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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Chapter 1.XX.

--How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter?  I
told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.--Papist!  You told me no
such thing, Sir.--Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told
you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could tell you such
a thing.--Then, Sir, I must have miss'd a page.--No, Madam, you have not
miss'd a word.--Then I was asleep, Sir.--My pride, Madam, cannot allow you
that refuge.--Then, I declare, I know nothing at all about the matter.--
That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge; and as a punishment
for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is as
soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over
again.  I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of
wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall
make her no apology for it when she returns back:--'Tis to rebuke a vicious
taste, which has crept into thousands besides herself,--of reading straight
forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and
knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would
infallibly impart with them--The mind should be accustomed to make wise
reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the habitude of
which made Pliny the younger affirm, 'That he never read a book so bad, but
he drew some profit from it.'  The stories of Greece and Rome, run over
without this turn and application,--do less service, I affirm it, than the
history of Parismus and Parismenus, or of the Seven Champions of England,
read with it.

--But here comes my fair lady.  Have you read over again the chapter,
Madam, as I desired you?--You have:  And did you not observe the passage,
upon the second reading, which admits the inference?--Not a word like it!
Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the
chapter, where I take upon me to say, 'It was necessary I should be born
before I was christen'd.'  Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that
consequence did not follow.  (The Romish Rituals direct the baptizing of
the child, in cases of danger, before it is born;--but upon this proviso,
That some part or other of the child's body be seen by the baptizer:--But
the Doctors of the Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10,
1733,--have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That
though no part of the child's body should appear,--that baptism shall,
nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,--par le moyen d'une
petite canulle,--Anglice a squirt.--'Tis very strange that St. Thomas
Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the
knots of school-divinity,--should, after so much pains bestowed upon this,-
-give up the point at last, as a second La chose impossible,--'Infantes in
maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Thomas!) baptizari possunt nullo
modo.'--O Thomas! Thomas!  If the reader has the curiosity to see the
question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the Doctors of the
Sorbonne, with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.)

It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to the
Republick of letters;--so that my own is quite swallowed up in the
consideration of it,--that this self-same vile pruriency for fresh
adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humour,--
and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our
concupiscence that way,--that nothing but the gross and more carnal parts
of a composition will go down:--The subtle hints and sly communications of
science fly off, like spirits upwards,--the heavy moral escapes downwards;
and both the one and the other are as much lost to the world, as if they
were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn.

I wish the male-reader has not pass'd by many a one, as quaint and curious
as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected.  I wish it may
have its effects;--and that all good people, both male and female, from
example, may be taught to think as well as read.

Memoire presente a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne
Vide Deventer.  Paris Edit.  4to, 1734, p. 366.

Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne,
qu'il y a des cas, quoique tres rares, ou une mere ne scauroit accoucher, &
meme ou l'enfant est tellement renferme dans le sein de sa mere, qu'il ne
fait paroitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit un cas, suivant les
Rituels, de lui conferer, du moins sous condition, le bapteme.  Le
Chirurgien, qui consulte, pretend, par le moyen d'une petite canulle, de
pouvoir baptiser immediatement l'enfant, sans faire aucun tort a la mere.--
Il demand si ce moyen, qu'il vient de proposer, est permis & legitime, &
s'il peut s'en servir dans les cas qu'il vient d'exposer.

