother do?⸺She had the advantage (otherwise she had been certainly overpowered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom, which bore her up, and enabled her to dispute the affair with my father with so equal an advantage,⸺that both sides …

… vile pruriency for fresh adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humour,—and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our concupiscence that way,—that nothing but the gross and more carnal parts of a composition will go down:—

The subtle hints and sly communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,⁠⸺⁠the heavy moral escapes downwards

; and both the one and the other are as much lost to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn.

⸺My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:—

The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, called so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will forever hereafter be called the Shandean System, after this.

In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever;⸺and neither he, nor, I dare say, Copernicus, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the …

… my uncle Toby would cry,⸺and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother Shandy,—do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;⸺how can you,⸺how can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?⸺

What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.

⸺Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family?⸺The life of a family!—my uncle Toby would say, throwing himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg.⸺Yes, the life,⸺my father would say, maintaining his point.

… rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though I own it suggested the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries have come from such trifling hints.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;⁠⸺⁠they are the life, the soul of reading!

—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All-hail;

when thou considerest this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby’s perplexities,—thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp;—his glacis and his covered way;—his ravelin and his half-moon:

’Twas not by ideas,⁠—by Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words.

⸺

Endless is the search of Truth.

No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannonball did not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out which road the ball did go:

—

We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;⁠—but we often treble the force

:—The surgeon was astonished; but much more so, when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his healing up the wound directly,—or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him.

How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddlestick, et cetera,—give the true swell, which gives the true pleasure!—

O my countrymen;⁠—be nice;⁠—be cautious of your language;⁠—and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your fame depend.

⸺“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle Toby, “does not choose to let a man come so near her ****.”

Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you.

Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh pipe)⁠—everything in this world, my dear brother Toby, has two handles.

⸺Not always, quoth my uncle Toby.⸺At least, replied my father, everyone has two hands,⸺which comes to the same thing.⸺Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all the parts which …

Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards.

Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop’s figure, which,—if you have read Hogarth’s analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would;⸺you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to the mind by three strokes as three hundred.

he rode in a circle three times round Dr. Slop, before he could fully accomplish it anyhow;—and at the last, when he did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion of mud, that Obadiah had better have been a league off.

In short, never was a Dr. Slop so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came into fashion.

for as the accident happened so near the house, as not to make it worth while for Obadiah to remount him,⸺Obadiah had led him in as he was, unwiped, unappointed, unannealed, with all his stains and blotches on him.—

He stood like Hamlet’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a half at the parlour-door (Obadiah still holding his hand) with all the majesty of mud.

His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall, totally besmeared,⸺and in every other part of him, blotched over in such a manner with Obadiah’s explosion, that you would have sworn (without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;⸺so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all:

As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;⸺so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all:

The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

… and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,⸺I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?⸺

This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened:

That’s nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it,—and nothing else.

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark, ’twas out of no contempt of Peireskius at all;⸺but that Peireskius’s indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr.

What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;⸺for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage here than elsewhere.—

Writers had need look before them, to keep up the spirit and connection of what they have in hand.

When these two things are done,—the curtain shall be drawn up again, and my uncle Toby, my father, and Dr. Slop, shall go on with their discourse, without any more interruption.

First,

That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other people’s

; and,

… drive out what little wit God has given us,⸺and the professors of the obstetric art are lifted into the same conspiracy.—What is it to me which end of my son comes foremost into the world, provided all goes right after, and his cerebellum escapes uncrushed?

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates everything to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by everything you see, hear, read, or understand.

This is of great use.

A man’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining;⁠—rumple the one,⁠—you rumple the other.

There is one certain exception however in this case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have had your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a sarcenet, or thin persian.

… a wife and three children⸺the turpitude of fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this jingling, never once entered his brain,⸺he had however his objection, which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has ofttimes done with the greatest patriots.⸺

“The poor fellow, Sir, was not able to hear himself whistle.”

Slop.⸺So am not I, replied my uncle.⸺But he is cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. Slop.

I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby.

Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle Toby the compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle⸺when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one⸺put an end to the affair.

Slop.—There is no need of that, replied Susannah,—you had better look at my mistress—but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you would go upstairs and speak to her this moment.

Human nature is the same in all professions.

The midwife had just before been put over Dr. Slop’s head—He had not digested it,—No, replied Dr.

When a proposition can be taken in two senses—’tis a law in disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient for him.⸺This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby’s side.⸺

“Good God!” cried my uncle Toby, “are children brought into the world with a squirt?”

—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?—

No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.

Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together⸺there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby⸺’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll tell thee.⸺

cried my father, springing out of his chair, as he swore⸺I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these jackboots⸺they were our great grandfather’s, brother Toby—they were hereditary.

Then I fear, quoth my uncle Toby, Trim has cut off the entail.

—I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried Trim⸺I hate perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father⸺but these jackboots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time) have been in the family, brother, ever since the …

… the hand—these military operations of yours are above your strength;—you mean well, brother⸺but they carry you into greater expenses than you were first aware of;—and take my word, dear Toby, they will in the end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you.—

What signifies it if they do, brother, replied my uncle Toby, so long as we know ’tis for the good of the nation?

⸺

Eugenius, said I, stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his breast⸺to define—is to distrust.⸺

Thus I triumph’d over Eugenius; but I triumph’d over him as I always do, like a fool.

⸺’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one: therefore

… his fore finger⸺inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea as he parted with it⸺and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us.

—Never—O never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors!

⸺

What a life of it has an author, at this pass!

Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this—

He pick’d up an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple.

—It becomes his own—and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life rather than give it up.

Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder—thy path from thy door to thy bowling-green shall never be grown up.⸺

Whilst there is a rood and a half of land in the Shandy family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle Toby, shall never be demolish’d.

’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother Toby⸻considering what ingenuity these learned men have all shown in their solutions of noses.⸺

Can noses be dissolved? replied my uncle Toby.

⸻My father thrust back his chair⸻rose up—put on his hat⸻took four long strides to the door⸻jerked it open⸺thrust his head halfway out⸺shut the door again⸺took no notice of the bad hinge⸺returned to the table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of Slawkenbergius’s book⸻went hastily to his bureau—walked …

The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute—it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulf of school-divinity⸺and then they all sailed before the wind.

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

The controversy about the attributes, etc., instead of cooling, on the contrary had inflamed the Strasburgers’ imaginations to a most inordinate degree⸺The less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it—they were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied⸺saw their …

The controversy about the attributes, etc., instead of cooling, on the contrary had inflamed the Strasburgers’ imaginations to a most inordinate degree⸺

The less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it

—they were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied⸺saw their doctors, the Parchmentarians, the Brassarians, the Turpentarians, on one side—the Popish doctors on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked out of sight.

… one branch out of many of that system, was the getting possession of Strasburg, to favour an entrance at all times into Suabia, in order to disturb the quiet of Germany⸺and that in consequence of this plan, Strasburg unhappily fell at length into their hands.

It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and suchlike revolutions⁠—The vulgar look too high for them⁠—Statesmen look too low⁠⸺⁠Truth (for once) lies in the middle.

What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one historian—The Strasburgers deemed it a diminution of their freedom to receive an imperial garrison⸺so fell a prey to a French one.

… he had gone directly to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour.⸻I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby.⸺I never think of his, continued Trim, and my poor brother Tom’s misfortunes, for we were all three schoolfellows, but I cry like a coward.⸺

Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim.⁠—I drop them ofttimes myself, cried my uncle Toby.

⸺I know your honour does, replied Trim, and so am not ashamed of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm …

… of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himself⸻the learned know I mean his Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul.

So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as well employed, as in picking straws.

as at this rate I should just live 364 times faster than I should write—

It must follow, an’ please your worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have to write⁠—and consequently, the more your worships read, the more your worships will have to read.

Will this be good for your worships’ eyes?

… this rate I should just live 364 times faster than I should write—It must follow, an’ please your worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have to write—and consequently, the more your worships read, the more your worships will have to read.

Will this be good for your worships’ eyes?

It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my Opinions will be the death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this selfsame life of mine;

… him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her—no desire—or fear—or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.

“God’s blessing,” said Sancho Pança, “be upon the man who first invented this selfsame thing called sleep⁠—it covers a man all over like a cloak.”

Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeez’d out of the heads of the learned together upon the subject.

What a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and frisking it away, two up and two down for four volumes together, without looking once behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon!

—I’ll tread upon no one⸺quoth I to myself when I mounted⸻I’ll take a good rattling gallop;

and destroying at the same time that necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work results.

For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it⁠—but, in my opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a song⁠—but in tune with yourself, madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

—This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well⸺(as Yorick told my uncle Toby one night) by siege.⸺My uncle Toby looked brisk at the sound of the word siege, but could make neither …

☞

A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size⁠—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.

—And so much for tearing out of chapters.

