ArcaMax Publishing > Books > Fiction > The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman > Section 23
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Section 23 of 48 - Table of Contents
Chapter 2.LX.

--No doubt, Sir,--there is a whole chapter wanting here--and a chasm of ten
pages made in the book by it--but the book-binder is neither a fool, or a
knave, or a puppy--nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least upon that
score)--but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by
wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate to your
reverences in this manner.--I question first, by-the-bye, whether the same
experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters--
but there is no end, an' please your reverences, in trying experiments upon
chapters--we have had enough of it--So there's an end of that matter.

But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the chapter
which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have been reading
just now, instead of this--was the description of my father's, my uncle
Toby's, Trim's, and Obadiah's setting out and journeying to the visitation
at. . ..

We'll go in the coach, said my father--Prithee, have the arms been altered,
Obadiah?--It would have made my story much better to have begun with
telling you, that at the time my mother's arms were added to the Shandy's,
when the coach was re-painted upon my father's marriage, it had so fallen
out that the coach-painter, whether by performing all his works with the
left hand, like Turpilius the Roman, or Hans Holbein of Basil--or whether
'twas more from the blunder of his head than hand--or whether, lastly, it
was from the sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt
to take--it so fell out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the
bend-dexter, which since Harry the Eighth's reign was honestly our due--a
bend-sinister, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite across the
field of the Shandy arms.  'Tis scarce credible that the mind of so wise a
man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with so small a matter.
The word coach--let it be whose it would--or coach-man, or coach-horse, or
coach-hire, could never be named in the family, but he constantly
complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon the door of his
own; he never once was able to step into the coach, or out of it, without
turning round to take a view of the arms, and making a vow at the same
time, that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it again,
till the bend-sinister was taken out--but like the affair of the hinge, it
was one of the many things which the Destinies had set down in their books
ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)--but never to be
mended.

--Has the bend-sinister been brush'd out, I say? said my father.--There has
been nothing brush'd out, Sir, answered Obadiah, but the lining.  We'll go
o'horseback, said my father, turning to Yorick--Of all things in the world,
except politicks, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said Yorick.--No
matter for that, cried my father--I should be sorry to appear with a blot
in my escutcheon before them.--Never mind the bend-sinister, said my uncle
Toby, putting on his tye-wig.--No, indeed, said my father--you may go with
my aunt Dinah to a visitation with a bend-sinister, if you think fit--My
poor uncle Toby blush'd.  My father was vexed at himself.--No--my dear
brother Toby, said my father, changing his tone--but the damp of the coach-
lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did December,
January, and February last winter--so if you please you shall ride my
wife's pad--and as you are to preach, Yorick, you had better make the best
of your way before--and leave me to take care of my brother Toby, and to
follow at our own rates.

Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this
cavalcade, in which Corporal Trim and Obadiah, upon two coach-horses a-
breast, led the way as slow as a patrole--whilst my uncle Toby, in his
laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep roads
and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and arms, as
each could get the start.

--But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so
much above the stile and manner of any thing else I have been able to paint
in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without depreciating
every other scene; and destroying at the same time that necessary equipoise
and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from
whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work results.  For my
own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it--
but, in my opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a
song--be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how
low you take it.

--This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the
lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well--(as Yorick told my
uncle Toby one night) by siege.--My uncle Toby looked brisk at the sound of
the word siege, but could make neither head or tail of it.

I'm to preach at court next Sunday, said Homenas--run over my notes--so I
humm'd over doctor Homenas's notes--the modulation's very well--'twill do,
Homenas, if it holds on at this rate--so on I humm'd--and a tolerable tune
I thought it was; and to this hour, may it please your reverences, had
never found out how low, how flat, how spiritless and jejune it was, but
that all of a sudden, up started an air in the middle of it, so fine, so
rich, so heavenly,--it carried my soul up with it into the other world; now
had I (as Montaigne complained in a parallel accident)--had I found the
declivity easy, or the ascent accessible--certes I had been outwitted.--
Your notes, Homenas, I should have said, are good notes;--but it was so
perpendicular a precipice--so wholly cut off from the rest of the work,
that by the first note I humm'd I found myself flying into the other world,
and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so deep, so low,
and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into it again.