Reponse

Le Conseil estime, que la question proposee souffre de grandes difficultes.
Les Theologiens posent d'un cote pour principe, que le bapteme, qui est une
naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere naissance; il faut etre ne dans
le monde, pour renaitre en Jesus Christ, comme ils l'enseignent.  S.
Thomas, 3 part. quaest. 88 artic. II. suit cette doctrine comme une verite
constante; l'on ne peut, dit ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont
renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, & S. Thomas est fonde sur ce, que
les enfans ne sont point nes, & ne peuvent etre comptes parmi les autres
hommes; d'ou il conclud, qu'ils ne peuvent etre l'objet d'une action
exterieure, pour recevoir par leur ministere, les sacremens necessaires au
salut:  Pueri in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut
cum aliis hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanae,
ut per eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem.  Les rituels
ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les theologiens ont etabli sur les memes
matieres, & ils deffendent tous d'une maniere uniforme, de baptiser les
enfans qui sont renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, s'ils ne sont
paroitre quelque partie de leurs corps.  Le concours des theologiens, & des
rituels, qui sont les regles des dioceses, paroit former une autorite qui
termine la question presente; cependant le conseil de conscience
considerant d'un cote, que le raisonnement des theologiens est uniquement
fonde sur une raison de convenance, & que la deffense des rituels suppose
que l'on ne peut baptiser immediatement les enfans ainsi renfermes dans le
sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre la supposition presente; & d'un
autre cote, considerant que les memes theologiens enseignent, que l'on peut
risquer les sacremens que Jesus Christ a etablis comme des moyens faciles,
mais necessaires pour sanctifier les hommes; & d'ailleurs estimant, que les
enfans renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient etre capables de
salut, parcequ'ils sont capables de damnation;--pour ces considerations, &
en egard a l'expose, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouve un moyen certain
de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermes, sans faire aucun tort a la mere, le
Conseil estime que l'on pourroit se servir du moyen propose, dans la
confiance qu'il a, que Dieu n'a point laisse ces sortes d'enfans sans
aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est expose, que le moyen dont il
s'agit est propre a leur procurer le bapteme; cependant comme il s'agiroit,
en autorisant la pratique proposee, de changer une regle universellement
etablie, le Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit s'addresser a son
eveque, & a qui il appartient de juger de l'utilite, & du danger du moyen
propose, & comme, sous le bon plaisir de l'eveque, le Conseil estime qu'il
faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le droit d'expliquer les regles de
l'eglise, & d'y deroger dans le cas, ou la loi ne scauroit obliger, quelque
sage & quelque utile que paroisse la maniere de baptiser dont il s'agit, le
Conseil ne pourroit l'approver sans le concours de ces deux autorites.  On
conseile au moins a celui qui consulte, de s'addresser a son eveque, & de
lui faire part de la presente decision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans
les raisons sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignes s'appuyent, il puisse
etre autorise dans le cas de necessite, ou il risqueroit trop d'attendre
que la permission fut demandee & accordee d'employer le moyen qu'il propose
si avantageux au salut de l'enfant.  Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant que
l'on pourroit s'en servir, croit cependant, que si les enfans dont il
s'agit, venoient au monde, contre l'esperance de ceux qui se seroient
servis du meme moyen, il seroit necessaire de les baptiser sous condition;
& en cela le Conseil se conforme a tous les rituels, qui en autorisant le
bapteme d'un enfant qui fait paroitre quelque partie de son corps,
enjoignent neantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser sous condition, s'il
vient heureusement au monde.

Delibere en 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; hopes they all 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 all the Homunculi at once,
slapdash, by injection, would not be a shorter and safer cut still; on
condition, as above, That if the Homunculi do well, and come safe into the
world after this, that each and every of them shall be baptized again (sous
condition)--And provided, in the second place, That the thing can be done,
which Mr. Shandy apprehends it may, par le moyen d'une petite canulle, and
sans faire aucune tort au pere.



Chapter 1.XXI.

--I wonder what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for,
above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour and a
half's silence, to my uncle Toby,--who, you must know, was sitting on the
opposite side of the fire, smoaking his social pipe all the time, in mute
contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches which he had got on:--
What can they be doing, brother?--quoth my father,--we can scarce hear
ourselves talk.

I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and
striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb,
as he began his sentence,--I think, says he:--But to enter rightly into my
uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a
little into his character, the out-lines of which I shall just give you,
and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on as well again.

Pray what was that man's name,--for I write in such a hurry, I have no time
to recollect or look for it,--who first made the observation, 'That there
was great inconstancy in our air and climate?'  Whoever he was, 'twas a
just and good observation in him.--But the corollary drawn from it, namely,
'That it is this which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and
whimsical characters;'--that was not his;--it was found out by another man,
at least a century and a half after him:  Then again,--that this copious
store-house of original materials, is the true and natural cause that our
Comedies are so much better than those of France, or any others that either
have, or can be wrote upon the Continent:--that discovery was not fully
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.  Indeed toward the latter end of queen Anne, the great Addison
began to patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in
one or two of his Spectators;--but the discovery was not his.--Then,
fourthly and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate,
producing so strange an irregularity in our characters,--doth thereby, in
some sort, make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when
the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors,--that observation is my
own;--and was struck out by me this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, and
betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning.

