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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Chapter 1.XXXVIII.

My brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle.--In a family
way, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop.--Pshaw!--said my father,--'tis not worth
talking of.



Chapter 1.XXXIX.

At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both
standing, like Brutus and Cassius, at the close of the scene, making up
their accounts.

As my father spoke the three last words,--he sat down;--my uncle Toby
exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he rung
the bell, to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step home for
Stevinus:--my uncle Toby's house being no farther off than the opposite
side of the way.

Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus;--but my uncle Toby had
no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, to shew my
father that he had none.

Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, resuming the discourse,
instantly brought Stevinus into my head.  (My father, you may be sure, did
not offer to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus's head.)--Because, continued
my uncle Toby, the celebrated sailing chariot, which belonged to Prince
Maurice, and was of such wonderful contrivance and velocity, as to carry
half a dozen people thirty German miles, in I don't know how few minutes,--
was invented by Stevinus, that great mathematician and engineer.

You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. Slop (as the
fellow is lame) of going for Stevinus's account of it, because in my return
from Leyden thro' the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two
long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.

That's nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did,
who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to
Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it, and
nothing else.

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop.  But mark, 'twas out of no
contempt of Peireskius at all;--but that Peireskius's indefatigable labour
in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced the
exploit of Dr. Slop, in that affair, to nothing:--the more fool Peireskius,
said he again.--Why so?--replied my father, taking his brother's part, not
only to make reparation as fast as he could for the insult he had given
him, which sat still upon my father's mind;--but partly, that my father
began really to interest himself in the discourse.--Why so?--said he.  Why
is Peireskius, or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or
any other morsel of sound knowledge:  For notwithstanding I know nothing of
the chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a
very mechanical head; and tho' I cannot guess upon what principles of
philosophy he has atchieved it;--yet certainly his machine has been
constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not have
answered at the rate my brother mentions.

It answered, replied my uncle Toby, as well, if not better; for, as
Peireskius elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its motion,
Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus; which, unless I have forgot my Latin, is,
that it was as swift as the wind itself.

But pray, Dr. Slop, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho' not
without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles was
this self-same chariot set a-going?--Upon very pretty principles to be
sure, replied Dr. Slop:--And I have often wondered, continued he, evading
the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large plains like this
of ours,--(especially they whose wives are not past child-bearing) attempt
nothing of this kind; for it would not only be infinitely expeditious upon
sudden calls, to which the sex is subject,--if the wind only served,--but
would be excellent good husbandry to make use of the winds, which cost
nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than horses, which (the devil take
'em) both cost and eat a great deal.

For that very reason, replied my father, 'Because they cost nothing, and
because they eat nothing,'--the scheme is bad;--it is the consumption of
our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread to the
hungry, circulates trade,--brings in money, and supports the value of our
lands;--and tho', I own, if I was a Prince, I would generously recompense
the scientifick head which brought forth such contrivances;--yet I would as
peremptorily suppress the use of them.

My father here had got into his element,--and was going on as prosperously
with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had before, upon his of
fortification;--but to the loss of much sound knowledge, the destinies in
the morning had decreed that no dissertation of any kind should be spun by
my father that day,--for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence,



Chapter 1.XL.

In popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus:--But 'twas too late,--all the
discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new
channel.

--You may take the book home again, Trim, said my uncle Toby, nodding to
him.

But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,--look first into it, and
see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it.

Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned to obey,--and not to
remonstrate,--so taking the book to a side-table, and running over the
leaves; An' please your Honour, said Trim, I can see no such thing;--
however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, I'll make
sure work of it, an' please your Honour;--so taking hold of the two covers
of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves fall down as he bent
the covers back, he gave the book a good sound shake.

There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an' please your
Honour;--but it is not a chariot, or any thing like one:--Prithee,
Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?--I think, answered
Trim, stooping to take it up,--'tis more like a sermon,--for it begins with
a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;--and then goes on, not as a
chariot, but like a sermon directly.

The company smiled.

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing
as a sermon to have got into my Stevinus.

I think 'tis a sermon, replied Trim:--but if it please your Honours, as it
is a fair hand, I will read you a page;--for Trim, you must know, loved to
hear himself read almost as well as talk.

