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

in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader;⁠—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive;⁠—to them I write,⁠⸺⁠and by them I shall be read,⁠⸺⁠if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long,⁠—to the very end of the world.

Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows:

My uncle Toby Shandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude,⁠⸺⁠possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and unparallel’d modesty of nature;⁠⸺⁠though I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or acquir’d.⁠⸺⁠Whichever way my uncle Toby came by it, ’twas nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,⁠—but to things;⁠⸺⁠and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours.

You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this from this very source;⁠—that he had spent a great part of his time in converse with your sex; and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he had acquired this amiable turn of mind.

I wish I could say so,⁠—for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my father’s wife and my mother⁠⸺⁠my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words with the sex in as many years;⁠—no, he got it, Madam, by a blow.⁠⸺⁠A blow!⁠—Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur, which struck full upon my uncle Toby’s groin.⁠—Which way could that effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;⁠—but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.⁠⸺’Tis for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you:⁠—’Till then, it is not in my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more than what I have said already,⁠⸺⁠That my uncle Toby was a gentleman of unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,⁠⸺⁠they both so wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the affair of my aunt Dinah touch’d upon, but with the greatest emotion.⁠⸺⁠The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face;⁠—but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do,⁠—the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would set my uncle Toby’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him anything in the world, only to let the story rest.

My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle Toby, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done anything in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of another, to have made my uncle Toby’s heart easy in this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power.

⸺⁠My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,⁠—speculative,⁠—systematical;⁠—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:⁠—The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, called so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will forever hereafter be called the Shandean System, after this.

In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever;⁠⸺⁠and neither he, nor, I dare say, Copernicus, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed, as they thought, to truth.⁠—Amicus Plato, my father would say, construing the words to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus Plato; that is, Dinah was my aunt;⁠—sed magis amica veritas⁠⸺⁠but Truth is my sister.

This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace recorded,⁠⸺⁠and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end without some hint at it.

For God’s sake, my uncle Toby would cry,⁠⸺⁠and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother Shandy,⁠—do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;⁠⸺⁠how can you,⁠⸺⁠how can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?⁠⸺⁠What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.⁠⸺⁠Nay, if you come to that⁠—what is the life of a family?⁠⸺⁠The life of a family!⁠—my uncle Toby would say, throwing himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg.⁠⸺⁠Yes, the life,⁠⸺⁠my father would say, maintaining his point. How many