Thus--thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of our
learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps of casual
increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological,
polemical, nautical, mathematical, aenigmatical, technical, biographical,
romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it,
(most of 'em ending as these do, in ical) have for these two last centuries
and more, gradually been creeping upwards towards that Akme of their
perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of
these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off.

When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of
writings whatsoever;--the want of all kind of writing will put an end to
all kind of reading;--and that in time, As war begets poverty; poverty
peace,--must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge,--and then--we
shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be exactly where we
started.

--Happy!  Thrice happy times!  I only wish that the aera of my begetting,
as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter'd,--or that
it could have been put off, with any convenience to my father or mother,
for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, 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 out of his tobacco-pipe.

His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our
atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of
the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many strong
lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he derived the
singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind or water, or
any modifications or combinations of them whatever:  And I have, therefore,
oft-times wondered, that my father, tho' I believe he had his reasons for
it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity, in my course, when I
was a boy,--should never once endeavour to account for them in this way:
for all the Shandy Family were of an original character throughout:--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 christian
names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.

It will seem strange,--and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in
the reader's way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing
how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after
it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and
unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my father and my
uncle Toby.  One would have thought, that the whole force of the misfortune
should have spent and wasted itself in the family at first,--as is
generally the case.--But nothing ever wrought with our family after the
ordinary way.  Possibly at the very time this happened, it might have
something else to afflict it; and as afflictions are sent down for our
good, and that as this had never done the Shandy Family any good at all, it
might lie waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an
opportunity to discharge its office.--Observe, I determine nothing upon
this.--My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of
investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell;--not with
a pedantic Fescue,--or in the decisive manner or Tacitus, who outwits
himself and his reader;--but with the officious humility of a heart devoted
to the assistance merely of the inquisitive;--to them I write,--and by them
I shall be read,--if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out
so long,--to the very end of the world.

Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and
uncle, is undetermined by me.  But how and in what direction it exerted
itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it
began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is
as follows:

My uncle Toby Shandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which
usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude,--
possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into
the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and unparallel'd modesty of
nature;--though I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not
prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that is, Whether
this modesty of his was natural or acquir'd.--Whichever way my uncle Toby
came by it, 'twas nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that
is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very
little choice in them,--but to things;--and this kind of modesty so
possessed him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost to equal, if
such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman:  That female nicety,
Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes
you so much the awe of ours.

You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this from
this very source;--that he had spent a great part of his time in converse
with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of
imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he had acquired
this amiable turn of mind.

I wish I could say so,--for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my
father's wife and my mother--my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words
with the sex in as many years;--no, he got it, Madam, by a blow.--A blow!--
Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from
the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur, which struck full upon my
uncle Toby's groin.--Which way could that effect it?  The story of that,
Madam, is long and interesting;--but it would be running my history all
upon heaps to give it you here.--'Tis for an episode hereafter; and every
circumstance relating to it, in its proper place, shall be faithfully laid
before you:--'Till then, it is not in my power to give farther light into
this matter, or say more than what I have said already,--That my uncle Toby
was a gentleman of unparallel'd modesty, which happening to be somewhat
subtilized and rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,--
they both so wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear
the affair of my aunt Dinah touch'd upon, but with the greatest emotion.--
The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face;--but
when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the
illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do,--the
unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would set
my uncle Toby's honour and modesty o'bleeding; and he would often take my
father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and tell
him, he would give him any thing in the world, only to let the story rest.

My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle Toby,
that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done any thing
in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir'd of another, to
have made my uncle Toby's heart easy in this, or any other point.  But this
lay out of his power.

--My father, as I told you was a philosopher in grain,--speculative,--
systematical;--and my aunt Dinah's affair was a matter of as much
consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:--
The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system,
called so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her
orbit, did the same service in establishing my father's system, which, I
trust, will for ever hereafter be called the Shandean System, after his.

In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of
shame as any man whatever;--and neither he, nor, I dare say, Copernicus,
would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least
notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed, as they
thought, to truth.--Amicus Plato, my father would say, construing the words
to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus Plato; that is, Dinah was my
aunt;--sed magis amica veritas--but Truth is my sister.