I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things which
cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these;--and as we have nothing
better to do, at least till Obadiah gets back, I shall be obliged to you,
brother, if Dr. Slop has no objection to it, to order the Corporal to give
us a page or two of it,--if he is as able to do it, as he seems willing.
An' please your honour, quoth Trim, I officiated two whole campaigns, in
Flanders, as clerk to the chaplain of the regiment.--He can read it, quoth
my uncle Toby, as well as I can.--Trim, I assure you, was the best scholar
in my company, and should have had the next halberd, but for the poor
fellow's misfortune.  Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his heart, and made
an humble bow to his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, and
taking up the sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at
liberty,--he advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where
he could best see, and be best seen by his audience.



Chapter 1.XLI.

--If you have any objection,--said my father, addressing himself to Dr.
Slop.  Not in the least, replied Dr. Slop;--for it does not appear on which
side of the question it is wrote,--it may be a composition of a divine of
our church, as well as yours,--so that we run equal risques.--'Tis wrote
upon neither side, quoth Trim, for 'tis only upon Conscience, an' please
your Honours.

Trim's reason put his audience into good humour,--all but Dr. Slop, who
turning his head about towards Trim, looked a little angry.

Begin, Trim,--and read distinctly, quoth my father.--I will, an' please
your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking attention
with a slight movement of his right hand.



Chapter 1.XLII.

--But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of
his attitude;--otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your
imagination, in an uneasy posture,--stiff,--perpendicular,--dividing the
weight of his body equally upon both legs;--his eye fixed, as if on duty;--
his look determined,--clenching the sermon in his left hand, like his
firelock.--In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing
in his platoon ready for action,--His attitude was as unlike all this as
you can conceive.

He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far,
as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the
horizon;--which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to be
the true persuasive angle of incidence;--in any other angle you may talk
and preach;--'tis certain;--and it is done every day;--but with what
effect,--I leave the world to judge!

The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a
mathematical exactness,--does it not shew us, by the way, how the arts and
sciences mutually befriend each other?

How the duce Corporal Trim, who knew not so much as an acute angle from an
obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;--or whether it was chance or nature,
or good sense or imitation, &c. shall be commented upon in that part of the
cyclopaedia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the
eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffee-house, the
bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under consideration.

He stood,--for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with
his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,--his right leg from under him,
sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,--the foot of his left leg,
the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a
little,--not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them;--his knee
bent, but that not violently,--but so as to fall within the limits of the
line of beauty;--and I add, of the line of science too;--for consider, it
had one eighth part of his body to bear up;--so that in this case the
position of the leg is determined,--because the foot could be no farther
advanced, or the knee more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to
receive an eighth part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too.

>This I recommend to painters;--need I add,--to orators!--I think not; for
unless they practise it,--they must fall upon their noses.

So much for Corporal Trim's body and legs.--He held the sermon loosely, not
carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his stomach, and
detached a little from his breast;--his right arm falling negligently by
his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered it,--but with the palm
of it open and turned towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment in
case it stood in need.

Corporal Trim's eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony with
the other parts of him;--he looked frank,--unconstrained,--something
assured,--but not bordering upon assurance.

Let not the critic ask how Corporal Trim could come by all this.--I've told
him it should be explained;--but so he stood before my father, my uncle
Toby, and Dr. Slop,--so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with
such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure,--a statuary might
have modelled from it;--nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a
College,--or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it.

Trim made a bow, and read as follows:

The Sermon.

Hebrews xiii. 18.

--For we trust we have a good Conscience.

'Trust!--Trust we have a good conscience!'

(Certainly, Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that sentence
a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and read it with
such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse the Apostle.

He is, an' please your Honour, replied Trim.  Pugh! said my father,
smiling.

Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Trim is certainly in the right; for the writer (who I
perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he takes up the
apostle, is certainly going to abuse him;--if this treatment of him has not
done it already.  But from whence, replied my father, have you concluded so
soon, Dr. Slop, that the writer is of our church?--for aught I can see
yet,--he may be of any church.--Because, answered Dr. Slop, if he was of
ours,--he durst no more take such a licence,--than a bear by his beard:--
If, in our communion, Sir, a man was to insult an apostle,--a saint,--or
even the paring of a saint's nail,--he would have his eyes scratched out.--
What, by the saint? quoth my uncle Toby.  No, replied Dr. Slop, he would
have an old house over his head.  Pray is the Inquisition an ancient
building, answered my uncle Toby, or is it a modern one?--I know nothing of
architecture, replied Dr. Slop.--An' please your Honours, quoth Trim, the
Inquisition is the vilest--Prithee spare thy description, Trim, I hate the
very name of it, said my father.--No matter for that, answered Dr. Slop,--
it has its uses; for tho' I'm no great advocate for it, yet, in such a case
as this, he would soon be taught better manners; and I can tell him, if he
went on at that rate, would be flung into the Inquisition for his pains.
God help him then, quoth my uncle Toby.  Amen, added Trim; for Heaven above
knows, I have a poor brother who has been fourteen years a captive in it.--
I never heard one word of it before, said my uncle Toby, hastily:--How came
he there, Trim?--O, Sir, the story will make your heart bleed,--as it has
made mine a thousand times;--but it is too long to be told now;--your
Honour shall hear it from first to last some day when I am working beside
you in our fortifications;--but the short of the story is this;--That my
brother Tom went over a servant to Lisbon,--and then married a Jew's widow,
who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was the
cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, where
he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried directly to
the Inquisition, where, God help him, continued Trim, fetching a sigh from
the bottom of his heart,--the poor honest lad lies confined at this hour;
he was as honest a soul, added Trim, (pulling out his handkerchief) as ever
blood warmed.--

--The tears trickled down Trim's cheeks faster than he could well wipe them
away.--A dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.--Certain proof
of pity!

Come Trim, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow's grief had got a
little vent,--read on,--and put this melancholy story out of thy head:--I
grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon again;--for if
the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou sayest, I have a great
desire to know what kind of provocation the apostle has given.

Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his
pocket, and, making a bow as he did it,--he began again.)

The Sermon.

Hebrews xiii. 18.

--For we trust we have a good Conscience.--

'Trust! trust we have a good conscience!  Surely if there is any thing in
this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he is
capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be this
very thing,--whether he has a good conscience or no.'

(I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state of
this account:--he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;--he must
remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true springs and
motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.'

(I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the wise
man complains, hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon the
earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us.  But here
the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;--is conscious of
the web she has wove;--knows its texture and fineness, and the exact share
which every passion has had in working upon the several designs which
virtue or vice has planned before her.'

(The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my
father.)

'Now,--as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has
within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or censure,
which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives; 'tis
plain you will say, from the very terms of the proposition,--whenever this
inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he
must necessarily be a guilty man.--And, on the contrary, when the report is
favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not:--that it is not a
matter of trust, as the apostle intimates, but a matter of certainty and
fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also.'

(Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop,
and the Protestant divine is in the right.  Sir, have patience, replied my
father, for I think it will presently appear that St. Paul and the
Protestant divine are both of an opinion.--As nearly so, quoth Dr. Slop, as
east is to west;--but this, continued he, lifting both hands, comes from
the liberty of the press.

It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the
pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely
to be.

Go on, Trim, quoth my father.)

'At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case:  and I make
no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon
the mind of man,--that did no such thing ever happen, as that the
conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture assures
it may) insensibly become hard;--and, like some tender parts of his body,
by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that nice sense
and perception with which God and nature endowed it:--Did this never
happen;--or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias
upon the judgment;--or that the little interests below could rise up and
perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with
clouds and thick darkness:--Could no such thing as favour and affection
enter this sacred Court--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was
ashamed to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment:
Or, lastly, were we assured that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst
the cause was hearing--and that Passion never got into the judgment-seat,
and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to
preside and determine upon the case:--Was this truly so, as the objection
must suppose;--no doubt then the religious and moral state of a man would
be exactly what he himself esteemed it:--and the guilt or innocence of
every man's life could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the
degrees of his own approbation and censure.

'I own, in one case, whenever a man's conscience does accuse him (as it
seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty;--and unless in melancholy and
hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is always
sufficient grounds for the accusation.

'But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;--namely, that
whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not,
that a man is therefore innocent.--This is not fact--So that the common
consolation which some good christian or other is hourly administering to
himself,--that he thanks God his mind does not misgive him; and that,
consequently, he has a good conscience, because he hath a quiet one,--is
fallacious;--and as current as the inference is, and as infallible as the
rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer to it, and try the
truth of this rule upon plain facts,--you see it liable to so much error
from a false application;--the principle upon which it goes so often
perverted;--the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away,
that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life, which
confirm the account.

'A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles;--
exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in the
open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify,--a sin by
which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the
deluded partner of his guilt;--rob her of her best dowry; and not only
cover her own head with dishonour;--but involve a whole virtuous family in
shame and sorrow for her sake.  Surely, you will think conscience must lead
such a man a troublesome life; he can have no rest night and day from its
reproaches.
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