I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion⸻that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom—and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another:

I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me⁠⸺⁠it came from my head instead of my heart

⸻and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this manner—To preach, to show the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit—to parade in the eyes of …

and so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the right ventricle of Phutatorius’s heart, by the stroke of surprise which so strange a theory of preaching had excited.

How finely we argue upon mistaken facts!

There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the monosyllable which Phutatorius uttered⸺who did not take this for granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that Phutatorius’s mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was arising between …

And now that you have just got to the end of these four volumes⸺the thing I have to ask is, how you feel your heads? my own akes dismally!⸻as for your healths, I know, they are much better.—

True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round.

Was I left, like Sancho Panca, to choose my kingdom, it should not be maritime—or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of;—no, it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects:

Tell me, ye learned, shall we forever be adding so much to the bulk—so little to the stock?

Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we forever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? forever in the same track—forever at the same pace?

Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady Baussiere⸺The page took hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace.

There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eyebrows; and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the stronger⁠—we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary.

Ha, ha! he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere, looking close at each other’s prints⸺Ho, ho! cried La Battarelle and Maronette, doing the same:—Whist! cried one—st, st,—said a second—hush, quoth a third—poo, poo, replied a fourth—gramercy! cried the Lady Carnavallette;⸺’twas she who bewhisker’d St.

Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles—and spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same association?⸺

Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all affections⁠—give it but its head⁠⸺’tis like a ramping and a roaring lion.

The drift of the curate d’Estella’s argument was not understood.—They ran the scent the wrong way.—The world bridled his ass at the tail.—And when the extremes of delicacy, and the beginnings of concupiscence, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also.

The drift of the curate d’Estella’s argument was not understood.—They ran the scent the wrong way.—

The world bridled his ass at the tail.

—And when the extremes of delicacy, and the beginnings of concupiscence, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also.

you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have done!⸺It was not me, said Obadiah.⸺How do I know that? replied my father.

Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee⁠—the Attic salt brought water into them⁠—and so Obadiah heard no more about it.

Now let us go back to my brother’s death.

Now let us go back to my brother’s death.

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.

—For Death it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father’s head, that ’twas difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent show out of them.—He took them as they came.

and with reason.⸺Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it,—it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands.”

“Show me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.”

Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for mark—our appetites are but diseases)—is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?

Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for mark—our appetites are but diseases)—is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?

Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?

There is no terrour, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s room.—Strip it of these, what is it?—’Tis better in …

⸻A green sattin nightgown of my mother’s which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah’s exclamation brought into Susannah’s head.—

Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfection of words.

—Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning.—But note a second time: the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself—failed also of doing its office;

⸻“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we not”—(dropping his hat plump upon the ground—and pausing, before he pronounced the word)—“gone! in a moment?”

The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneeded into the crown of it.

⸺Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it,—his hand seemed to vanish from under it,—it fell dead,—the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse,—and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.

… wherein most men travelled,—that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.—In other words, ’twas a different object, and in course was differently considered:

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?

and having honoured his father and mother, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.

Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest,⁠—and has wit in it, and instruction too,⁠—if we can but find it out.

—Here is the scaffold work of Instruction, its true point of folly, without the building behind it.

—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true dimensions.—

Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!

—Sciences may be learned by rote, but Wisdom not.

⸺What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack Asses?

⸺How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of that little valley!⸺and when we climbed over that hill, and were just getting out of sight—good God! what a braying did they all set up together!

… won’t hold the candle, and look—you may hold it and shut your eyes:—That’s one of your popish shifts, cried Susannah:—’Tis better, said Slop, with a nod, than no shift at all, young woman;⸺I defy you, Sir, cried Susannah, pulling her shift sleeve below her elbow.

It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in a surgical case with a more splenetic cordiality.

Slop snatched up the cataplasm,⸺Susannah snatched up the candle;⸺a little this way, said Slop; Susannah looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop’s wig, which being somewhat bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.⸻You impudent whore!

because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.⸺Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;⸺

True, quoth my uncle Toby,⁠—thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,⁠—but certainly very wrong as a man.

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby,⸺when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house,⸺thou shouldst have offered him my house too:⸺A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him …

—

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;⁠—and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever.

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

Doctor Slop, like a son of a w⸺, as my father called him for it,—to exalt himself,—debased me to death,—and made ten thousand times more of Susannah’s accident, than there was any grounds for;

⸺

And all your heads too,⁠—provided you understand it.

⸺

Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she did that year.

⸺Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war,—was it a proof it could not ache for the distresses of war too?

O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,⁠—and ’tis another to scatter cypress.

⸺[Who told thee, my dear Toby, that cypress was used by the ancients on mournful occasions?]

… ears in love,—and sometimes even over head and ears in it,—carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man:—this is recurring again to Plato’s opinion, which, with all his divinityship,—I hold to be damnable and heretical:—and so much for that.

Let love therefore be what it will,⁠—my uncle Toby fell into it.

⸺And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation—so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet anything in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

⸺Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle Toby resist it?

Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers, which Malice will not blacken, and which Ignorance cannot misrepresent.

⸺

Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

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

⸺Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

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.

and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven.

Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy⁠⸺⁠and that to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil

⸺

Earth no such folks!—No folks e’er such a town As Paris is!—Sing, derry, derry, down.

The French have a gay way of treating everything that is Great; and that is all can be said upon it.

—

But with an ass, I can commune forever.

Come, Honesty! said I,⸺seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate⸺art thou for coming in, or going out?

—Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to Amandus and Amanda—long—long have I tarried to drop this tear upon your tomb⸻I come⸻I come⸻

When I came⁠—there was no tomb to drop it upon.

What would I have given for my uncle Toby, to have whistled Lillabullero!

When I came—there was no tomb to drop it upon.

What would I have given for my uncle Toby, to have whistled Lillabullero!

… my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the comparison may be imparted to him any hour in the day)⸺I’ll just mention it, and begin in good earnest.

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best⁠⸺⁠I’m sure it is the most religious⁠⸺⁠for I begin with writing the first sentence⁠⸺⁠and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

’Twould cure an author forever of the fuss and folly of opening his street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, etc., only to observe how one sentence of mine follows …

I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up⸺catching the idea, even sometimes before it halfway reaches me⸺

I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man.

Pope and his Portrait are fools to me⸺no martyr is ever so full of faith or fire⸺I wish I could say of good works too⸺but I have no

Which shows they had both read Longinus⸺

For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as long as I live.

Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby⁠⸺⁠and my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby⁠⸺⁠or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

It was a thousand pities⸺though I believe, an’ please your honour, I am going to say but a foolish kind of a thing for a soldier⸺

A soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the corporal, is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a man of letters

⸺But not so often, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal⸺My uncle Toby gave a nod.

⸺’Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle Toby, that thou art about to observe⸺

“Nothing in this world, Trim, is made to last forever.”

⸺But when tokens, dear Tom, of thy love and remembrance wear out, said Trim, what shall we say?

I thought love had been a joyous thing, quoth my uncle Toby.

’Tis the most serious thing, an’ please your honour (sometimes), that is in the world.

By the persuasion of the young woman, continued the corporal, the cart with the wounded men set off without me: she had assured them I should expire immediately if I was put into the cart.

… escaped three weeks complete o’ Saturday night,—may nevertheless be shot through his heart on Sunday morning⸺It happened so here, an’ please your honour, with this difference only—that it was on Sunday in the afternoon, when I fell in love all at once with a sisserara⸺

It burst upon me, an’ please your honour, like a bomb⁠⸺⁠scarce giving me time to say, “God bless me.”

I thought, Trim, said my uncle Toby, a man never fell in love so very suddenly.

⸺But ’tis no marvel, continued the corporal—seeing my uncle Toby musing upon it—for

Love, an’ please your honour, is exactly like war, in this; that a soldier, though he has escaped three weeks complete o’ Saturday night,⁠—may nevertheless be shot through his heart on Sunday morning

⸺It happened so here, an’ please your honour, with this difference only—that it was on Sunday in the afternoon, when I fell in love all at once with a sisserara⸺It burst upon me, an’ please your honour, like a bomb⸺scarce giving me time to say, …

In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside my uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up⸺Do look into it—said she.

Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart, as ever child look’d into a raree-show-box; and ’twere as much a sin to have hurt thee.

⸺If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature⸺I’ve nothing to say to it⸺

An eye is for all the world exactly like a cannon, in this respect; That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye⁠⸺⁠and the carriage of the cannon, by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution.

I don’t think the comparison a bad one; However, as ’tis made and placed at the head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in return is, that whenever I speak of Mrs.

… of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to, holds coarse converse⸺but whispering soft⸺like the last low accent of an expiring saint⸺“How can you live comfortless, captain Shandy, and alone, without a bosom to lean your head on⸺or trust your cares to?”

But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it.

⸺It did my uncle Toby’s business.

But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it.

⸺⁠It did my uncle Toby’s business.

… nothing shows the character of my father and my uncle Toby, in a more entertaining light, than their different manner of deportment, under the same accident⸺for I call not love a misfortune, from a persuasion, that a man’s heart is ever the better for it⸺

Great God! what must my uncle Toby’s have been, when ’twas all benignity without it.

