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

so many affecting petitions to the queen,⁠—beseeching her majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works, which might have incurred her displeasure,⁠—but to spare⁠—to spare the mole, for the mole’s sake; which, in its naked situation, could be no more than an object of pity⁠⸺⁠and the queen (who was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition,⁠—and her ministers also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for these private reasons, * * * * * * * * * * * *⁠⸺⁠

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *; so that the whole went heavily on with my uncle Toby; insomuch, that it was not within three full months, after he and the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be destroyed, that the several commandants, commissaries, deputies, negociators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it.⁠⸺⁠Fatal interval of inactivity!

The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the ramparts, or main fortifications of the town⁠⸺⁠No,⁠—that will never do, corporal, said my uncle Toby, for in going that way to work with the town, the English garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if the French are treacherous⁠⸺⁠They are as treacherous as devils, an’ please your honour, said the corporal⁠⸺⁠It gives me concern always when I hear it, Trim, said my uncle Toby,⁠—for they don’t want personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please:⁠⸺⁠Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it,⁠—let them enter, an’ please your honour, if they dare.⁠⸺⁠In cases like this, corporal, said my uncle Toby, slipping his right hand down to the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with his forefinger extended,⁠⸺’tis no part of the consideration of a commandant, what the enemy dare,⁠—or what they dare not do; he must act with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and the land, and particularly with fort Louis, the most distant of them all, and demolish it first,⁠—and the rest, one by one, both on our right and left, as we retreat towards the town;⁠⸺⁠then we’ll demolish the mole,⁠—next fill up the harbour,⁠—then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we’ll embark for England.⁠⸺⁠We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting himself⁠⸺⁠Very true, said my uncle Toby⁠—looking at the church.

XXXV

A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim, upon the demolition of Dunkirk,⁠—for a moment rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from under him:⁠⸺⁠still⁠—still all went on heavily⁠⸺⁠the magic left the mind the weaker⁠—Stillness, with Silence at her back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle Toby’s head;⁠⸺⁠and Listlessness, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down beside him in his armchair.⁠⸺⁠No longer Amberg and Rhinberg, and Limbourg, and Huy, and Bonn, in one year,⁠—and the prospect of Landen, and Trerebach, and Drusen, and Dendermond, the next,⁠—hurried on the blood:⁠—No longer did saps, and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man’s repose:⁠⸺⁠No more could my uncle Toby, after passing the French lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of France,⁠—cross over the Oyes, and with all Picardie open behind him, march up to the gates of Paris, and fall asleep with nothing but ideas of glory:⁠⸺⁠No more was he to dream he had fixed the royal standard upon the tower of the Bastile, and awake with it streaming in his head.

⸺⁠Softer visions,⁠—gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his slumbers;⁠—the trumpet of war fell out of his hands,⁠—he took up the lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most difficult!⁠⸺⁠how wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle Toby?

XXXVI

Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle Toby’s courtship of widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love and lovemaking, that ever was addressed to the world⁠⸺⁠are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a description of what love is? whether part God and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be as ten⁠⸺⁠to determine with Ficinus, “How many parts of it⁠—the one,⁠—and how many the other;”⁠—or whether it is all of it one great Devil, from head to tail, as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion:⁠—but my opinion of Plato is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of ’em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a herse and six⁠—rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing Canthari[di]s.⁠⸻

I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out (that is, polemically) to Philagrius⁠⸺⁠

“Εὖγε!” O rare! ’tis fine reasoning, Sir, indeed!⁠—“ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν Πάθεσι”⁠—and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about it in your moods and passions.

Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire, whether love is a disease,⁠⸺⁠or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides,