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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Chapter 1.XXIII.

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically,
and I will not balk my fancy.--Accordingly I set off thus:

If the fixture of Momus's glass in the human breast, according to the
proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,--first, This
foolish consequence would certainly have followed,--That the very wisest
and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-
money every day of our lives.

And, secondly, that had the said glass been there set up, nothing more
would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to
have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive,
and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observed all her motions,--
her machinations;--traced all her maggots from their first engendering to
their crawling forth;--watched her loose in her frisks, her gambols, her
capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent
upon such frisks, &c.--then taken your pen and ink and set down nothing but
what you had seen, and could have sworn to:--But this is an advantage not
to be had by the biographer in this planet;--in the planet Mercury (belike)
it may be so, if not better still for him;--for there the intense heat of
the country, which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun,
to be more than equal to that of red-hot iron,--must, I think, long ago
have vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to
suit them for the climate (which is the final cause;) so that betwixt them
both, all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing
else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the contrary, but one
fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot)--so that,
till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the rays of
light, in passing through them, become so monstrously refracted,--or return
reflected from their surfaces in such transverse lines to the eye, that a
man cannot be seen through;--his soul might as well, unless for mere
ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the umbilical point gave her,--
might, upon all other accounts, I say, as well play the fool out o'doors as
in her own house.

But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this
earth;--our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in a
dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would come
to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to work.

Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to take,
to do this thing with exactness.

Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind-instruments.--
Virgil takes notice of that way in the affair of Dido and Aeneas;--but it
is as fallacious as the breath of fame;--and, moreover, bespeaks a narrow
genius. I am not ignorant that the Italians pretend to a mathematical
exactness in their designations of one particular sort of character among
them, from the forte or piano of a certain wind-instrument they use,--which
they say is infallible.--I dare not mention the name of the instrument in
this place;--'tis sufficient we have it amongst us,--but never think of
making a drawing by it;--this is aenigmatical, and intended to be so, at
least ad populum:--And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that
you read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about
it.

There are others again, who will draw a man's character from no other helps
in the world, but merely from his evacuations;--but this often gives a very
incorrect outline,--unless, indeed, you take a sketch of his repletions
too; and by correcting one drawing from the other, compound one good figure
out of them both.

I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must smell
too strong of the lamp,--and be render'd still more operose, by forcing you
to have an eye to the rest of his Non-naturals.--Why the most natural
actions of a man's life should be called his Non-naturals,--is another
question.

There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these expedients;--not
from any fertility of their own, but from the various ways of doing it,
which they have borrowed from the honourable devices which the Pentagraphic
Brethren (Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures
mechanically, and in any proportion.) of the brush have shewn in taking
copies.--These, you must know, are your great historians.

One of these you will see drawing a full length character against the
light;--that's illiberal,--dishonest,--and hard upon the character of the
man who sits.

Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the Camera;--that
is most unfair of all, because, there you are sure to be represented in
some of your most ridiculous attitudes.

To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle Toby's
character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help whatever;--nor
shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument which ever was blown
upon, either on this, or on the other side of the Alps;--nor will I
consider either his repletions or his discharges,--or touch upon his Non-
naturals; but, in a word, I will draw my uncle Toby's character from his
Hobby-Horse.



Chapter 1.XXIV.

If I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience for
my uncle Toby's character,--I would here previously have convinced him that
there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing with, as that which I
have pitch'd upon.

A man and his Hobby-Horse, tho' I cannot say that they act and re-act
exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each
other:  Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind;
and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the manner
of electrified bodies,--and that, by means of the heated parts of the
rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the Hobby-
Horse,--by long journies and much friction, it so happens, that the body of
the rider is at length fill'd as full of Hobby-Horsical matter as it can
hold;--so that if you are able to give but a clear description of the
nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and
character of the other.

Now the Hobby-Horse which my uncle Toby always rode upon, was in my opinion
an Hobby-Horse well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the
score of his great singularity;--for you might have travelled from York to
Dover,--from Dover to Penzance in Cornwall, and from Penzance to York back
again, and not have seen such another upon the road; or if you had seen
such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have
stopp'd to have taken a view of him.  Indeed, the gait and figure of him
was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to
any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of
dispute,--whether he was really a Hobby-Horse or no:  But as the
Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed with
him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his legs,
and walking across the room;--so would my uncle Toby use no other argument
to prove his Hobby-Horse was a Hobby-Horse indeed, but by getting upon his
back and riding him about;--leaving the world, after that, to determine the
point as it thought fit.