> A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size--
take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.--And so much for
tearing out of chapters.



Chapter 2.LXI.

--See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to
light their pipes!--'Tis abominable, answered Didius; it should not go
unnoticed, said doctor Kysarcius--> he was of the Kysarcii of the Low
Countries.

Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a
bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and
Yorick--you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a
more proper place, Mr. Yorick--or at least upon a more proper occasion to
have shewn your contempt of what we have been about:  If the sermon is of
no better worth than to light pipes with--'twas certainly, Sir, not good
enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if 'twas good enough to
be preached before so learned a body--'twas certainly Sir, too good to
light their pipes with afterwards.

--I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two
horns of my dilemma--let him get off as he can.

I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon,
quoth Yorick, upon this occasion--that I declare, Didius, I would suffer
martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over,
before I would sit down and make such another:  I was delivered of it at
the wrong end of me--it came from my head instead of my heart--and it is
for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I
revenge myself of it, in this manner--To preach, to shew the extent of our
reading, or the subtleties of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar
with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsel'd over with a few
words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth--is a
dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our
hands--'Tis not preaching the gospel--but ourselves--For my own part,
continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.-
-

As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say
something upon projectiles--when a single word and no more uttered from the
opposite side of the table drew every one's ears towards it--a word of all
others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected--a word I am
ashamed to write--yet must be written--must be read--illegal--uncanonical--
guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your
invention for ever, you're where you was--In short, I'll tell it in the
next chapter.



Chapter 2.LXII.

Zounds!--Z...ds! cried Phutatorius, partly to himself--and yet high enough
to be heard--and what seemed odd, 'twas uttered in a construction of look,
and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in amazement and one
in bodily pain.

One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression and
mixture of the two tones as plainly as a third or a fifth, or any other
chord in musick--were the most puzzled and perplexed with it--the concord
was good in itself--but then 'twas quite out of the key, and no way
applicable to the subject started;--so that with all their knowledge, they
could not tell what in the world to make of it.

Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their ears
to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was
somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of
Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose--and that the
desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as
they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him;
so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about
to undergo.  But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or
desire to go on--a third party began to suppose, that it was no more than
an involuntary respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a
twelve-penny oath--without the sin or substance of one.

Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on the
contrary as a real and substantial oath, propensly formed against Yorick,
to whom he was known to bear no good liking--which said oath, as my father
philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at that very time
in the upper regions of Phutatorius's purtenance; and so was naturally, and
according to the due course of things, first squeezed out by the sudden
influx of blood which was driven into the right ventricle of Phutatorius's
heart, by the stroke of surprize which so strange a theory of preaching had
excited.

How finely we argue upon mistaken facts!

There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the
monosyllable which Phutatorius uttered--who did not take this for granted,
proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that Phutatorius's mind was
intent upon the subject of debate which was arising between Didius and
Yorick; and indeed as he looked first towards the one and then towards the
other, with the air of a man listening to what was going forwards--who
would not have thought the same?  But the truth was, that Phutatorius knew
not one word or one syllable of what was passing--but his whole thoughts
and attention were taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at
that very instant within the precincts of his own Galligaskins, and in a
part of them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch
accidents:  So that notwithstanding he looked with all the attention in the
world, and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his face, to
the utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it was thought, to
give a sharp reply to Yorick, who sat over-against him--yet, I say, was
Yorick never once in any one domicile of Phutatorius's brain--but the true
cause of his exclamation lay at least a yard below.

This I will endeavour to explain to you with all imaginable decency.

You must be informed then, that Gastripheres, who had taken a turn into the
kitchen a little before dinner, to see how things went on--observing a
wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the dresser, had ordered that
a hundred or two of them might be roasted and sent in, as soon as dinner
was over--Gastripheres inforcing his orders about them, that Didius, but
Phutatorius especially, were particularly fond of 'em.

