Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  – Friend!

  – My friend. Surely, Madam, a friendship between the two sexes may exist without–

  – Fie! Mr. Shandy.

  – Without anything, Madam, but that tender and delicious sentiment which always mixes in friendship, where there is a difference of sex. Let me entreat you to read the best French Romances; it will really, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment is dressed out.

  CHAPTER 19

  Despite my father’s great good sense, he had a notion so unusual that I fear the reader, when I mention it, will immediately throw the book aside, and either laugh or condemn it as a fanciful idea. That notion concerned the choice of Christian names, on which he thought a great deal depended.

  His opinion was, that there was a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct.

  Even Don Quixote did not have more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring his deeds, or on Dulcinea’s name in shedding lustre upon them, than my father said about the names Trismegistus or Archimedes, on the one hand – or Nyky and Simkin on the other.

  ‘How many Caesars and Pompeys,’ he would say, ‘have by mere inspiration of the names been made worthy of them? And how many are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus’d into nothing?’

  My father would say to the sceptical: ‘I admit that it may seem fanciful; and yet, my dear Sir, you are a person of good sense, free from narrow prejudice, and are too liberal to dismiss an opinion merely because it lacks friends. Your dear son, from whose sweet temper you have so much to expect – your Billy, Sir! – would you, for the world, have called him Judas? Even if offered money, would you have consented to such a desecration of him? O my God! Sir, you would have trampled upon the offer. If your son were called Judas, the treacherous idea inseparable from the name would have accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example.’

  I never knew a man able to answer this argument. But, indeed, my father was irresistible; he was born an orator; – Theodidactos, taught by God. – Persuasion hung upon his lips, and Logic and Rhetoric were so blended in him, and he guessed so shrewdly the weaknesses and passions of his respondent, that Nature might have stood up and said, ‘This man is eloquent.’

  In short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas hazardous in either case to attack him. And yet, ’tis strange, he had never read Cicero, nor Quintilian, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus, Ramus or Farnaby; and what is more astonishing, he had never read one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch commentator. He did not even know the difference between an argument ad ignorantiam, and an argument ad hominem; so that I remember, when he went along with me to enter my name at Jesus College, my worthy tutor was amazed that a man who did not know the names of his tools, should be able to work so well with them.

  My father had to work with them as best he could, because he had a thousand little sceptical notions of the comic kind to defend – most of which, I believe, started out as whims, mere Bagatelles; he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss them till another day.

  I mention this, not only as a theory of the forming of my father’s many odd opinions, – but as a warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of whimsical ideas, which, allowed free entrance into our brains, at length settle, – beginning in jest, but ending in earnest.

  Whether this was the case with my father’s notions – whether his judgement was duped by his wit, or how far his notions, though odd, might be right – the reader shall decide. All I am saying is, that in this idea of the influence of Christian names, he was serious; he was systematical, and would move heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support his hypothesis.

  In consequence, he would lose all patience whenever he saw people more careless about the name they gave their child, than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy-dog.

  He would say that once a vile name was injudiciously given, ’twas not like a man’s reputation, which might be cleared. This injury could never be undone.

  Because of this opinion, my father had the strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names. Some names were absolutely indifferent to him. Jack, Dick, and Tom were of this class: these my father called neutral names, saying that there had been many knaves and fools, as well as wise and good men, who had borne them; so that they cancelled each other out. He would not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them.

  Bob, my brother’s name, was another of these neutral names; and as my father happened to be at Epsom when it was given him, he would often thank Heaven it was no worse. Andrew, he said, was less than nothing. William stood pretty high: Numps, or Humphrey, again was low with him: and Nick, he said, was the Devil.

  But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable aversion for Tristram; he had the lowest opinion of it. So that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved, he would sometimes break off and demand whether his antagonist had ever heard of a man called Tristram performing anything great or worth recording?

  ‘No,’ he would say, – ‘TRISTRAM! – The thing is impossible.’

  What else could my father do other than write a book to publish this notion to the world? There is little point in having opinions without giving them proper vent. So in 1716, two years before I was born, my father wrote a Dissertation upon the word Tristram, showing the world, with great candour, the grounds of his abhorrence to the name.

  When this story is compared with the title-page, will not the gentle reader pity my father from his soul? – to see an orderly and well-disposed gentleman, who though singular, was yet inoffensive in his notions; to see him baffled and overthrown in his wishes; to behold events falling out against him in so cruel a way, as if they had been planned merely to insult him. – In a word, to behold him, in his old age, ten times in a day suffering sorrow as he called the child of his prayers Tristram! Melancholy sound! which, to his ears, was equivalent to Nincompoop.

  I swear, if ever malignant spirit took pleasure in crossing the purposes of mortal man, it must have been here; and if it was not necessary that I should be born before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account of it.

  CHAPTER 20

  How could you, Madam, be so inattentive? I told you in that last chapter, that my mother was not a papist.

  – Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.

  – Madam, I repeat that I told you as plain as words could tell.

  – Then I must have missed a page.

  – No, Madam, you have not missed a word.

  – Then I was asleep, Sir.

  – No, Madam. I insist that you immediately turn back, and read the whole chapter over again.

  I have imposed this penance upon the lady, not out of cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore make her no apology. ’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste which has crept into thousands besides herself, of reading more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep knowledge which a book of this type should impart. The reader should be accustomed to make wise reflections as he goes; a habit which made Pliny the younger affirm, ‘That he never read a book so bad that he could not draw some profit from it.’

  But here comes my fair lady. – Have you read over again the chapter, Madam, as I asked? You have: And did you not observe the passage? No? Then, Madam, please ponder well the last line but one, where I say, ‘It was necessary I should be born before I was christened.’ Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that consequence would not follow.

