Complete Works of Laurence Sterne

by Laurence Sterne

And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sopha with her, and she gives thee occasion to lay thy hand upon hers — beware of taking it — thou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper of thine. Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her curiosity on thy side; and if she is not conquered by that, and thy ASSE continues still kicking, which there is great reason to suppose — Thou must begin, with first losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according to the practice of the ancient Scythians, who cured the most intemperate fits of the appetite by that means.

  Avicenna, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges — and I believe rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat’s flesh, nor red deer — nor even foal’s flesh by any means; and carefully abstain — that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, didappers, and water-hens —

  As for thy drink — I need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of VERVAIN and the herb HANEA, of which Ælian relates such effects — but if thy stomach palls with it — discontinue it from time to time, taking cucumbers, melons, purslane, water-lillies, woodbine, and lettice, in the stead of them.

  There is nothing further for thee, which occurs to me at present —

  — Unless the breaking out of a fresh war — So wishing everything, dear Toby, for the best,

  I rest thy affectionate brother,

  WALTER SHANDY.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  Whilst my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle Toby and the corporal were busy in preparing everything for the attack. As the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for the present), there was nothing which should put it off beyond the next morning; so accordingly it was resolved upon, for eleven o’clock.

  Come, my dear, said my father to my mother— ‘twill be but like a brother and sister, if you and I take a walk down to my brother Toby’s — to countenance him in this attack of his.

  My uncle Toby and the corporal had been accoutred both some time, when my father and mother enter’d, and the clock striking eleven, were that moment in motion to sally forth — but the account of this is worth more than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth volume of such a work as this. — My father had no time but to put the letter of instructions into my uncle Toby’s coat-pocket — and join with my mother in wishing his attack prosperous.

  I could like, said my mother, to look through the key-hole out of curiosity — Call it by its right name, my dear, quoth my father —

  And look through the key-hole as long as you will.

  [Footnote 8.7: Alluding to the first edition.]

  THE LIFE AND OPINIONS

  OF

  TRISTRAM SHANDY

  GENTLEMAN

  Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est.

  PLIN. Lib. v. Epist. 6.

  Si quid urbaniusculè lusum a nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium poëtarum Numina, Oro te, ne me malè capias.

  A DEDICATION

  TO A GREAT MAN

  Having, a priori, intended to dedicate The Amours of my Uncle Toby to Mr. * * * — I see more reasons, a posteriori, for doing it to Lord * * * * * * *.

  I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of their Reverences; because a posteriori, in Court-latin, signifies the kissing hands for preferment — or anything else — in order to get it.

  My opinion of Lord * * * * * * * is neither better nor worse, than it was of Mr. * * *. Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight.

  The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour’s amusement to Mr. * * * when out of place — operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour’s amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast.

  Nothing is so perfectly amusement as a total change of ideas; no

  ideas are so totally different as those of Ministers, and innocent

  Lovers: for which reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and

  Patriots, and set such marks upon them as will prevent confusion and

  mistakes concerning them for the future — I propose to dedicate that

  Volume to some gentle Shepherd,

  Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray,

  Far as the Statesman’s walk or Patriot-way;

  Yet simple Nature to his hopes had given

  Out of a cloud-capp’d head a humbler heaven;

  Some untam’d World in depths of wood embraced —

  Some happier Island in the watry-waste —

  And where admitted to that equal sky,

  His faithful Dog should bear him company.

  In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his

  Imagination, I shall unavoidably give a Diversion to his

  passionate and love-sick Contemplations. In the meantime,

  I am

  THE AUTHOR.

  BOOK IX

  CHAPTER I

  I call all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Toby’s amours, till this very moment, that my mother’s curiosity, as she stated the affair, — or a different impulse in her, as my father would have it — wished her to take a peep at them through the key-hole.

  “Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through the key-hole as long as you will.”

  Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have often spoken of, in my father’s habit, could have vented such an insinuation — he was however frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him.

  My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of his — she raised her fingers, and let them fall — it could scarce be call’d a tap; or if it was a tap— ‘twould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether ’twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession: my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class’d it right — Conscience redoubled her blow — he turn’d his face suddenly the other way, and my mother supposing his body was about to turn with it in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he turned his head, he met her eye — Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself — a thin, blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom of it, had it existed — it did not — and how I happen to be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxes — Heaven above knows — My mother — madam — was so at no time, either by nature, by institution, or example.