About two minutes before the time that my uncle Toby interrupted Yorick's
harangue--Gastripheres's chesnuts were brought in--and as Phutatorius's
fondness for 'em was uppermost in the waiter's head, he laid them directly
before Phutatorius, wrapt up hot in a clean damask napkin.

Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all
thrust into the napkin at a time--but that some one chesnut, of more life
and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion--it so fell out,
however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as
Phutatorius sat straddling under--it fell perpendicularly into that
particular aperture of Phutatorius's breeches, for which, to the shame and
indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout
all Johnson's dictionary--let it suffice to say--it was that particular
aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of decorum do strictly
require, like the temple of Janus (in peace at least) to be universally
shut up.

The neglect of this punctilio in Phutatorius (which by-the-bye should be a
warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.--

Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speaking--but in no
opposition to the opinion either of Acrites or Mythogeras in this matter; I
know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of it--and are so to
this hour, That there was nothing of accident in the whole event--but that
the chesnut's taking that particular course, and in a manner of its own
accord--and then falling with all its heat directly into that one
particular place, and no other--was a real judgment upon Phutatorius for
that filthy and obscene treatise de Concubinis retinendis, which
Phutatorius had published about twenty years ago--and was that identical
week going to give the world a second edition of.

It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy--much undoubtedly
may be wrote on both sides of the question--all that concerns me as an
historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and render it credible to
the reader, that the hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches was sufficiently wide
to receive the chesnut;--and that the chesnut, somehow or other, did fall
perpendicularly, and piping hot into it, without Phutatorius's perceiving
it, or any one else at that time.

The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for the
first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds--and did no more than gently
solicit Phutatorius's attention towards the part:--But the heat gradually
increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober
pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain, the
soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his
attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deliberation,
ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of animal spirits, all
tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles and circuits, to the
place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as you may imagine, as
empty as my purse.

With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back,
Phutatorius was not able to dive into the secret of what was going forwards
below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil was the
matter with it:  However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn
out, he deemed it most prudent in the situation he was in at present, to
bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces
and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his
imagination continued neuter;--but the sallies of the imagination are
ungovernable in things of this kind--a thought instantly darted into his
mind, that tho' the anguish had the sensation of glowing heat--it might,
notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a burn; and if so, that possibly
a Newt or an Asker, or some such detested reptile, had crept up, and was
fastening his teeth--the horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain
arising that instant from the chesnut, seized Phutatorius with a sudden
panick, and in the first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him,
as it has done the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard:--the
effect of which was this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he
rose that interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the
aposiopestic break after it, marked thus, Z...ds--which, though not
strictly canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the
occasion;--and which, by-the-bye, whether canonical or not, Phutatorius
could no more help than he could the cause of it.

Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little more
time in the transaction, than just to allow time for Phutatorius to draw
forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the floor--and for
Yorick to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.

It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--
What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions,
both of men and things--that trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief
into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it--that Euclid's
demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not
all have power to overthrow it.

Yorick, I said, picked up the chesnut which Phutatorius's wrath had flung
down--the action was trifling--I am ashamed to account for it--he did it,
for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse for the
adventure--and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping for.--But this
incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in Phutatorius's head:
He considered this act of Yorick's in getting off his chair and picking up
the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was
originally his--and in course, that it must have been the owner of the
chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it:
What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being
parallelogramical and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for
Yorick, who sat directly over against Phutatorius, of slipping the chesnut
in--and consequently that he did it.  The look of something more than
suspicion, which Phutatorius cast full upon Yorick as these thoughts arose,
too evidently spoke his opinion--and as Phutatorius was naturally supposed
to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion at once
became the general one;--and for a reason very different from any which
have been yet given--in a little time it was put out of all manner of
dispute.

