The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) 📕

saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards his horse’s head,⁠—Now (said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot.⁠⸺⁠Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,⁠—and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,⁠—I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching anything, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper⁠⸺”

(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠The corporal shook his head at it.⁠⸺⁠Have patience, said Yorick.)

“Then (Tripet) pass’d his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself en croup.⁠—But, said he, ’twere better for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a windmill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.”⁠—Good God! cried Trim, losing all patience,⁠—one home thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.⁠⸺⁠I think so too, replied Yorick.⁠⸺⁠

I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.

XXX

⸺⁠No,⁠—I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him,⁠—I have advanced nothing in the Tristra-pædia, but what is as clear as any one proposition in Euclid.⁠—Reach me, Trim, that book from off the scrutoir:⁠⸺⁠it has ofttimes been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long ago:⁠⸺⁠shall we have a short chapter or two now,⁠—and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the whole? My uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time.⁠⸺⁠The company smiled. Trim, quoth my father, has paid the full price for staying out the entertainment.⁠⸺⁠He did not seem to relish the play, replied Yorick.⁠⸺’Twas a Tomfool-battle, an’ please your reverence, of captain Tripet’s and that other officer, making so many summersets, as they advanced;⁠⸺⁠the French come on capering now and then in that way,⁠—but not quite so much.

My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him do at that moment;⁠⸺⁠he lighted his pipe,⁠⸺⁠Yorick drew his chair closer to the table,⁠—Trim snuff’d the candle,⁠—my father stirr’d up the fire,⁠—took up the book,⁠—cough’d twice, and begun.

XXXI

The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves,⁠—are a little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject,⁠⸺⁠for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species⁠⸺⁠I was insensibly led into it.⁠⸺’Twas natural, said Yorick.

The original of society, continued my father, I’m satisfied is, what Politian tells us, i.e., merely conjugal; and nothing more than the getting together of one man and one woman;⁠—to which, (according to Hesiod) the philosopher adds a servant:⁠⸺⁠but supposing in the first beginning there were no men servants born⁠⸺⁠he lays the foundation of it, in a man,⁠—a woman⁠—and a bull.⁠⸺⁠I believe ’tis an ox, quoth Yorick, quoting the passage (οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα, γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα).⁠⸺⁠A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth.⁠⸺⁠But there is a better reason still, said my father (dipping his pen into his ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,⁠—was the properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined couple, that the creation could have associated with them.⁠—And there is a stronger reason, added my uncle Toby, than them all for the ox.⁠—My father had not power to take his pen out of his ink-horn, till he had heard my uncle Toby’s reason.⁠—For when the ground was tilled, said my uncle Toby, and made worth inclosing, then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification.⁠⸺⁠True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place.

My father gave Trim a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse.

⸺⁠I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely to show the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways⁠—

1st, by marriage.

2nd, by adoption.

3rd, by legitimation.

And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order.

I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied Yorick⁠⸺⁠the act, especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation upon the child, as it conveys power to the father.⁠—You are wrong,⁠—said my father argutely, and for this plain