  – For the Romish rituals direct the baptising of the child, if it is in danger, before it is born; and the Doctors
of the Sorbonne have determined that baptism may be administered to the unborn child by injection, using une petite canulle – or in English, a squirt. (’Tis very strange that St. Thomas Aquinas should have rejected this possibility. – ‘Infantes in maternis uteris existentes,’ quoth he, ‘baptizari possunt nullo modo.’ – O Thomas! Thomas!)

  It is a terrible misfortune for this book of mine – as for all literature – that the vile lust for fresh adventures has got so strongly into our habit. So intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our desire that nothing but the gross and carnal parts of a book go in. Subtle hints fly off like spirits upwards; the heavy moral escapes downwards; and both are as much lost to the world, as if they were left in the bottom of the ink-well.

  I wish that from this reader’s example, all good people may be taught to think as well as read.

  If the reader is curious to see the question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, with their response thereupon, it is as follows.

  (Note: A translation from the French by the abridger follows each section below:)

  MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE . [Vide Deventer, Paris edit., 4to, 1734, p. 366.]

  Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE, qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne sçauroit accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le moyen d’une petite canulle, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere. Il demand si ce moyen, qu’il vient de proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir dans les cas qu’il vient d’exposer.

  (Translation: A baby may be baptised before it is born, in certain cases, by means of a little tube.)

  RESPONSE

  Le Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes difficultés. Les Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour renaître en Jesus Christ, comme ils l’enseignent. S. Thomas, 3 part, quæst. 88, artic. II, suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, & S. Thomas est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont point nés, & ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet d’une action extérieure, pour reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens nécessaires au salut: Pueri in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanæ, ut per eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. Les rituels ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les mêmes matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, s’ils ne font paroître quelque partie de leurs corps. Le concours des théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des diocéses, paroit former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la deffense des rituels suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement les enfans ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre la supposition presente; & d’un autre côté, considerant que les mêmes théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les sacremens que Jesus Christ a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut, parcequ’ils sont capables de damnation; -pour ces considerations, & en egard à l’exposé, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen certain de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans faire aucun tort à la mere, le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen proposé, dans la confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces sortes d’enfans sans aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé, que le moyen dont il s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême; cependant comme il s’agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposée, de changer une regie universellement établie, le Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il appartient de juger de l’utilité, & du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le bon plaisir de l’evêque, le Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le droit d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans le cas, ou la loi ne sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que paroisse la maniére de baptiser dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit l’approuver sans le concours de ces deux autorités. On conseile au moins à celui qui consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque, & de lui faire part de la presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les raisons sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être autorisé dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que la permission fût demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose si avantageux au salut de l’enfant.

  (Translation: No! If a child is not born it cannot be baptised. Though if you really must, perhaps it can.)

  Sorbonne, le 10 Avril, 1733.

  A. LE MOYNE.

  L. DE ROMIGNY.

  DE MARCILLY.

  Mr. Tristram Shandy’s compliments to Messrs. Le Moyne, De Romigny, and De Marcilly; he hopes they rested well the night after so tiresome a consultation. He begs to know whether after the ceremony of marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing of all the Homunculi at once, slapdash, by injection, would not be a shorter and safer cut still; if they come safe into the world after this, they shall be baptized again.

  – Provided that the thing can be done, which Mr. Shandy believes it may, par le moyen d’une petite canulle, and sans faire aucun tort au pere (by means of a tiny tube, and without doing any damage to the father.)

  CHAPTER 21

  ‘I wonder what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for, upstairs,’ said my father, after an hour and a half’s silence, to my uncle Toby, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his pipe in mute contemplation of his new pair of black plush breeches.

  ‘What can they be doing, brother?’ said my father. ‘We can scarce hear ourselves talk.’

  ‘I think,’ replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, ‘I think,’ says he:

  – But to enter into my uncle Toby’s sentiments upon this matter, you must enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on again.

  Pray who was that man – for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to look it up – who first observed ‘That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?’ Whoever he was, ’twas a good observation. Someone I forget, a century later observed, ‘It is this which has given us such a variety of odd and whimsical characters.’ This copious store-house of original materials is the cause why our Comedies are so much better than those of France: that discovery was not made till about the middle of King William’s reign, when the great Dryden, in writing one of his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Then, toward the latter end of Queen Anne, the great Addison took up the notion, and fully explained it to the world in the Spectator.

  This strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, gives us something to make merry with when the weather will not allow us to go out of doors. – That observation is my own; and was created by me this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, between nine and ten in the morning.

  Thus, my fellow-labourers in this great harvest of our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical,
mathematical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches (most ending in -ical) have for these two last centuries been creeping up towards that Acme of perfection, from which we cannot be far off.

  When that perfection is reached, it will put an end to all writing; the lack of writing will put an end to all reading; – and in time, as war begets poverty; poverty peace, – that must, in due course, put an end to all knowledge – and we shall have to begin again, exactly where we started.

  Happy! thrice happy times! I only wish that the time of my begetting, as well as the manner of it, had been a little altered, – or that it could have been put off, without any inconvenience to my father or mother, for another five-and-twenty years, when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance.

  But I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes from his pipe.

  His character was of the type which does honour to our atmosphere; and I should have ranked him amongst the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared such a strong family-likeness, which showed that he derived his unusual nature more from blood, than from water or weather. And I have often wondered that my father, when he observed signs of eccentricity in me when I was a boy, should never have tried to account for them in this way: for all the Shandy family were of an original character: – I mean the males, the females had no character at all – except, indeed, my great aunt Dinah, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of names, would often say, ‘She might thank her christening.’