I rest thy affectionate brother,
WALTER SHANDY.
CHAPTER 35
Whilst my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle Toby and the corporal were busy preparing for the attack. As the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside, there was no reason to put it off beyond the next morning; so accordingly it was resolved upon for eleven o’clock.
‘Come, my dear,’ said my father to my mother – ‘’twill be a brotherly act to walk down to my brother Toby’s, to support him in this attack of his.’
When my father and mother entered, my uncle Toby and the corporal were about to sally forth – but the account is worth more than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth volume of such a work as this.
– My father had just time to put the letter of instructions into my uncle Toby’s coat-pocket – and join with my mother in wishing his attack prosperous.
‘I could like,’ said my mother, ‘to look through the key-hole out of curiosity.’
‘Call it by its right name, my dear,’ quoth my father – ‘and look through the key-hole as long as you like.’
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
A DEDICATION
TO A GREAT MAN
Having previously intended to dedicate The Amours of my Uncle Toby to Mr. *** – I see more reasons, a posteriori, for dedicating it to Lord *******.
I should lament if this exposed me to the jealousy of their Reverences, because a posteriori, in Court-Latin, means the kissing of hands – or anything else – in order to get preferment.
My opinion of Lord ******* is neither better nor worse than my opinion of Mr. ***. Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give a local value to base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all over the world, without any other recommendation than their own weight.
The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour’s amusement to Mr. *** operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour’s amusement will be more refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast.
Nothing is so amusing as a total change of ideas; no ideas are so totally different as those of Ministers, and innocent Lovers. Therefore, when I come to talk of Statesmen, it will be in such a way as to prevent mistakes about them. – I propose to dedicate that Volume to some gentle Shepherd; (as Pope almost says–)
Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray,
Far as the Statesman’s walk or Patriot-way;
Yet simple Nature to his hopes had given
Out of a cloud-capp’d head a humbler heaven;
Some untamed World in depths of wood embraced–
Some happier Island in the watery-waste–
And where admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful Dog should bear him company.
In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his Imagination, I shall give a Diversion to his love-sick Contemplations. In the meantime,
I am
THE AUTHOR.
BOOK 9
CHAPTER 1
I call all the powers of time and chance, which check us in our careers in this world, to bear witness that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Toby’s amours till this very moment, when my mother’s curiosity – or a different impulse in her, as my father would have it – made her wish to peep through the key-hole.
‘Call it, my dear, by its right name,’ quoth my father, ‘and look through the key-hole as long as you like.’
Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have often spoken of, in my father, could have made such an insinuation. He was however frank and generous in his nature; so that he had scarce finished this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him.
My mother was at that moment conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such a way that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of his – she raised her fingers, and let them fall – it could scarce be called a tap; or if it was a tap, ’twould be hard to say whether ’twas a tap of remonstrance, or of confession.
My father classed it right – Conscience redoubled her blow. – He turned his face suddenly the other way, and my mother, supposing his body was about to turn with it, by a cross movement of her right leg, brought herself so far in front, that as he turned his head, he met her eye.
– Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself – a thin, blue, chill crystal, so clear that the least speck of desire might have been seen, if it had existed – it did not – and how I happen to be so lewd myself, particularly before the equinoxes, Heaven above knows – for my mother was never so.
Temperate blood ran orderly through her veins at all times; she had never the least heat in her humours. – And as for my father! ’Twas the whole business of his life to keep all fancies of that kind out of her head. Nature had done her part to spare him this trouble; and my father knew it.
– And here am I sitting, this 12th day of August 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most tragicomical completion of his prediction, ‘That I should neither think, nor act like any other man’s child, upon that very account.’
My father’s mistake was in attacking my mother’s motive, instead of her act; for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes; and the act denied a key-hole to be what it was. It became a violation of nature; and so was, you see, criminal.
This is why, your Reverences, key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness than all other holes in this world put together.
– which leads me to my uncle Toby’s amours.