When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this sublunary
world--the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a substance,
naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the cause and
first spring of them.--The search was not long in this instance.

It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of the treatise
which Phutatorius had wrote de Concubinis retinendis, as a thing which he
feared had done hurt in the world--and 'twas easily found out, that there
was a mystical meaning in Yorick's prank--and that his chucking the chesnut
hot into Phutatorius's. . .--. . ., was a sarcastical fling at his book--
the doctrines of which, they said, had enflamed many an honest man in the
same place.

This conceit awaken'd Somnolentus--made Agelastes smile--and if you can
recollect the precise look and air of a man's face intent in finding out a
riddle--it threw Gastripheres's into that form--and in short was thought by
many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.

This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as groundless
as the dreams of philosophy:  Yorick, no doubt, as Shakespeare said of his
ancestor--'was a man of jest,' but it was temper'd with something which
withheld him from that, and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as
undeservedly bore the blame;--but it was his misfortune all his life long
to bear the imputation of saying and doing a thousand things, of which
(unless my esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable.  All I blame him
for--or rather, all I blame and alternately like him for, was that
singularity of his temper, which would never suffer him to take pains to
set a story right with the world, however in his power.  In every ill usage
of that sort, he acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horse--he
could have explained it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and
besides, he ever looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of
an illiberal report alike so injurious to him--he could not stoop to tell
his story to them--and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him.

This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects--in the
present it was followed by the fixed resentment of Phutatorius, who, as
Yorick had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair a second
time, to let him know it--which indeed he did with a smile; saying only--
that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation.

But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two things
in your mind.

--The smile was for the company.

--The threat was for Yorick.



Chapter 2.LXIII.

--Can you tell me, quoth Phutatorius, speaking to Gastripheres who sat next
to him--for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an affair--can
you tell me, Gastripheres, what is best to take out the fire?--Ask
Eugenius, said Gastripheres.--That greatly depends, said Eugenius,
pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature of the part--If it
is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be wrapt up--It is both
the one and the other, replied Phutatorius, laying his hand as he spoke,
with an emphatical nod of his head, upon the part in question, and lifting
up his right leg at the same time to ease and ventilate it.--If that is the
case, said Eugenius, I would advise you, Phutatorius, not to tamper with it
by any means; but if you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure
to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the press--
you need do nothing more than twist it round.--The damp paper, quoth Yorick
(who sat next to his friend Eugenius) though I know it has a refreshing
coolness in it--yet I presume is no more than the vehicle--and that the oil
and lamp-black with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, does the
business.--Right, said Eugenius, and is, of any outward application I would
venture to recommend, the most anodyne and safe.

Was it my case, said Gastripheres, as the main thing is the oil and lamp-
black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on directly.--
That would make a very devil of it, replied Yorick.--And besides, added
Eugenius, it would not answer the intention, which is the extreme neatness
and elegance of the prescription, which the Faculty hold to be half in
half;--for consider, if the type is a very small one (which it should be)
the sanative particles, which come into contact in this form, have the
advantage of being spread so infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical
equality (fresh paragraphs and large capitals excepted) as no art or
management of the spatula can come up to.--It falls out very luckily,
replied Phutatorius, that the second edition of my treatise de Concubinis
retinendis is at this instant in the press.--You may take any leaf of it,
said Eugenius--no matter which.--Provided, quoth Yorick, there is no bawdry
in it.--

They are just now, replied Phutatorius, printing off the ninth chapter--
which is the last chapter but one in the book.--Pray what is the title of
that chapter? said Yorick; making a respectful bow to Phutatorius as he
spoke.--I think, answered Phutatorius, 'tis that de re concubinaria.

For Heaven's sake keep out of that chapter, quoth Yorick.

--By all means--added Eugenius.
Prev Next All
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Discuss this Book
Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.

The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan W.S. Gilbert Category: Plays Sections: 50 What's this? Table of Contents		Non Fiction Short Stories Poetry Plays Sci Fi Philosophy Religion Biography