The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - 60

My uncle Toby, on the contrary, took it like a lamb——sat still and let the poison work in his veins without resistance——in the sharpest exacerbations of his wound (like that on his groin) he never dropt one fretful or discontented word——he blamed neither heaven nor earth——or thought or spoke an injurious thing of any body, or any part of it; he sat solitary and pensive with his pipe——looking at his lame leg——then whiffing out a sentimental heigh ho! which mixing with the smoke, incommoded no one mortal.

He took it like a lamb——I say.

In truth he had mistook it at first; for having taken a ride with my father, that very morning, to save if possible a beautiful wood, which the dean and chapter were hewing down to give to the poor;^[42] which said wood being in full view of my uncle Toby’s house, and of singular service to him in his description of the battle of Wynnendale—by trotting on too hastily to save it——upon an uneasy saddle——worse horse, &c. &c. . . it had so happened, that the serous part of the blood had got betwixt the two skins, in the nethermost part of my uncle Toby——the first shootings of which (as my uncle Toby had no experience of love) he had taken for a part of the passion—till the blister breaking in the one case—and the other remaining—my uncle Toby was presently convinced, that his wound was not a skin-deep wound——but that it had gone to his heart.

[41] This will be printed with my father’s Life of Socrates, &c. &c.

[42] Mr Shandy must mean the poor in spirit; inasmuch as they divided the money amongst themselves.

C H A P.   LI

THE world is ashamed of being virtuous——my uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore when he felt he was in love with widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a mystery of, than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap’d knife across his finger: Had it been otherwise——yet as he ever look’d upon Trim as a humble friend; and saw fresh reasons every day of his life, to treat him as such——it would have made no variation in the manner in which he informed him of the affair.

“I am in love, corporal!” quoth my uncle Toby.

C H A P.   LII

IN love!——said the corporal—your honour was very well the day before yesterday, when I was telling your honour of the story of the King of Bohemia—Bohemia! said my uncle Toby - - - - musing a long time - - - What became of that story, Trim?

—We lost it, an’ please your honour, somehow betwixt us—but your honour was as free from love then, as I am——’twas just whilst thou went’st off with the wheel-barrow——with Mrs. Wadman, quoth my uncle Toby——She has left a ball here—added my uncle Toby—pointing to his breast——

——She can no more, an’ please your honour, stand a siege, than she can fly—cried the corporal——

——But as we are neighbours, Trim,—the best way I think is to let her know it civilly first—quoth my uncle Toby.

Now if I might presume, said the corporal, to differ from your honour——

—Why else do I talk to thee, Trim? said my uncle Toby, mildly——

—Then I would begin, an’ please your honour, with making a good thundering attack upon her, in return—and telling her civilly afterwards—for if she knows any thing of your honour’s being in love, before hand——L—d help her!—she knows no more at present of it, Trim, said my uncle Toby—than the child unborn——

Precious souls!——

Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its circumstances, to Mrs. Bridget twenty-four hours before; and was at that very moment sitting in council with her, touching some slight misgivings with regard to the issue of the affairs, which the Devil, who never lies dead in a ditch, had put into her head—before he would allow half time, to get quietly through her Te Deum.

I am terribly afraid, said widow Wadman, in case I should marry him, Bridget—that the poor captain will not enjoy his health, with the monstrous wound upon his groin——

It may not, Madam, be so very large, replied Bridget, as you think——and I believe, besides, added she—that ’tis dried up——

——I could like to know—merely for his sake, said Mrs. Wadman——

—We’ll know and long and the broad of it, in ten days—answered Mrs. Bridget, for whilst the captain is paying his addresses to you—I’m confident Mr. Trim will be for making love to me—and I’ll let him as much as he will—added Bridget—to get it all out of him——

The measures were taken at once——and my uncle Toby and the corporal went on with theirs.

Now, quoth the corporal, setting his left hand a-kimbo, and giving such a flourish with his right, as just promised success—and no more——if your honour will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack——

——Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, exceedingly—and as I foresee thou must act in it as my aid de camp, here’s a crown, corporal, to begin with, to steep thy commission.