My father, as appears from many of his papers, was very subject to this passion, before he married⸺but from a little subacid kind of drollish impatience in his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never submit to it like a christian;

… heaven, which was either aiding or abetting to his love⸺yet never concluded his chapter of curses upon it, without cursing himself in at the bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and coxcombs, he would say, that ever was let loose in the world.

My uncle Toby, on the contrary, took it like a lamb

⸺sat still and let the poison work in his veins without resistance⸺in the sharpest exacerbations of his wound (like that on his groin) he never dropt one fretful or discontented word⸺he blamed neither heaven nor earth⸺or thought or spoke an injurious thing of anybody, or …

The world is ashamed of being virtuous

⸺My uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore when he felt he was in love with widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a mystery of, than if Mrs.

—Then I would begin, an’ please your honour, with making a good thundering attack upon her, in return—and telling her civilly afterwards—for if she knows anything of your honour’s being in love, before hand⸺

L⁠⸺⁠d help her!⁠—she knows no more at present of it, Trim, said my uncle Toby⁠—than the child unborn

⸻

and my hobbyhorse—in order to keep characters as separate as may be, in our fancies as we go along.

For my hobbyhorse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him

⸺’Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour—a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick—an uncle Toby’s siege—or an anything, which a man makes a shift to get astride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of …

… the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour—a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick—an uncle Toby’s siege—or an anything, which a man makes a shift to get astride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life—

’Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole creation⁠—nor do I really see how the world would do without it

⸺

⸺It replenishes the earth; said my mother⸺

But it keeps heaven empty⁠—my dear; replied my father.

⸺’Tis Virginity, cried Slop, triumphantly, which fills paradise.

⸺’Tis Virginity, cried Slop, triumphantly, which fills paradise.

Well push’d, nun! quoth my father.

In this case, continued my father, which Plato, I am persuaded, never thought of⸺

Love, you see, is not so much a Sentiment as a Situation, into which a man enters, as my brother Toby would do, into a corps

⸺no matter whether he loves the service or no⸺being once in it—he acts as if he did; and takes every step to show himself a man of prowesse.

for certainly keyholes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a keyhole to be what it was⸻it became a violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal.

It is for this reason, an’ please your Reverences, That keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.

⸻which leads me to my uncle Toby’s amours.

Whilst a man is free,—cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus⸺

A thousand of my father’s most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy.

My uncle Toby look’d earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green.

But seeing Tom’s had more gristle in it⸻

She signed the capitulation⁠⸺⁠and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.

All womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut

; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.⸺

⸺Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure.

I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either

;

I will not argue the matter:

Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen

; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more⸺everything presses on⸺whilst thou art twisting that lock,⸺see! it grows grey;

it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.⸺

⸺⁠Heaven have mercy upon us both!

When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out.

Curiosity governs the first moment; and the second moment is all œconomy to justify the expense of the first⁠⸺⁠and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment⁠—’tis a point of Honour.

I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience;

⸺Though if it comes to persuasion—said my father—Lord have mercy upon them.

Amen: said my mother, piano.

Amen: cried my father, fortissimè.

Amen: said my mother, piano.

Amen: cried my father, fortissimè.

Amen: said my mother again⸺but with such a sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my father—he instantly took out his almanac;

The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the service:

Fancy is capricious⁠—Wit must not be searched for⁠—and Pleasantry (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was an empire to be laid at her feet.

⸺The best way for a man is to say his prayers⸺

These are good, quoth I, in themselves—they are good, absolutely;—they are good, relatively;—they are good for health—they are good for happiness in this world—they are good for happiness in the next⸺

In short, they were good for everything but the thing wanted; and there they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven made it

: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it courage; but then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you started.

for never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing that all mankind should write as well as myself.

⸺⁠Which they certainly will, when they think as little.

Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body (ἐξωτερικὴ πρᾶξις) as he calls it⸺but he is deceived: the soul and body are joint-sharers in everything they get:

A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him

—so that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself.

and after all, was more abus’d, cursed, criticis’d, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote in that one month, than in all the other months of that year put together.

⸺⁠But their honours and reverences had not seen my bills.

For in talking of my digression⸺I declare before heaven I have made it!

What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.

’Tis very true, said I⸺but ’twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle Toby.

For in talking of my digression⸺I declare before heaven I have made it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.

’Tis very true, said I⁠⸺⁠but ’twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle Toby.