Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  The characters of the two brothers appeared with great advantage in this affair of Stevinus.

  I need not tell the reader that a man’s Hobby-Horse is the tenderest part he has; and these unprovoked blows at my uncle Toby’s Hobby-Horse were felt by him.

  – Pray, Sir, what said he? How did he behave?

  – O, Sir! – it was great. For when my father had finished insulting his Hobby-Horse, my uncle turned his head, and looked into my father’s face with so much good-nature; so placid – so fraternal – so inexpressibly tender, it penetrated my father to his heart. He rose up hastily from his chair, seizing my uncle Toby’s hands.

  ‘Brother Toby,’ said he, ‘I beg thy pardon; forgive me.’

  ‘My dear, dear brother,’ answered my uncle, ‘say no more about it; you are heartily welcome, brother.’

  ‘But ’tis ungenerous,’ replied my father, ‘to hurt any man; – a brother worse; but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners, – ’tis base: ’tis cowardly. Besides, what have I to do, my dear Toby, with your pleasures, unless it was in my power (which it is not) to increase them?’

  ‘Brother Shandy,’ answered my uncle Toby, looking wistfully in his face, ‘you do increase my pleasure very much, in begetting children for the Shandy family at your time of life.’

  ‘By that, Sir,’ quoth Dr. Slop, ‘Mr. Shandy increases his own pleasure.’

  ‘Not a jot,’ quoth my father.

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘My brother does it,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘out of principle.’

  ‘In a family way, I suppose,’ quoth Dr. Slop.

  ‘Pshaw!’ said my father, ‘’tis not worth talking of.’

  CHAPTER 14

  As my father spoke the last three words, he sat down. My uncle Toby rung the bell, to order Corporal Trim to step home for Stevinus: – my uncle’s house being not far away.

  Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus; but my uncle Toby went on with the subject, to show my father that he bore him no resentment.

  ‘Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop,’ quoth he, ‘instantly brought Stevinus into my head, because the celebrated sailing chariot belonging to Prince Maurice, which carried half a dozen people thirty miles in I don’t know how few minutes, was invented by Stevinus, that great mathematician and engineer.’

  ‘You might have spared your servant the trouble of going for Stevinus’s account of it,’ quoth Dr. Slop, ‘because in my return from Leyden through the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two long miles, to view it.’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ replied my uncle Toby. ‘The learned Peireskius walked five hundred miles, from Paris to Schevling and back again, simply in order to see it.’

  Some men cannot bear to be out-done.

  ‘The more fool Peireskius,’ replied Dr. Slop.

  ‘Why so?’ replied my father, interested in the discussion. – ‘Why is Peireskius to be abused for having an appetite for knowledge? For although I know nothing of the sailing chariot in question, and I cannot guess upon what principles it is made – yet certainly the machine was constructed upon solid ones, or it could not have worked as well as my brother says.’

  ‘It worked,’ replied my uncle Toby, ‘as well, if not better; for, as Peireskius said, it was as swift as the wind itself.’

  ‘Pray, Dr. Slop,’ quoth my father, ‘upon what principles was this chariot set a-going?’

  ‘Upon very pretty principles to be sure,’ replied Dr. Slop, evading the question: ‘and I have often wondered why none of our gentry, who live upon plains, attempt nothing of this kind; for ’twould be excellent good husbandry to make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a great deal.’

  ‘For that very reason,’ replied my father, ‘the scheme is bad. It is the consumption of our products, as well as the manufacture of them, which gives bread to the hungry, circulates trade, and brings in money. – If I was a Prince, though I would generously reward the scientist who invented such things, yet I would also suppress the use of them.’

  My father here had got into his element, and was going on as prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had upon fortification; – but the destinies had decreed that no speech should be spun by my father that day, for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence,

  CHAPTER 15

  in popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus, too late – for the conversation had run into a new channel.

  ‘You may take the book home again, Trim,’ said my uncle Toby.

  ‘But prithee, Corporal,’ quoth my father, with drollery, – ‘first look into it, and see if thou canst spy a sailing chariot.’

  Corporal Trim had learned to obey; so taking the book to a side-table, and running through the leaves; he said, ‘Your Honour, I can see no such thing; however,’ he continued, drolling a little in his turn, ‘I’ll make sure of it.’ Bending the covers back, he gave the book a good sound shake.

  ‘There is something falling out,’ said Trim, ‘but it is not a chariot, or anything like one.’

  ‘Prithee, Corporal,’ said my father, smiling, ‘what is it then?’

  ‘I think,’ answered Trim, stooping to take it up, ‘’tis more like a sermon.’

  ‘I cannot conceive how it is possible,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘for a sermon to have got into my Stevinus.’

  ‘If it please your Honours,’ said Trim, ‘I will read you a page;’ for he loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk.