In good truth, my uncle Toby mounted him with so much pleasure, and he
carried my uncle Toby so well,--that he troubled his head very little with
what the world either said or thought about it.

It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:--But to
go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you first,
how my uncle Toby came by him.



Chapter 1.XXV.

The wound in my uncle Toby's groin, which he received at the siege of
Namur, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he
should return to England, in order, if possible, to be set to rights.

He was four years totally confined,--part of it to his bed, and all of it
to his room:  and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in
hand, suffer'd unspeakable miseries,--owing to a succession of exfoliations
from the os pubis, and the outward edge of that part of the coxendix called
the os illium,--both which bones were dismally crush'd, as much by the
irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke off the parapet,--as
by its size,--(tho' it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all
along to think, that the great injury which it had done my uncle Toby's
groin, was more owing to the gravity of the stone itself, than to the
projectile force of it,--which he would often tell him was a great
happiness.

My father at that time was just beginning business in London, and had taken
a house;--and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted between the
two brothers,--and that my father thought my uncle Toby could no where be
so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house,--he assign'd him the
very best apartment in it.--And what was a much more sincere mark of his
affection still, he would never suffer a friend or an acquaintance to step
into the house on any occasion, but he would take him by the hand, and lead
him up stairs to see his brother Toby, and chat an hour by his bed-side.

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it;--my uncle's
visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from the
courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the
discourse to that subject,--and from that subject the discourse would
generally roll on to the siege itself.

These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle Toby received great
relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they brought
him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months together,
retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an expedient to
extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they would have laid him in
his grave.

What these perplexities of my uncle Toby were,--'tis impossible for you to
guess;--if you could,--I should blush; not as a relation,--not as a man,--
nor even as a woman,--but I should blush as an author; inasmuch as I set no
small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet
been able to guess at any thing.  And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and
singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to form the least
judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the
next page,--I would tear it out of my book.



Chapter 1.XXVI.

I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to
explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved,
from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where
he received his wound.

I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King William's
wars,--but if he has not,--I then inform him, that one of the most
memorable attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the English and
Dutch upon the point of the advanced counterscarp, between the gate of St.
Nicolas, which inclosed the great sluice or water-stop, where the English
were terribly exposed to the shot of the counter-guard and demi-bastion of
St. Roch:  The issue of which hot dispute, in three words, was this;  That
the Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard,--and that the English
made themselves masters of the covered-way before St. Nicolas-gate,
notwithstanding the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed
themselves upon the glacis sword in hand.

As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Toby was an eye-witness
at Namur,--the army of the besiegers being cut off, by the confluence of
the Maes and Sambre, from seeing much of each other's operations,--my uncle
Toby was generally more eloquent and particular in his account of it; and
the many perplexities he was in, arose out of the almost insurmountable
difficulties he found in telling his story intelligibly, and giving such
clear ideas of the differences and distinctions between the scarp and
counterscarp,--the glacis and covered-way,--the half-moon and ravelin,--as
to make his company fully comprehend where and what he was about.

Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you will
the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in opposition to
many misconceptions, that my uncle Toby did oft-times puzzle his visitors,
and sometimes himself too.

To speak the truth, unless the company my father led up stairs were
tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle Toby was in one of his explanatory
moods, 'twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse
free from obscurity.

What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle
Toby, was this,--that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the gate of
St. Nicolas, extending itself from the bank of the Maes, quite up to the
great water-stop,--the ground was cut and cross cut with such a multitude
of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all sides,--and he would get so
sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst them, that frequently he could
neither get backwards or forwards to save his life; and was oft-times
obliged to give up the attack upon that very account only.

These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Toby Shandy more perturbations than
you would imagine; and as my father's kindness to him was continually
dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers,--he had but a very uneasy
task of it.

No doubt my uncle Toby had great command of himself,--and could guard
appearances, I believe, as well as most men;--yet any one may imagine, that
when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into the half-
moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the counterscarp,
nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he
must have fretted and fumed inwardly:--He did so;--and the little and
hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no account to the man who
has not read Hippocrates, yet, whoever has read Hippocrates, or Dr. James
Mackenzie, and has considered well the effects which the passions and
affections of the mind have upon the digestion--(Why not of a wound as well
as of a dinner?)--may easily conceive what sharp paroxysms and
exacerbations of his wound my uncle Toby must have undergone upon that
score only.

--My uncle Toby could not philosophize upon it;--'twas enough he felt it
was so,--and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three months
together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate himself.

He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and nature
of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other position, when
a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase such a thing, and
have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of the fortification of
the town and citadel of Namur, with its environs, it might be a means of
giving him ease.--I take notice of his desire to have the environs along
with the town and citadel, for this reason,--because my uncle Toby's wound
was got in one of the traverses, about thirty toises from the returning
angle of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of
St. Roch:--so that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the
identical spot of ground where he was standing on when the stone struck
him.

All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of
sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you will
read, of procuring my uncle Toby his Hobby-Horse.



Chapter 1.XXVII.

There is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an
entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your
criticks and gentry of refined taste run it down:  Nor is there any thing
so likely to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the party, or,
what is full as offensive, of bestowing your attention upon the rest of
your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such thing as a
critick (by occupation) at table.

--I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a dozen
places purposely open for them;--and in the next place, I pay them all
court.--Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company could give me
half the pleasure,--by my soul I am glad to see you--I beg only you will
make no strangers of yourselves, but sit down without any ceremony, and
fall on heartily.

I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my
complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them,--and in this
very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho' not by occupation,-
-but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, I shall fill it up
directly, hoping, in the mean time, that I shall be able to make a great
deal of more room next year.

--How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle Toby, who, it seems, was a
military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,--be at the same
time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, fellow, as--Go look.

So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it.--'Tis language
unurbane,--and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and
satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first causes
of human ignorance and confusion.  It is moreover the reply valiant--and
therefore I reject it; for tho' it might have suited my uncle Toby's
character as a soldier excellently well,--and had he not accustomed
himself, in such attacks, to whistle the Lillabullero, as he wanted no
courage, 'tis the very answer he would have given; yet it would by no means
have done for me.  You see as plain as can be, that I write as a man of
erudition;--that even my similies, my allusions, my illustrations, my
metaphors, are erudite,--and that I must sustain my character properly, and
contrast it properly too,--else what would become of me?  Why, Sir, I
should be undone;--at this very moment that I am going here to fill up one
place against a critick,--I should have made an opening for a couple.

--Therefore I answer thus:

Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever read
such a book as Locke's Essay upon the Human Understanding?--Don't answer me
rashly--because many, I know, quote the book, who have not read it--and
many have read it who understand it not:--If either of these is your case,
as I write to instruct, I will tell you in three words what the book is.--
It is a history.--A history! of who? what? where? when?  Don't hurry
yourself--It is a history-book, Sir, (which may possibly recommend it to
the world) of what passes in a man's own mind; and if you will say so much
of the book, and no more, believe me, you will cut no contemptible figure
in a metaphysick circle.

But this by the way.

Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom
of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion,
in the mind of a man, is threefold.

Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place.  Secondly, slight and transient
impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not dull.  And
thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what it has
received.--Call down Dolly your chamber-maid, and I will give you my cap
and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that Dolly
herself should understand it as well as Malbranch.--When Dolly has indited
her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket
hanging by her right side;--take that opportunity to recollect that the
organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing in this world, be so
aptly typified and explained as by that one thing which Dolly's hand is in
search of.--Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you--'tis an
inch, Sir, of red seal-wax.

When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if Dolly fumbles too long
for her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not receive the
mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint it.
Very well.  If Dolly's wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of a temper
too soft,--tho' it may receive,--it will not hold the impression, how hard
soever Dolly thrusts against it; and last of all, supposing the wax good,
and eke the thimble, but applied thereto in careless haste, as her Mistress
rings the bell;--in any one of these three cases the print left by the
thimble will be as unlike the prototype as a brass-jack.

Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the
confusion in my uncle Toby's discourse; and it is for that very reason I
enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists--to shew
the world, what it did not arise from.

What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of
obscurity it is,--and ever will be,--and that is the unsteady uses of
words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings.

It is ten to one (at Arthur's) whether you have ever read the literary
histories of past ages;--if you have, what terrible battles, 'yclept
logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and
ink-shed,--that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them without
tears in his eyes.

Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within
thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has been
pestered and disordered, at one time or other, by this, and this only:--
What a pudder and racket in Councils about (Greek); and in the Schools of
the learned about power and about spirit;--about essences, and about
quintessences;--about substances, and about space.--What confusion in
greater Theatres from words of little meaning, and as indeterminate a
sense! when thou considerest this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's
perplexities,--thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his
counterscarp;--his glacis and his covered way;--his ravelin and his half-
moon:  'Twas not by ideas,--by Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by
words.
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