She would do neither the one nor the other.
– Gracious heaven! – but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it happens that an earthly goddess is so much this, that, and t’other, that I cannot eat my breakfast – and she cares not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no–
– Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuego, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal niche where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.
But as the heart is tender, and its passions ebb and flow ten times a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very centre of the milky-way–
Brightest of stars! shed thy influence upon someone–
‘The deuce take her and her influence too – much good may it do him! – By all that is hairy and gashly!’ I cry, taking off my furred cap, and twisting it round my finger. ‘I would not give sixpence for a dozen such!
‘But ’tis an excellent cap (putting it upon my head,) – and warm, and soft; especially if you stroke it the right way – but alas! that will never be my luck.
‘No; I shall never have a finger in the pie’ (so here I break my metaphor)–
‘Crust and Crumb
‘Inside and out
‘Top and bottom – I detest it, I hate it, I’m sick at the sight of it–
‘’Tis all pepper,
garlic,
salt, and
devil’s dung – I would not touch it for the world–’
‘O Tristram! Tristram!’ cried Jenny.
‘O Jenny! Jenny!’ replied I, and so went on with the twelfth chapter.
CHAPTER 12
‘Not touch it for the world,’ did I say–
Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor!
CHAPTER 13
Which shows, let your worships say what you will, Love is certainly, at least alphabetically speaking, one of the most
A gitating
B ewitching
C onfounded
D evilish affairs of life – the most
E xtravagant
F utilitous
G alligaskinish
H andy-dandyish
I racundulous (there is no K to it) and
L yrical of all human passions: at the same time, the most
M isgiving
N innyhammering
O bstipating
P ragmatical
S tridulous
R idiculous – though by the bye the R should have gone first – but in short ’tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle Toby upon the close of a long speech on the subject – ‘You can scarce,’ said he, ‘combine two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage.’
‘What’s that?’ cried my uncle Toby.
‘The cart before the horse,’ replied my father.
‘And what is he to do there?’ cried my uncle Toby.
‘Nothing,’ quoth my father, ‘but to get in – or let it alone.’
Now widow Wadman, as I told you before, would do neither the one or the other.
She stood, however, ready harnessed at all points.
CHAPTER 14
The Fates, who certainly foresaw these amours of widow Wadman and my uncle Toby, had, from the first creation of matter, established such a chain of causes and effects, that it was scarce possible for my uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other garden, but the very house and garden which lay next to Mrs. Wadman’s.
This, with the advantage of a thickset arbour in Mrs. Wadman’s garden, but planted in the hedge-row of my uncle Toby’s, gave her all the occasions Love-militancy wanted. She could observe my uncle Toby’s movements, and hear his councils of war; and as he had unsuspectingly given leave to the corporal, through Bridget, to make Widow Wadman a communicating wicker-gate to enlarge her walks, it enabled her to approach the very door of the sentry-box; and sometimes out of gratitude to make an attack, and try to blow my uncle Toby up in the very sentry-box itself.
CHAPTER 15
It is a great pity – but ’tis certain that man may be set on fire like a candle, at either end – provided there is a sufficient wick standing out. If there is not – there’s an end of it; and if there is – by lighting it at the bottom, as the flame in that case generally puts itself out – there’s an end of it again.
For my part, could I always choose which way I would be burnt – I would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the top; for then I should burn down decently to the socket; that is, from my head to my heart, from my heart to my liver, from my liver to my bowels, and so on by the veins and arteries, through all the turns of the intestines and their tunicles to the blind gut–
‘I beseech you, doctor Slop,’ quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting him as he mentioned the blind gut, in a discourse with my father the night my mother was brought to bed of me – ‘I beseech you,’ quoth my uncle, ‘to tell me which is the blind gut; for I do not know where it lies.’
‘The blind gut,’ answered doctor Slop, ‘lies betwixt the Ilion and Colon.’
‘In a man?’ said my father.
‘’Tis precisely the same,’ cried doctor Slop, ‘in a woman.’
‘That’s more than I know,’ quoth my father.
CHAPTER 16
– And so to make sure of both systems, Mrs. Wadman planned to light my uncle Toby, if possible, at both ends at once.
Now, if Mrs. Wadman had been rummaging for seven years through all the military lumber rooms of the Tower of London, she could not have found anything so fit for her purpose, as that which my uncle Toby had fixed up ready to her hands.
I believe I have not told you – but I don’t know – possibly I have – that whatever town or fortress the corporal was at work upon, during their campaign my uncle Toby always kept a plan of the place inside his sentry-box, fastened up with pins at the top, but loose at the bottom, for the convenience of holding it up to the eye.
So in an attack, Mrs. Wadman had nothing more to do, when she had got to the door of the sentry-box, but to extend her right hand; to take hold of the map or plan, and to advance it towards her; on which my uncle Toby’s passions were sure to catch fire – for he would instantly take hold of the other corner of the map in his left hand, and with his pipe in the other, begin an explanation.
The world will naturally understand the reasons for Mrs. Wadman’s next stroke of generalship – which was, to take my uncle Toby’s tobacco-pipe out of his hand as soon as she possibly could, under the pretence of pointing at some redoubt in the map.
– It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.
The difference it made in the attack was this; that placing her finger on the end of my uncle Toby’s tobacco-pipe would have caused no effect. For as there was no blood or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no feeling – nothing but smoke.
Whereas, in following my uncle Toby’s forefinger with hers, close through all the little turns and indentings of his works – pressing sometimes against the side of it – then treading upon its nail – then tripping it up – touching it here – then there, and so on – it set something in motion.
This, though slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would place her hand close beside it.
By bringing up her forefinger parallel to my uncle Toby’s – it unavoidably brought the thumb into action – which naturally brought in the whole hand. Mrs. Wadman might now take up thine, dear uncle Toby! with the gentlest pushings and compressions that a hand is capable of receiving.
Whilst this was happening, how could she forget to make him aware that it was her leg at the bottom of the sentry-box,
which slightly pressed against the calf of his – so that my uncle Toby being thus attacked on both sides – was it any wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?
‘The deuce take it!’ said my uncle Toby.
CHAPTER 17
These attacks of Mrs. Wadman varied like the attacks which history is full of. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to be attacks at all – or if he did, would confuse them all together – but it will be time enough to be more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for some chapters.
I have nothing more to add, but that, in a bundle of drawings which my father kept, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation; and upon the lower right-hand corner there still remain the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to imagine were Mrs. Wadman’s. This seems an authentic record of one of these attacks; for there are vestiges of two pin-holes visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are unquestionably where it was pricked up in the sentry-box–
By all that is priestly! I value this precious relic, with its stigmata and pricks, more than all the relics of the Romish church.
CHAPTER 18
‘I think, your honour,’ quoth Trim, ‘the fortifications are quite destroyed.’
‘I think so too,’ replied my uncle Toby with a sigh;– ‘but step into the parlour, Trim, for the treaty – it lies upon the table.’
‘It has lain there these six weeks,’ replied the corporal, ‘till this very morning, when the old woman kindled the fire with it.’
‘Then,’ said my uncle, ‘there is no further need for our services.’
‘The more’s the pity,’ said the corporal. He cast his spade into the wheel-barrow with a disconsolate air, and was heavily turning around to look for his pickaxe and shovel, to carry them off the field – when a ‘heigh-ho!’ reverberating sorrowfully from the sentry-box forbade him.
‘No,’ said the corporal to himself. ‘I’ll do it before his honour rises to-morrow morning.’ So, taking his spade out of the wheel-barrow again, in order to divert his master, he loosened a sod or two, and having given them a gentle blow with the back of the spade, he sat down close by my uncle Toby’s feet, and began as follows.
CHAPTER 19
‘It was a thousand pities – though I believe I am going to say a foolish thing for a soldier–’
‘A soldier,’ cried my uncle Toby, ‘is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing than a man of letters.’
‘But not so often, your honour,’ replied the corporal. ‘–It was a thousand pities, your honour, to destroy these works – and a thousand pities to have let them stood.’
‘Thou art right, Trim,’ said my uncle.
‘This,’ continued the corporal, ‘is why during their demolition I have never once whistled, or sung, or laughed, or told your honour one story, good or bad–’
‘Thou hast many excellencies, Trim,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘and of the stories thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful hours, or divert me in my grave ones, – thou hast seldom told me a bad one.’
‘Because, your honour, except one of a King of Bohemia and his seven castles, they are all true; for they are about myself.’
‘I do not like them worse on that score,’ said my uncle Toby. ‘But prithee what is this story? Tell it – provided it is not a merry one; for I am not in a mood at present to do it justice.’
‘It is not merry by any means,’ replied the corporal.
‘Nor would I have it altogether grave,’ added my uncle Toby.
‘It is neither one nor the other,’ replied the corporal, ‘but will suit your honour exactly.’
‘I thank thee; prithee begin it, Trim,’ cried my uncle Toby.
The corporal made his bow; and though it is not easy to pull off a lank Montero-cap with grace – nor to make a bow so teeming with respect when a man is sitting squat upon the ground; yet by allowing the palm of his right hand to slip backwards upon the grass – and with his left hand, squeezing rather than pulling off his cap – the corporal acquitted himself well; and having cleared his throat, he set off thus.
THE STORY OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES
‘There was a certain king of Bo–’
My uncle Toby obliged the corporal to halt, by touching the Montero-cap on the ground with the end of his cane – as much as to say, ‘Why don’t you put it on, Trim?’
Trim took it up with respectful slowness, and casting a humiliated glance upon the embroidery of the front, which was dismally tarnished and frayed, he laid it down again between his two feet, to moralise upon the subject.
‘Thou art about to observe,’ cried my uncle Toby, ‘–that nothing in this world is made to last for ever.’
‘But when tokens of my dear brother’s love and remembrance wear out,’ said Trim, ‘what shall we say?’
‘There is no need to say anything else,’ quoth my uncle Toby.
The corporal, perceiving that it would be in vain for the wit of man to extract a purer moral from his cap, put it on, and returned to his story.
THE STORY OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES, CONTINUED
‘There was a certain king of Bohemia, but in whose reign, I am not able to inform your honour–’
‘I do not desire it, Trim,’ cried my uncle Toby.
‘It was a little before the time when giants were beginning to leave off breeding: but in what year that was–’
‘I would not give a halfpenny to know,’ said my uncle Toby.
‘Only, your honour, it makes a story look better–’
‘’Tis thy own, Trim, so take any date thou choosest, and welcome,’ said my uncle Toby pleasantly.
The corporal bowed; for of every century, from the first creation of the world down to Noah’s flood; and through all the Dynasties, Olympiads, and other memorable epochs of the world, down to the coming of Christ, and from thence to the very moment in which the corporal was telling his story – my uncle Toby laid this vast empire of time and all its abysses at his feet.
But as Modesty scarce touches with a finger what Liberality offers her with open hands – the corporal contented himself with the very worst year of the whole bunch.
To prevent your honours from tearing the flesh off your bones in argument, I tell you plainly it was the year 1712, when the Duke of Ormond was playing the devil in Flanders. – The corporal took it, and set out with it afresh on his expedition to Bohemia.
THE STORY OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES, CONTINUED
‘In the year of our Lord 1712, there was, an’ please your honour–’
‘To tell thee truly, Trim,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘any other date would have pleased me better, not only on account of the sad stain upon our history that year, in marching our troops away from the siege of Quesnoi – but also on the score of thy own story, Trim; because if there are in fact giants in it–’
‘Only one, your honour.’
‘’Tis as bad as twenty,’ replied my uncle Toby; ‘thou should’st have carried him back some seven or eight hundred years, out of harm’s way of critics. Therefore I would advise thee, if ever thou tellest it again–’
‘If I but once get through it, I will never tell it again,’ quoth Trim.
‘Poo, poo!’ said my uncle Toby; but with accents of such sweet encouragement that the corporal went on with alacrity.
THE STORY OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES, CONTINUED
‘There was, an’ please your honour,’ said the corporal, raising his voice, ‘a certain king of Bohemia–’
‘Leave out the date entirely, Trim,’ quoth my uncle, gently laying his hand upon the corporal’s shoulder. ‘A story passes very well without these niceties. It is not easy for a soldier like us, Trim, to see further than the end of his musket.’
‘God bless your honour!’ said the corporal; ‘a soldier has something else to do; if not in action, or on a march, or on
duty – he has his firelock to furbish – his regimentals to mend – himself to shave and keep clean: what business has a soldier to know anything of geography?’
‘Thou shouldst say chronology, Trim,’ said my uncle; ‘for geography is of great use to him; he must be acquainted intimately with every country; he should know every town and village, its canals, its roads and rivers – how far they are navigable, and where fordable; he should be able to give an exact map of all the plains, forts, woods and swamps through which his army is to march; he should know their produce, their plants, their minerals, their waters, their animals, their seasons, their climates, their inhabitants, their customs, their language, their policy, and even their religion.
‘For how else,’ continued my uncle Toby, rising up in his sentry-box – ‘how else could Marlborough have marched his army from the Maes to Belburg; then to Newdorf and Landenbourg; from thence to Balmerchoffen; and to Skellenburg, where he broke in upon the enemy’s works; forced his passage over the Danube; crossed the Lech – pushed on his troops into the heart of the empire, to the plains of Blenheim? Great as he was, he could not have advanced a step, without the aids of Geography.
‘As for Chronology, I own, Trim,’ continued my uncle Toby, sitting down again, ‘that it seems the science which the soldier might best spare, was it not for the invention of gunpowder; which has opened a new era of military improvements, changing so totally the nature of attacks and defences, that the world cannot be too inquisitive in knowing what great man was its discoverer.
‘I am far from disputing,’ continued my uncle, ‘what historians agree, that in the year 1380 a certain priest called Schwartz showed the use of gunpowder to the Venetians, in their wars against the Genoese; but ’tis certain he was not the first; because if we are to believe Don Pedro, the bishop of Leon–’
‘How came priests and bishops, your honour, to trouble their heads so much about gunpowder?’
‘God knows,’ said my uncle Toby; ‘–He avers, in his chronicle of King Alphonsus, that in 1343 the secret of gunpowder was well known, and used with success, both by Moors and Christians, in their sea-combats, and their most memorable sieges in Spain and Barbary. – And all the world knows that Friar Bacon had wrote about it, a hundred and fifty years before Schwartz was born. – And that the Chinese,’ added my uncle, ‘embarrass us still more, by boasting of the invention hundreds of years even before him–’