  ‘As we have nothing better to do,’ replied my father, ‘and if Dr. Slop has no objection, order the Corporal to give us a page or two of it, if he is able.’

  ‘He can read it,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘as well as I can. Trim was the best scholar in my company.’

  Corporal Trim made a humble bow to his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, he advanced into the middle of the room, where he could best see and be seen by his audience.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘Have you any objection?’ my father asked Dr. Slop.

  ‘Not in the least,’ replied Dr. Slop; ‘for it may be composed by a divine of my church, as well as of yours.’

  ‘Begin, Trim, and read distinctly,’ quoth my father.

  ‘I will, an’ please your Honour,’ replied the Corporal, bowing, and requesting attention with a movement of his hand.

  CHAPTER 17

  – But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude; otherwise you will imagine him stiff and perpendicular, – his eye fixed, as if on duty, his look determined; clenching the sermon in his left hand. – In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action. His attitude was as unlike this as you can conceive.

  He stood before them with his body bent forwards to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half from the horizontal; – which orators know very well to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; – in any other angle you may talk and preach, certainly; but with what effect, I leave the world to judge!

  The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half – does it not show us, by the way, how the arts and sciences mutually befriend each other?

  How the deuce Corporal Trim, who knew not an acute angle from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly; whether it was chance or good sense or imitation, I know not.

  He stood, I repeat, with his body somewhat bent forwards, his right leg sustaining seven-eighths of his weight, – the left foot advanced a little, his knee bent, not violently, but so as to fall within the limits of the line of beauty; – consider, it had one eighth of his body to bear up – so that the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what would allow him to carry an eighth part of his weight.

  [This I recommend to painters: – need I add, to orators! for unless they practise it, they must fall upon their noses.]

  So much for Corporal Trim’s legs. He held the sermo
n loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand; his right arm falling negligently by his side, but with the palm open and turned towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment if needed.

  Corporal Trim’s eyes and face were in full harmony with the rest of him; he looked frank and assured.

  So he stood, with such an oratorical sweep of figure, a statue might have been modelled from it.

  He made a bow, and read as follows:

  The Sermon

  HEBREWS xiii. 18

  For we trust we have a good Conscience

  ‘“Trust! Trust we have a good conscience!”’

  ‘Certainly, Trim,’ quoth my father, interrupting him, ‘you give that sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and read it with a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse the apostle.’

  ‘He is, your Honour,’ replied Trim.

  ‘Pugh!’ said my father, smiling.

  ‘Sir,’ quoth Dr. Slop, ‘The writer (who I perceive is a Protestant) is certainly going to abuse the apostle, if he has not done it already.’

  ‘But how,’ replied my father, ‘have you concluded so soon, Dr. Slop, that the writer is of our church? for aught I can see, he may be of any church.’

  ‘Because,’ answered Dr. Slop, ‘if he was of ours, he would not dare take such a liberty. If, in our communion, Sir, a man was to insult an apostle – a saint – he would have his eyes scratched out.’

  ‘What, by the saint?’ quoth my uncle Toby.

  ‘No,’ replied Dr. Slop, ‘he would have an old house on his head.’

  ‘Is the Inquisition an ancient building?’ asked my uncle Toby.

  ‘I know nothing of architecture,’ replied Dr. Slop.

  ‘An’ please your Honours,’ quoth Trim, ‘the Inquisition is the vilest–’

  ‘Prithee stop thy description, Trim, I hate the very name of it,’ said my father.

  ‘It has its uses,’ answered Dr. Slop, ‘though I’m no great advocate for it; yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on, he would be flung into the Inquisition for his pains.’

  ‘God help him then,’ quoth my uncle Toby.

  ‘Amen,’ added Trim; ‘for I have a poor brother who has been fourteen years a captive in it.’

  ‘I never heard one word of this before,’ said my uncle Toby. ‘How came he there, Trim?’

  ‘O, Sir! the story will make your heart bleed – but it is too long to be told now; your Honour shall hear it some day when I am working beside you in our fortifications; – but the short of the story is this. My brother Tom was a servant in Lisbon, and married a Jew’s widow, who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was the cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, where he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried to the Inquisition, where, God help him,’ continued Trim, with a deep sigh, pulling out his handkerchief, ‘the poor honest lad lies confined to this hour.’

  The tears trickled down Trim’s cheeks faster than he could wipe them away. Dead silence ensued for some minutes. Certain proof of pity!

  ‘Come, Trim,’ quoth my father, after a while, ‘read, and put this melancholy story out of thy head. Begin again.’

  Corporal Trim wiped his face, returned his handkerchief into his pocket, and began again.