This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source
of many a fraternal squabble.  The one could not bear to hear the tale of
family disgrace recorded,--and the other would scarce ever let a day pass
to an end without some hint at it.

For God's sake, my uncle Toby would cry,--and for my sake, and for all our
sakes, my dear brother Shandy,--do let this story of our aunt's and her
ashes sleep in peace;--how can you,--how can you have so little feeling and
compassion for the character of our family?--What is the character of a
family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.--Nay, if you come to that--
what is the life of a family?--The life of a family!--my uncle Toby would
say, throwing himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his
eyes, and one leg--Yes, the life,--my father would say, maintaining his
point.  How many thousands of 'em are there every year that come cast away,
(in all civilized countries at least)--and considered as nothing but common
air, in competition of an hypothesis.  In my plain sense of things, my
uncle Toby would answer,--every such instance is downright Murder, let who
will commit it.--There lies your mistake, my father would reply;--for, in
Foro Scientiae there is no such thing as Murder,--'tis only Death, brother.

My uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by any other kind of
argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of Lillebullero.--You
must know it was the usual channel thro' which his passions got vent, when
any thing shocked or surprized him:--but especially when any thing, which
he deem'd very absurd, was offered.

As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon them,
that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this particular
species of argument.--I here take the liberty to do it myself, for two
reasons.  First, That, in order to prevent all confusion in disputes, it
may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every other species of
argument--as the Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex Absurdo, ex Fortiori, or any
other argument whatsoever:--And, secondly, That it may be said by my
children's children, when my head is laid to rest,--that their learn'd
grandfather's head had been busied to as much purpose once, as other
people's;--That he had invented a name, and generously thrown it into the
Treasury of the Ars Logica, for one of the most unanswerable arguments in
the whole science.  And, if the end of disputation is more to silence than
convince,--they may add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.

I do, therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it be
known and distinguished by the name and title of the Argumentum
Fistulatorium, and no other;--and that it rank hereafter with the
Argumentum Baculinum and the Argumentum ad Crumenam, and for ever hereafter
be treated of in the same chapter.

As for the Argumentum Tripodium, which is never used but by the woman
against the man;--and the Argumentum ad Rem, which, contrarywise, is made
use of by the man only against the woman;--As these two are enough in
conscience for one lecture;--and, moreover, as the one is the best answer
to the other,--let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a
place by themselves.




Chapter 1.XXII.

The learned Bishop Hall, I mean the famous Dr. Joseph Hall, who was Bishop
of Exeter in King James the First's reign, tells us in one of Decads, at
the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at London, in the year
1610, by John Beal, dwelling in Aldersgate-street, 'That it is an
abominable thing for a man to commend himself;'--and I really think it is
so.

And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind of
a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;--I think it is full
as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out of the
world with the conceit of it rotting in his head.

This is precisely my situation.

 For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all
my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of digressive
skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been over-looked by my
reader,--not for want of penetration in him,--but because 'tis an
excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression;--and it
is this:  That tho' my digressions are all fair, as you observe,--and that
I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as often too, as any writer in
Great Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so that my main
business does not stand still in my absence.

I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of my
uncle Toby's most whimsical character;--when my aunt Dinah and the coachman
came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles into the very
heart of the planetary system:  Notwithstanding all this, you perceive that
the drawing of my uncle Toby's character went on gently all the time;--not
the great contours of it,--that was impossible,--but some familiar strokes
and faint designations of it, were here and there touch'd on, as we went
along, so that you are much better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than
you was before.

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two
contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought
to be at variance with each other.  In a word, my work is digressive, and
it is progressive too,--and at the same time.

This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth's moving round
her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit
which brings about the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude
of seasons we enjoy;--though I own it suggested the thought,--as I believe
the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries have come from
such trifling hints.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul
of reading!--take them out of this book, for instance,--you might as well
take the book along with them;--one cold eternal winter would reign in
every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a
bridegroom,--bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to
fail.

All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to
be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose
distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable:  For, if he begins a
digression,--from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock
still;--and if he goes on with his main work,--then there is an end of his
digression.

--This is vile work.--For which reason, from the beginning of this, you
see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with
such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and
progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in
general, has been kept a-going;--and, what's more, it shall be kept a-going
these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long
with life and good spirits.
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