The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - 56

“IT is with Love as with Cuckoldom”——the suffering party is at least the third, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing about the matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen words for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the human frame, is Love—may be Hatred, in that——Sentiment half a yard higher——and Nonsense———no, Madam,—not there——I mean at the part I am now pointing to with my forefinger——how can we help ourselves?

Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, who ever soliloquized upon this mystic subject, my uncle Toby was the worst fitted, to have push’d his researches, thro’ such a contention of feelings; and he had infallibly let them all run on, as we do worse matters, to see what they would turn out——had not Bridget’s pre-notification of them to Susannah, and Susannah’s repeated manifestoes thereupon to all the world, made it necessary for my uncle Toby to look into the affair.

C H A P.   XXIX

WHY weavers, gardeners, and gladiators—or a man with a pined leg (proceeding from some ailment in the foot)—should ever have had some tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and duly settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists.

A water-drinker, provided he is a profess’d one, and does it without fraud or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, “That a rill of cold water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a torch in my Jenny’s—”

——The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run opposite to the natural workings of causes and effects——

But it shews the weakness and imbecility of human reason.

——“And in perfect good health with it?”

—The most perfect,—Madam, that friendship herself could wish me——

“And drink nothing!—nothing but water?”

—Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of the brain——see how they give way!——

In swims CURIOSITY, beckoning to her damsels to follow—they dive into the center of the current——

FANCY sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits——And DESIRE, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her, with the other——

O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn’d this world about like a mill-wheel—grinding the faces of the impotent—bepowdering their ribs—bepeppering their noses, and changing sometimes even the very frame and face of nature——

If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, Eugenius—And, if I was you, Yorick, replied Eugenius, so would I.

Which shews 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.

C H A P.   XXX

I WISH my uncle Toby had been a water-drinker; for then the thing had been accounted for, That the first moment Widow Wadman saw him, she felt something stirring within her in his favour—Something!—something.

—Something perhaps more than friendship—less than love—something—no matter what—no matter where—I would not give a single hair off my mule’s tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed the villain has not many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain), to be let by your worships into the secret——

But the truth is, my uncle Toby was not a water-drinker; he drank it neither pure nor mix’d, or any how, or any where, except fortuitously upon some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be had——or during the time he was under cure; when the surgeon telling him it would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner into contact——my uncle Toby drank it for quietness sake.

Now as all the world knows, that no effect in nature can be produced without a cause, and as it is as well known, that my uncle Toby was neither a weaver—a gardener, or a gladiator——unless as a captain, you will needs have him one—but then he was only a captain of foot—and besides, the whole is an equivocation——There is nothing left for us to suppose, but that my uncle Toby’s leg——but that will avail us little in the present hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment in the foot—whereas his leg was not emaciated from any disorder in his foot—for my uncle Toby’s leg was not emaciated at all. It was a little stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it, for the three years he lay confined at my father’s house in town; but it was plump and muscular, and in all other respects as good and promising a leg as the other.

I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it, than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to make fresh experiments of getting out of ’em——Inconsiderate soul that thou art! What! are not the unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm’d in on every side of thee——are they, Tristram, not sufficient, but thou must entangle thyself still more?

Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cart-loads of thy fifth and sixth volumes^[39] still—still unsold, and art almost at thy wit’s ends, how to get them off thy hands?

To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest in skating against the wind in Flanders? and is it but two months ago, that in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and hadst thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell thee——it would have amounted to a gallon?——

[39] Alluding to the first edition.

C H A P.   XXXI

—But for heaven’s sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons——let us take the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow or other, you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it—

—I beg we may take more care.

C H A P.   XXXII

MY uncle Toby and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the whole affair, it was neither a pioneer’s spade, a pickax, or a shovel—

—It was a bed to lie on: so that as Shandy-Hall was at that time unfurnished; and the little inn where poor Le Fever died, not yet built; my uncle Toby was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. Wadman’s, for a night or two, till corporal Trim (who to the character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of taylors, constructed one in my uncle Toby’s house.

A daughter of Eve, for such was widow Wadman, and ’tis all the character I intend to give of her—

—“ That she was a perfect woman—” had better be fifty leagues off—or in her warm bed—or playing with a case-knife—or any thing you please—than make a man the object of her attention, when the house and all the furniture is her own.

There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad day-light, where a woman has a power, physically speaking, of viewing a man in more lights than one—but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without mixing something of her own goods and chattels along with him——till by reiterated acts of such combination, he gets foisted into her inventory——

—And then good night.

But this is not matter of SYSTEM; for I have delivered that above——nor is it matter of BREVIARY——for I make no man’s creed but my own——nor matter of FACT——at least that I know of; but ’tis matter copulative and introductory to what follows.

