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

argument over again to him)⁠⸺⁠Why, Sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues?⁠⸺⁠Seven mortal sins?⁠⸺⁠Seven golden candlesticks?⁠⸺⁠Seven heavens?⁠—’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle Toby.⁠⸻Are there not seven wonders of the world?⁠⸺⁠Seven days of the creation?⁠⸺⁠Seven planets?⁠⸺⁠Seven plagues?⁠⸺⁠That there are, quoth my father with a most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on with the rest of thy characters, Trim.]

“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here Trim waved his right hand) “a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human life without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your honours, cried Trim, I think this a viler man than the other.]

“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?⁠⸺⁠No; thank God there is no occasion, I pay every man his own;⁠—I have no fornication to answer to my conscience;⁠—no faithless vows or promises to make up;⁠—I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who stands before me.

“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life;⁠—’tis nothing but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws,⁠⸺⁠plain-dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several properties.⁠⸺⁠You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man;⁠—shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life.

“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, and state it over again with his conscience⁠—Conscience looks into the Statutes at Large;⁠—finds no express law broken by what he has done;⁠—perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred;⁠—sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his gates upon him:⁠—What is there to affright his conscience?⁠—Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all sides;⁠—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.”

[Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.⁠—Aye, aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,⁠⸻these are but sorry fortifications, Trim.⁠⸻O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your Honour and I make of it.⁠⸺⁠The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:⁠—Amongst us, a man’s conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,⁠⸺⁠three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon.⁠⸺’Tis a very short one, replied Trim.⁠⸺⁠I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.⁠—Trim went on.]

“A fourth man shall want even this refuge;⁠—shall break through all their ceremony of slow chicane;⁠⸺⁠scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:⁠⸺⁠See the barefaced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!⁠—Horrid!⁠—But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the present case⁠—the poor man was in the dark!⁠⸻his priest had got the keeping of his conscience;⁠⸺⁠and all he would let him know of it, was, That he must believe in the Pope;⁠—go to Mass;⁠—cross himself;⁠—tell his beads;⁠—be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry him to heaven. What;⁠—if he perjures!⁠—Why;⁠—he had a mental reservation in it.⁠—But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;⁠—if he robs,⁠—if he stabs, will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself?⁠—Aye,⁠—but the man has carried it to confession;⁠⸺⁠the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou to answer for?⁠⸺⁠when, not content with the too many natural and fatal ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to itself above all things;⁠—thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself; and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.

“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,⁠—I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.

“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own natures;⁠—he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand can give them;⁠—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true circumstances of folly and dishonour.

“When David surprised Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe⁠—we read his heart smote him for what he had done:⁠⸺⁠But in the matter of Uriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust,⁠—where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from the first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had