CHAPTER 2
Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby’s great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it. The wig had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign trunk; and was not so pliable as one would have wished. It curled everywhere but where the corporal required.
Such it was – but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby’s brow made everything around it appear so sovereignly, and Nature had wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his face, that even his tarnished gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him. Though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they seemed to have been picked by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage.
Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby’s blue and gold coat, if only it had fitted. In the sixteen years since it had been made, through total inactivity in my uncle Toby’s life – for he seldom went further than the bowling-green – his blue and gold had become so miserably tight, that it was with the utmost difficulty that the corporal was able to get him into it. The taking up at the sleeves had not helped.
It was laced however down the back, and at the side-seams, in the mode of King William’s reign; and shone so bright in the sun, and had so metallic and doughty an air, that my uncle Toby might have been attacking in armour.
As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripped by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens.
– Yes, Madam, but let us govern our fancies. As there was no alternative in my uncle Toby’s wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.
The corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fever’s regimental coat; and with his hair tucked up under his Montero-cap, marched three paces behind his master. A whiff of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; upon which, from a black leather thong, hung the corporal’s stick. – My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike.
‘It looks well at least,’ quoth my father to himself.
CHAPTER 3
My uncle Toby turned his head more than once, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal gave a
slight flourish with his stick – and with most respectful encouragement, bid his honour ‘never fear.’
Now my uncle Toby did fear, and grievously too; he knew not so much as the right end of a Woman from the wrong, and therefore was never at his ease near one of them – unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity. Yet except when he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked steadfastly into a woman’s eye; and would often tell my father in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost as bad as talking bawdy.
‘And suppose it is?’ my father would say.
CHAPTER 4
‘She cannot,’ quoth my uncle Toby, halting twenty paces from Mrs. Wadman’s door – ‘she cannot take it amiss.’
‘She will take it, your honour,’ said the corporal, ‘just as the Jew’s widow at Lisbon took it from my brother Tom.’
‘And how was that?’ quoth my uncle Toby, turning round to face him.
‘Your honour,’ replied the corporal, ‘knows of Tom’s misfortunes; if he had not married the widow – or if they had only put pork into their sausages – the honest soul would never have been taken out of his warm bed, and dragged to the inquisition. ’Tis a cursed place; when once a poor creature is in, he is in for ever.’
‘’Tis very true,’ said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman’s house as he spoke.
‘Nothing,’ continued the corporal, ‘can be so sad as confinement for life – or so sweet as liberty.’
‘Nothing, Trim,’ said my uncle, musing.
‘Whilst a man is free –’ cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus:
My uncle Toby looked earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green.
The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; so he then began to conjure him down again with his story.
CHAPTER 5
‘When Tom began, your honour, to think of settling himself in the world, it happened about that time, that a Jew who kept a sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die, and leave his widow in possession of a roaring trade. – Tom thought there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on.
‘So without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop, Tom set out – reckoning that at the worst, he should at least get a pound of sausages; but, if things went well, he should be set up – getting not only a pound of sausages, but a wife and a sausage shop into the bargain.
‘I fancy, your honour, I see him this moment with his white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat o’ one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a cheerful word for everybody he met. – But alas! Tom! thou smilest no more,’ cried the corporal.
‘Poor fellow!’ said my uncle Toby feelingly.
‘He was an honest, light-hearted lad, your honour–’
‘Then he resembled thee, Trim,’ said my uncle Toby.
The corporal blushed down to his fingers’ ends – a tear of gratitude and sorrow started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek; my uncle Toby’s tears kindled as one lamp does at another; and taking hold of Trim’s coat, as if to ease his lame leg, he stood silent for a minute. Then he took his hand away, and the corporal, making a bow, went on with the story of his brother and the Jew’s widow.
CHAPTER 6
‘When Tom got to the shop, your honour, there was nobody in it but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies – not killing them.’