C H A P.   XXXIII

I DO not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them—or the strength of their gussets——but pray do not night-shifts differ from day-shifts as much in this particular, as in any thing else in the world; that they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are laid down in them, they fall almost as much below the feet, as the day-shifts fall short of them?

Widow Wadman’s night-shifts (as was the mode I suppose in King William’s and Queen Anne’s reigns) were cut however after this fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)——so much the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length, so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what she would with.

Now from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak and decemberley nights of a seven years widow-hood, things had insensibly come to this pass, and for the two last years had got establish’d into one of the ordinances of the bed-chamber—That as soon as Mrs. Wadman was put to bed, and had got her legs stretched down to the bottom of it, of which she always gave Bridget notice—Bridget, with all suitable decorum, having first open’d the bed-clothes at the feet, took hold of the half-ell of cloth we are speaking of, and having gently, and with both her hands, drawn it downwards to its furthest extension, and then contracted it again side-long by four or five even plaits, she took a large corking-pin out of her sleeve, and with the point directed towards her, pinn’d the plaits all fast together a little above the hem; which done, she tuck’d all in tight at the feet, and wish’d her mistress a good night.

This was constant, and without any other variation than this; that on shivering and tempestuous nights, when Bridget untuck’d the feet of the bed, &c. to do this——she consulted no thermometer but that of her own passions; and so performed it standing—kneeling—or squatting, according to the different degrees of faith, hope, and charity, she was in, and bore towards her mistress that night. In every other respect, the etiquette was sacred, and might have vied with the most mechanical one of the most inflexible bed-chamber in Christendom.

The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle Toby up stairs, which was about ten——Mrs. Wadman threw herself into her arm-chair, and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a resting-place for her elbow, she reclin’d her cheek upon the palm of her hand, and leaning forwards, ruminated till midnight upon both sides of the question.

The second night she went to her bureau, and having ordered Bridget to bring her up a couple of fresh candles and leave them upon the table, she took out her marriage-settlement, and read it over with great devotion: and the third night (which was the last of my uncle Toby’s stay) when Bridget had pull’d down the night-shift, and was assaying to stick in the corking pin——

——With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most natural kick that could be kick’d in her situation——for supposing * * * * * * * * * to be the sun in its meridian, it was a north-east kick——she kick’d the pin out of her fingers——the etiquette which hung upon it, down——down it fell to the ground, and was shiver’d into a thousand atoms.

From all which it was plain that widow Wadman was in love with my uncle Toby.

C H A P.   XXXIV

MY uncle Toby’s head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return this.

This made an armistice (that is, speaking with regard to my uncle Toby—but with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)—of almost eleven years. But in all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray——I chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.

This is not a distinction without a difference.

It is not like the affair of an old hat cock’d——and a cock’d old hat, about which your reverences have so often been at odds with one another——but there is a difference here in the nature of things——

And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too.

C H A P.   XXXV

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.

——Gracious heaven!——but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t’other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her——and that she careth not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no——

——Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal nitch where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the milky-way——

Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon some one——

——The duce take her and her influence too——for at that word I lose all patience——much good may it do him!——By all that is hirsute and gashly! I cry, taking off my furr’d cap, and twisting it round my finger——I would not give sixpence for a dozen such!

——But ’tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears)—and warm—and soft; especially if you stroke it the right way—but alas! that will never be my luck——(so here my philosophy is shipwreck’d again.)

——No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor)——

Crust and Crumb

Inside and out

Top and bottom——I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it——I’m sick at the sight of it——

’Tis all pepper,
garlick,
speak-punctuation:,
salt, and
devil’s dung——by the great arch-cooks of cooks, who does nothing, I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fire-side and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world——

——O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny.

O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the thirty-sixth chapter.

C H A P.   XXXVI

——“Not touch it for the world,” did I say——

Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor!

C H A P.   XXXVII

WHICH shews, let your reverences and worships say what you will of it (for as for thinking——all who do think—think pretty much alike both upon it and other matters)——Love is certainly, at least alphabetically speaking, one of the most

A gitating

B ewitching

C onfounded

D evilish affairs of life——the most

E xtravagant

F utilitous

G alligaskinish

H andy-dandyish

I racundulous (there is no K to it) and

L yrical of all human passions: at the

same time, the most

M isgiving

N innyhammering

O bstipating

P ragmatical

S tridulous

R idiculous—though by the bye the R should have gone first—But in short ’tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle Toby upon the close of a long dissertation upon the subject——“You can scarce,” said he, “combine two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage”——What’s that? cried my uncle Toby.

The cart before the horse, replied my father——

——And what is he to do there? cried my uncle Toby.

Nothing, quoth my father, but to get in——or let it alone.

Now widow Wadman, as I told you before, would do neither the one or the other.