  A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no meaning in them, nature is oft-times obliged to find one — And as for my father’s example! ’twas so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that ’twas the whole business of his life to keep all fancies of that kind out of her head — Nature had done her part, to have spared him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew it — And here am I sitting, this 12th day of August 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most tragicomical completion of his prediction, “That I should neither think, nor act like any other man’s child, upon that very account.”

  The mistake in my father, wa
s in attacking my mother’s motive, instead of the act itself; for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a key-hole 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 key-holes 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.

  CHAPTER II

  Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby’s great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. The corporal with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air — had SPLEEN given a look at it, ‘twould have cost her ladyship a smile — it curl’d everywhere but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honour, he could as soon have raised the dead.

  Such it was — or rather such would it have seem’d upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby’s, assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had moreover wrote GENTLEMAN with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnish’d gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and altogether seem’d to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage.

  Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby’s blue and gold — had not Quantity in some measure been necessary to Grace: in a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby’s life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-green — his blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage. — They were laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the mode of King William’s reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and doughty an air with them, that had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.

  As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp’d by the taylor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens —

  — Yes, Madam, — but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before, and as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby’s wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.

  The corporal had array’d himself in poor Le Fever’s regimental coat; and with his hair tuck’d up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbish’d up for the occasion, march’d three paces distant from his master: a whiff of military pride had puff’d out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that in a black leather thong clipp’d into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal’s stick — My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike.

  — It looks well at least; quoth my father to himself.

  CHAPTER III

  My uncle Toby turn’d his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick — but not vapouringly; and with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour “never fear.”

  Now my uncle Toby did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproach’d him) so much as the right end of a Woman from the wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of them — unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman’s eye; and yet excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as talking bawdy. —

  — And suppose it is? my father would say.

  CHAPTER IV

  She cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had march’d up to within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman’s door — she cannot, corporal, take it amiss. —

  — She will take it, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, just as the Jew’s widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom. —

  — And how was that? quoth my uncle Toby, facing quite about to the corporal.

  Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of Tom’s misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if Tom had not married the widow — or had it pleased God after their marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg’d to the inquisition— ’Tis a cursed place — added the corporal, shaking his head, — when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an’ please your honour, for ever.

  ’Tis very true; said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman’s house, as he spoke.

  Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life — or so sweet, an’ please your honour, as liberty.

  Nothing, Trim — said my uncle Toby, musing —

  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.

  The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the corporal do it.

  CHAPTER V

  As Tom’s place, an’ please your honour, was easy — and the weather warm — it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world; and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew who kept a sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade — Tom thought (as everybody in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop — Tom set out — counting the matter thus within himself, as he walk’d along; that let the worst come of it that could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worth — but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausages — but a wife and — a sausage shop, an’ please your honour, into the bargain.

  Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish’d Tom success; and I can fancy, an’ please your honour, I see him this moment with his white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o’ one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a chearful word for everybody he met: — But alas! Tom! thou smilest no more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophised him in his dungeon.

  Poor fellow! said my uncle Toby, feelingly.

  He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an’ please your honour, as ever blood warm’d —

  — Then he resembled thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby, rapidly.

  The corporal blush’d down to his fingers ends — a tear of sentimental bashfulness — another of gratitude to my uncle Toby — and a tear of sorrow for his brother’s misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek together; my uncle Toby’s kindled as one lamp does at another; and taking hold of the breast of Trim’s coat (which had been that of Le Fever’s) as if to ease
his lame leg, but in reality to gratify a finer feeling — he stood silent for a minute and a half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal making a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the Jew’s widow.

  CHAPTER VI

  When Tom, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it, but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies — not killing them.— ’Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle Toby — she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy —

  — She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature, as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said Trim; and some dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall be told you with the rest of Tom’s story, for it makes a part of it —

  Then do not forget, Trim, said my uncle Toby.

  A negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the corporal (doubtingly).

  I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me —

  — It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the corporal.

  It would so; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an’ please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?

  I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby —

  — Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her —

  — ’Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, — which recommends her to protection — and her brethren with her; ’tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now — where it may be hereafter, heaven knows! — but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly.