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

⸺⁠Though if it comes to persuasion⁠—said my father⁠—Lord have mercy upon them.

Amen: said my mother, piano.

Amen: cried my father, fortissimè.

Amen: said my mother again⁠⸺⁠but with such a sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my father⁠—he instantly took out his almanac; but before he could untie it, Yorick’s congregation coming out of church, became a full answer to one half of his business with it⁠—and my mother telling him it was a sacrament day⁠—left him as little in doubt, as to the other part⁠—He put his almanac into his pocket.

The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of ways and means, could not have returned home with a more embarrassed look.

Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the three following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year: nor is it a poor creeping digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as well going on in the king’s highway) which will do the business⁠⸺⁠no; if it is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a frisky subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be caught, but by rebound.

The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the service: Fancy is capricious⁠—Wit must not be searched for⁠—and Pleasantry (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was an empire to be laid at her feet.

⸺⁠The best way for a man is to say his prayers⁠⸺⁠

Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well ghostly as bodily⁠—for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse after he has said them than before⁠—for other purposes, better.

For my own part, there is not a way either moral or mechanical under heaven that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in this case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself, and arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of her own faculties⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠I never could make them an inch the wider⁠⸺⁠

Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the body, by temperance, soberness, and chastity: These are good, quoth I, in themselves⁠—they are good, absolutely;⁠—they are good, relatively;⁠—they are good for health⁠—they are good for happiness in this world⁠—they are good for happiness in the next⁠⸺⁠

In short, they were good for everything but the thing wanted; and there they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven made it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it courage; but then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you started.

Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have found to answer so well as this⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me, merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing that all mankind should write as well as myself.

⸺⁠Which they certainly will, when they think as little.

Now in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen⁠⸺⁠

Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of the chapter, unless something be done⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of snuff, or a stride or two across the room will not do the business for me⁠—I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt⁠—put on a better coat⁠—send for my last wig⁠—put my topaz ring upon my finger; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.

Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider, Sir, as every man chooses to be present at the shaving of his own beard (though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand in it⁠—the Situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put into the brain.⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man, are seven years more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity⁠—How Homer could write with so long a beard, I don’t know⁠⸺⁠and as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little care⁠⸺⁠But let us return to the Toilet.

Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body (ἐξωτερικὴ πρᾶξις) as he calls it⁠⸺⁠but he is deceived: the soul and body are joint-sharers in everything they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him⁠—so