Complete Works of Laurence Sterne

by Laurence Sterne

  Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like — A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby — A train of a fiddle-stick! — quoth my father — which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle. — I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoak-jack. — Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon that subject, said my father.

  [Footnote 3.3: Vide Locke.]

  CHAPTER XIX

  — What a conjecture was here lost! — My father in one of his best explanatory moods — in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about; — my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world; — his head like a smoak-jack; — the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter! — By the tomb-stone of Lucian — if it is in being — if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes! — my father and my uncle Toby’s discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY — was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father’s humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.

  CHAPTER XX

  Tho’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse — yet he could not get my uncle Toby’s smoak-jack out of his head — piqued as he was at first with it; — there was something in the comparison at the bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand — but looking first stedfastly in the fire — he began to commune with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the discourse — the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down — so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about.

  As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also. — Peace be with them both! — Dr. Slop is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs. — Trim is busy in turning an old pair of jackboots into a couple of mortars, to be employed in the siege of Messina next summer — and is this instant boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker. — All my heroes are off my hands;— ’tis the first time I have had a moment to spare — and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface.

  THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  No, I’ll not say a word about it — here it is; — in publishing it — I have appealed to the world — and to the world I leave it; — it must speak for itself.

  All I know of the matter is — when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out — a wise, aye, and a discreet — taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give me — so that, as your worships see— ’tis just as God pleases.

  Now, Agelastes (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in it, for aught he knows — but no judgment at all. And Triptolemus and Phutatorius agreeing thereto, ask, How is it possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east from west — So, says Locke — so are farting and hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, Didius the great church lawyer, in his code de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis, doth maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no argument — nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean to be a syllogism; — but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it — so that the main good these things do is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular matter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil all.

  Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and fellow-labourers (for to you I write this Preface) — and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do — pull off your beards) renowned for gravity and wisdom; — Monopolus, my politician — Didius, my counsel; Kysarcius, my friend; — Phutatorius, my guide; — Gastripheres, the preserver of my life; Somnolentius, the balm and repose of it — not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no resentment to you, I lump all together. — Believe me, right worthy,

  My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in case the thing is not done already for us — is, that the great gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with everything which usually goes along with them — such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without stint or measure, let or hindrance, be poured down warm as each of us could bear it — scum and sediment and all (for I would not have a drop lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains — in such sort, that they might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great and small, be so replenish’d, saturated, and filled up therewith, that no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be got either in or out.

  Bless us! — what noble work we should make! — how should I tickle it off! — and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for such readers! — and you — just heaven! — with what raptures would you sit and read — but oh!— ’tis too much — I am sick — I faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it— ’tis more than nature can bear! — lay hold of me — I am giddy — I am stone blind — I’m dying — I am gone. — Help! Help! Help! — But hold — I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits — we should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an end: — there would be so much satire and sarcasm — scoffing and flouting, with raillying and reparteeing of it — thrusting and parrying in one corner or another — there would be nothing but mischief among us — Chaste stars! what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should make, what with breaking of heads, rapping of knuckles, and hitting of sore places — there would be no such thing as living for us.

  But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy and kindness, milk and honey— ‘twould be a second land of promise — a paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had — so that upon the whole we should have done well enough.

  All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships well know, that of these heavenly emanations of wit and judgment, which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and myself — there is but a certain quantum stored up for us all, for the use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of ‘em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in one bye corner or another — and in such narrow streams, and at such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so many great estates, and populous empires.

  Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, which lie more directly under the arctick and antarctick circ
les, where the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months together within the narrow compass of his cave — where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing — and where the passions of a man, with everything which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself — there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business — and of wit — there is a total and an absolute saving — for as not one spark is wanted — so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! For mercy’s sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we can southwards into Norway — crossing over Swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angermania to the lake of Bothnia; coasting along it through east and west Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north-east of the Baltick, up to Petersbourg, and just stepping into Ingria; — then stretching over directly from thence through the north parts of the Russian empire — leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we got into the very heart of Russian and Asiatick Tartary.

  Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have just left: — for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain household judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with — and had they more of either the one or the other, it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.

  Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and humours runs high — where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason — the height of our wit, and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our necessities — and accordingly we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of descent and creditable plenty, that no one thinks he has any cause to complain.

  It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and cold — wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way; — so that sometimes for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of amongst us: — the small channels of them shall seem quite dried up — then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of running again like fury — you would think they would never stop: — and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant things, we drive all the world before us.

  It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectick induction — that I draw and set up this position as most true and veritable;

  That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d’ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it — I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives — running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end; — some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks — others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs. — Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way. — What confusion! — what mistakes! — fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears — admirable! — trusting to the passions excited — in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart — instead of measuring them by a quadrant.

  In the fore-ground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round — against the stream of corruption — by Heaven! — instead of with it.

  In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worse — feeling his patient’s pulse, instead of his apothecary’s — a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his knees in tears — drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness; — offering a fee — instead of taking one.

  In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way! — kicking it out of the great doors, instead of in — and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind: — perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still — a litigated point fairly hung up; — for instance, Whether John o’Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o’Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not — rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months — and if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein, — such as feints, — forced marches, — surprizes — ambuscades — mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides — might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.

  As for the Clergy — No — if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot. — I have no desire; — and besides, if I had — I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject — with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, ‘twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account — and therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up — and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment. — But mark — I say, reported to be — for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.

  This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith make appear.

  I hate set dissertations — and above all things in the world, ’tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your reader’s conception — when in all likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at once— “for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of knowledge bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, a winter-mittain, a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair?” — I am this moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustrate this affair of wit and judgment, by the two kno
bs on the top of the back of it? — they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into two gimlet-holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a light, as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole preface, as plainly as if every point and particle of it was made up of sun-beams.

  I enter now directly upon the point.

  — Here stands wit — and there stands judgment, close beside it, just like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same chair on which I am sitting.

  — You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its frame — as wit and judgment are of ours — and like them too, indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in all such cases of duplicated embellishments — to answer one another.

  Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this matter — let us for a moment take off one of these two curious ornaments (I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it now stands on — nay, don’t laugh at it, — but did you ever see, in the whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made of it? — Why, ’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the other: — do — pray, get off your seats only to take a view of it. — Now would any man who valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of work out of his hand in such a condition? — nay, lay your hands upon your hearts, and answer this plain question, Whether this one single knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the other? — and let me farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it would be ten times better without any knob at all?