Then, an’ please your honour, said the corporal (making a bow first for his commission)—we will begin with getting your honour’s laced clothes out of the great campaign-trunk, to be well air’d, and have the blue and gold taken up at the sleeves—and I’ll put your white ramallie-wig fresh into pipes—and send for a taylor, to have your honour’s thin scarlet breeches turn’d——

—I had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle Toby—They will be too clumsy—said the corporal.

C H A P.   LIII

——Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword——’Twill be only in your honour’s way, replied Trim.

C H A P.   LIV

—But your honour’s two razors shall be new set—and I will get my Montero cap furbish’d up, and put on poor lieutenant Le Fever’s regimental coat, which your honour gave me to wear for his sake—and as soon as your honour is clean shaved—and has got your clean shirt on, with your blue and gold, or your fine scarlet——sometimes one and sometimes t’other—and every thing is ready for the attack—we’ll march up boldly, as if ’twas to the face of a bastion; and whilst your honour engages Mrs. Wadman in the parlour, to the right——I’ll attack Mrs. Bridget in the kitchen, to the left; and having seiz’d the pass, I’ll answer for it, said the corporal, snapping his fingers over his head—that the day is our own.

I wish I may but manage it right; said my uncle Toby—but I declare, corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench——

—A woman is quite a different thing—said the corporal.

—I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby.

C H A P.   LV

IF any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would say—tho’ with more facetiousness than became an hermit—“That they were the means he used, to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.”

It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconick way of expressing——but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and appetites of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my father’s life, ’twas his constant mode of expression—he never used the word passions once—but ass always instead of them——So that he might be said truly, to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass, or else of some other man’s, during all that time.

I must here observe to you the difference betwixt

My father’s ass

and my hobby-horse—in order to keep characters as separate as may be, in our fancies as we go along.

For my hobby-horse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him——’Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour—a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick—an uncle Toby’s siege—or an any thing, which a man makes a shift to get a-stride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life—’Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole creation—nor do I really see how the world could do without it——

——But for my father’s ass——oh! mount him—mount him—mount him—(that’s three times, is it not?)—mount him not:—’tis a beast concupiscent—and foul befal the man, who does not hinder him from kicking.

C H A P.   LVI

WELL! dear brother Toby, said my father, upon his first seeing him after he fell in love—and how goes it with your ASSE?

Now my uncle Toby thinking more of the part where he had had the blister, than of Hilarion’s metaphor—and our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of things, he had imagined, that my father, who was not very ceremonious in his choice of words, had enquired after the part by its proper name: so notwithstanding my mother, doctor Slop, and Mr. Yorick, were sitting in the parlour, he thought it rather civil to conform to the term my father had made use of than not. When a man is hemm’d in by two indecorums, and must commit one of ’em—I always observe—let him chuse which he will, the world will blame him—so I should not be astonished if it blames my uncle Toby.

My A—e, quoth my uncle Toby, is much better—brother Shandy—My father had formed great expectations from his Asse in this onset; and would have brought him on again; but doctor Slop setting up an intemperate laugh—and my mother crying out L— bless us!—it drove my father’s Asse off the field—and the laugh then becoming general—there was no bringing him back to the charge, for some time——

And so the discourse went on without him.

Every body, said my mother, says you are in love, brother Toby,—and we hope it is true.

I am as much in love, sister, I believe, replied my uncle Toby, as any man usually is——Humph! said my father——and when did you know it? quoth my mother——

——When the blister broke; replied my uncle Toby.

My uncle Toby’s reply put my father into good temper—so he charg’d o’ foot.

C H A P.   LVII

AS the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of love, according to the different parts which are affected by it—the Brain or Liver——I think when a man is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he is fallen into.

What signifies it, brother Shandy, replied my uncle Toby, which of the two it is, provided it will but make a man marry, and love his wife, and get a few children?

——A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking full in my mother’s face, as he forced his way betwixt her’s and doctor Slop’s—a few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle Toby’s words as he walk’d to and fro——

——Not, my dear brother Toby, cried my father, recovering himself all at once, and coming close up to the back of my uncle Toby’s chair—not that I should be sorry hadst thou a score—on the contrary, I should rejoice—and be as kind, Toby, to every one of them as a father—

My uncle Toby stole his hand unperceived behind his chair, to give my father’s a squeeze——

——Nay, moreover, continued he, keeping hold of my uncle Toby’s hand—so much dost thou possess, my dear Toby, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities—’tis piteous the world is not peopled by creatures which resemble thee; and was I an Asiatic monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new project—I would oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strength—or dry up thy radical moisture too fast—or weaken thy memory or fancy, brother Toby, which these gymnics inordinately taken are apt to do—else, dear Toby, I would procure thee the most beautiful woman in my empire, and I would oblige thee, nolens, volens, to beget for me one subject every month——

As my father pronounced the last word of the sentence—my mother took a pinch of snuff.

Now I would not, quoth my uncle Toby, get a child, nolens, volens, that is, whether I would or no, to please the greatest prince upon earth——

——And ’twould be cruel in me, brother Toby, to compel thee; said my father—but ’tis a case put to shew thee, that it is not thy begetting a child—in case thou should’st be able—but the system of Love and Marriage thou goest upon, which I would set thee right in——

There is at least, said Yorick, a great deal of reason and plain sense in captain Shandy’s opinion of love; and ’tis amongst the ill-spent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have read so many flourishing poets and rhetoricians in my time, from whom I never could extract so much——

I wish, Yorick, said my father, you had read Plato; for there you would have learnt that there are two LOVES—I know there were two RELIGIONS, replied Yorick, amongst the ancients——one—for the vulgar, and another for the learned;—but I think ONE LOVE might have served both of them very well—

I could not; replied my father—and for the same reasons: for of these Loves, according to Ficinus’s comment upon Velasius, the one is rational——

——the other is natural——
the first ancient——without mother——where Venus had nothing to do: the second, begotten of Jupiter and Dione—

——Pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, what has a man who believes in God to do with this? My father could not stop to answer, for fear of breaking the thread of his discourse——

This latter, continued he, partakes wholly of the nature of Venus.

The first, which is the golden chain let down from heaven, excites to love heroic, which comprehends in it, and excites to the desire of philosophy and truth——the second, excites to desire, simply——

——I think the procreation of children as beneficial to the world, said Yorick, as the finding out the longitude——

——To be sure, said my mother, love keeps peace in the world——

——In the house—my dear, I own—

——It replenishes the earth; said my mother——

But it keeps heaven empty—my dear; replied my father.

——’Tis Virginity, cried Slop, triumphantly, which fills paradise.

Well push’d nun! quoth my father.

C H A P.   LVIII

MY father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of a slashing way with him in his disputations, thrusting and ripping, and giving every one a re were twenty people in company—in less than half an hour he was sure to have every one of ’em against him.

What did not a little contribute to leave him thus without an ally, was, that if there was any one post more untenable than the rest, he would be sure to throw himself into it; and to do him justice, when he was once there, he would defend it so gallantly, that ’twould have been a concern, either to a brave man or a good-natured one, to have seen him driven out.

Yorick, for this reason, though he would often attack him—yet could never bear to do it with all his force.

Doctor Slop’s VIRGINITY, in the close of the last chapter, had got him for once on the right side of the rampart; and he was beginning to blow up all the convents in Christendom about Slop’s ears, when corporal Trim came into the parlour to inform my uncle Toby, that his thin scarlet breeches, in which the attack was to be made upon Mrs. Wadman, would not do; for that the taylor, in ripping them up, in order to turn them, had found they had been turn’d before——Then turn them again, brother, said my father, rapidly, for there will be many a turning of ’em yet before all’s done in the affair——They are as rotten as dirt, said the corporal——Then by all means, said my father, bespeak a new pair, brother——for though I know, continued my father, turning himself to the company, that widow Wadman has been deeply in love with my brother Toby for many years, and has used every art and circumvention of woman to outwit him into the same passion, yet now that she has caught him——her fever will be pass’d its height——