  The Sermon

  HEBREWS xiii. 18

  For we trust we have a good Conscience

  ‘“Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is anything in this life which a man may depend upon, and may know upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be this very thing, whether he has a good conscience or no.”’

  [‘I am positive I am right,’ quoth Dr. Slop.]

  ‘“If a man thinks at all, he must be aware of his own thoughts and desires; he must remember his past pursuits, and know the true motives which have governed the actions of his life.

  ‘“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; but here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself; is conscious of the web she has wove; – knows its texture, and the exact share which every passion has had in working upon the designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.”’

  [‘The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well,’ quoth my father.]

  ‘“Now, as conscience is nothing but the knowledge which the mind has within herself; and the approval or censure, which it makes upon our actions; ’tis plain, you will say, that whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he must be guilty. And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not: – it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle suggests, but a matter of certainty, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also.”’

  [‘Then the apostle is altogether wrong, I suppose,’ quoth Dr. Slop, ‘and the Protestant divine is in the right.’

  ‘Sir, have patience,’ replied my father, ‘for I think it will presently appear that St. Paul and the Protestant divine have the same opinion.’

  ‘As nearly so,’ quoth Dr. Slop, ‘as east is like west; but this comes from the liberty of the press.’

  ‘It is only the liberty of the pulpit,’ replied my uncle Toby; ‘for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be.’

  ‘Go on, Trim,’ quoth my father.]

  ‘“At first sight this may seem to be the true state of the case: and the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man, that if a man’s conscience did not, by long habits of sin, gradually become hard, and lose that sense and perception which God gave it: if this never happened; or if it was certain that self-love never biased the judgment: – if neither favour nor wit entered this sacred Court, and if Passion never pronounced judgement instead of Reason: – was this truly so, then no doubt the moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it: and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known by no better measure, than his own approbation or censure.

  “I admit that whenever a man’s conscience accuses him of guilt (as it seldom errs on that side), we may safely say that (except in cases of melancholy) there are sufficient grounds for the accusation.

  “But the opposite will not hold true; namely, that whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and that if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent. This is not fact. The common consolation which some good Christian or other is hourly administering to himself, – that he thanks God he has a good conscience, merely because he hath a quiet one – is false; and the rule is liable to so much error that the whole force of it is lost.

  “A man may be vicious and utterly debauched; may live shamelessly, openly committing a sin which shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt; and not only cover her head with dishonour, but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can have no rest night or day from its reproaches.

  “Alas! Conscience is busy elsewhere all this time, talking aloud against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some puny crimes that his fortune secures him against any temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily, sleeps as soundly, and at last meets death as unconcernedly as a much better man.”’

  [‘All this is impossible with us,’ quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father; ‘it could not happen in our church.’

  ‘It happens in ours only too often,’ replied my father.

  ‘I admit,’ quoth Dr. Slop, struck with my father’s frankness, ‘that a man in the Romish church may live badly; but then he cannot easily die so.’

  ‘’Tis little matter,’ replied my father, ‘how a rascal dies.’

  ‘I mean,’ answered Dr. Slop, ‘he would be denied the last sacraments.’

  ‘Pray, how many have you,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘for I always forget?’

  ‘Seve
n,’ answered Dr. Slop.

  ‘Humph!’ said my uncle Toby, with the tone of that particular kind of surprise, when a man looking into a drawer finds more of a thing than he expected.

  Dr. Slop understood this tone. ‘Humph!’ he replied. ‘Sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues? Seven mortal sins? Seven heavens?’

  ‘’Tis more than I know,’ replied my uncle Toby.

  ‘Are there not seven wonders of the world? Seven days of the creation? Seven planets? Seven plagues?’

  ‘That there are,’ quoth my father. ‘But prithee, Trim, go on.’]

  ‘“Another man is sordid, unmerciful,”’ (here Trim waved his right hand) – ‘“a selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship or public spirit. He passes by the widow and orphan in their distress, and sees human misery without a sigh or a prayer. Shall not conscience rise up and sting him? ‘No,’ he says; ‘there is no need, I pay every man his due; I have no fornication, no faithless vows; thank God, I am not an adulterer like other men.’

  ‘“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his life; ’tis nothing but a cunning mixture of dark arts and subterfuges. You will see such a one working out designs upon the ignorance of the poor and needy man. He shall raise a fortune upon an inexperienced youth, or an unsuspecting friend, who would have trusted him with his life.

  ‘“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, conscience finds no law broken by what he has done; perceives no prison opening its gates. Conscience is safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports.’”

  [Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks.

  ‘Aye, aye, Trim!’ quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head, ‘these are sorry fortifications.’

  ‘O! very poor work,’ answered Trim.

  ‘The character of this last man,’ said Dr. Slop, ‘is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer. Amongst us, a man’s conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded: three times a year, at least, he must go to confession.’