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

Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do extra justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work,⁠—I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote’s horse;⁠⸺⁠in all other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another,⁠—for he was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as Humility herself could have bestrided.

In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was greatly in the parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse of his,⁠—for he was master of a very handsome demi-peak’d saddle, quilted on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, poudré d’or,⁠—all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it should be.⁠⸺⁠But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these up behind his study door:⁠—and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the figure and value of such a steed might well and truly deserve.

In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits to the gentry who lived around him,⁠—you will easily comprehend, that the parson, so appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a village, but he caught the attention of both old and young.⁠⸺⁠Labour stood still as he pass’d⁠⸺⁠the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well,⁠⸺⁠the spinning-wheel forgot its round,⁠⸺⁠even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight; and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough upon his hands to make his observations,⁠—to hear the groans of the serious,⁠—and the laughter of the lighthearted;⁠—all which he bore with excellent tranquillity.⁠—His character was,⁠—he loved a jest in his heart⁠—and as he saw himself in the true point of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who therefore made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his humour,⁠—instead of giving the true cause,⁠—he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his beast,⁠—he would sometimes insist upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;⁠—that they were, centaur-like,⁠—both of a piece. At other times, and in other moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,⁠—he would say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity, would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat horse, without a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in his pulse; and that he had made choice of the lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in spirits.

At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one of mettle;⁠—for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as delightfully de vanitate mundi et fugâ sæculi, as with the advantage of a death’s-head before him;⁠—that, in all other exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along,⁠—to as much account as in his study;⁠—that he could draw up an argument in his sermon,⁠—or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the other;⁠—that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and judgment, were two incompatible movements.⁠—But that upon his steed⁠—he could unite and reconcile everything,⁠—he could compose his sermon⁠—he could compose his cough,⁠⸺⁠and, in case nature gave a call that way, he could likewise compose himself to sleep.⁠—In short, the parson upon such encounters would assign any cause but the true cause,⁠—and he withheld the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it did honour to him.

But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this gentleman’s life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it what you will,⁠—to run into the opposite extreme.⁠—In the language of the county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his stable always ready for saddling; and as the nearest midwife, as I told you, did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile country,⁠—it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more distressful than the last,⁠—as much as he loved his beast, he had never a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this, that his horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d;⁠—or he was twitter-bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh;⁠—so that he had every nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of,⁠—and a good horse to purchase in his stead.

What the loss on such a balance might amount to, communibus annis, I would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to determine;⁠—but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it for many years