‘’Tis a pretty picture!’ said my uncle Toby; ‘she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy.’
‘She was good, and the story of that poor friendless lass would melt a heart of stone,’ said Trim. ‘Some dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the mood, I shall tell you it.’
‘Do not forget, Trim,’ said my uncle Toby.
‘Does a negro have a soul?’ asked the corporal.
‘I am not much versed in things of that kind,’ quoth my uncle; ‘but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me.’
‘Then why, your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?’
‘I can give no reason,’ said my uncle Toby.
‘Only,’ cried the corporal, ‘because she has no one to stand up for her.’
‘’Tis that very thing, Trim,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘which recommends her and her brethren to our protection; the fortune of war has put the whip into our hands now – where it may be hereafter, heaven knows! but the brave will not use it unkindly.’
‘God forbid,’ said the corporal; and he returned to his story – but with an embarrassment the reader may not comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions of feeling, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave spirit to his tale.
So giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and placing his left arm akimbo, the corporal continued his story.
CHAPTER 7
‘Tom walked past the Moorish girl, and went on into the room beyond, to talk to the Jew’s widow about love, and this pound of sausages; and being, as I have said, an open cheery-hearted lad, he took a chair, and with great civility placed it close to her at the table, and sat down.
‘There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages – so Tom began a discourse upon them; first, gravely, “as to how they were made – with what meats, herbs, and spices;” then a little gaily, as, “With what skins – whether the largest were not the best?” – and so on – taking care to under-season what he had to say upon sausages, rather than over-season; so that he might have room to act–’
‘It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution,’ said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim’s shoulder, ‘that Count De la Motte lost the battle of Wynnendale: he pressed too speedily into the wood, and let Lisle fall into our hands, and then Ghent and Bruges; it was so late in the year, and so terrible a season came on, that otherwise our troops might have perished–’
‘Why may not battles, your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?’
My uncle Toby mused–
Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his idea of military skill another. Not being able to frame a reply, he said nothing; and the corporal finished his story.
‘As Tom saw that he gained ground, and that all he said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her in making them. – First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the meat down with her hand – then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them whilst she took them one by one – and so on, till at last he ventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.
‘Now a widow, your honour, always chooses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it.
‘She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage: Tom instantly laid hold of another.
‘But seeing Tom’s had more gristle in it–
‘She signed the agreement; Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.’
CHAPTER 8
‘All womankind,’ continued Trim, ‘from the highest to the lowest, love jokes; the difficulty is to know what sort; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.’
‘I like the comparison,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘better than the thing itself.’
‘Because your honour,’ quoth the corporal, ‘loves glory more than pleasure.’
‘I hope, Trim,’ answered my uncle, ‘I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends to the good and quiet of the world – particularly that branch of it which we have practised together on our bowling-green – and keeps the lives of the few, from the plunderings of the many – whenever that drum beats, I trust, corporal, we shall nei
ther of us lack the humanity and fellow-feeling to face about and march.’
In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby turned around, and marched firmly as if at the head of his company – and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, marched close behind him down the avenue.
‘Now what can their two noddles be about?’ cried my father to my mother; ‘by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman, and are marching round her house to mark out the surrounding lines.’
‘I dare say–’ quoth my mother–
– But stop, dear Sir – for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion – and what my father did say, with her replies, shall be read, perused, commented on, and in short, thumbed over by Posterity in a separate chapter. – I say, by Posterity – for what has this book done more than the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?
I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I write tells me how rapidly Life follows my pen; the days of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds on a windy day, never to return – everything presses on – whilst thou art twisting that lock of hair, see! it grows grey; and every adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.
Heaven have mercy upon us both!
CHAPTER 9
Now, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation – I would not give a penny.
Other Classic Novels Abridged by Emma Laybourn:
Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park
George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
For more details please visit Emma Laybourn’s website:
https://www.megamousebooks.com/classicnovelsabridged.html
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends