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

Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have just left:⁠—for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain household judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with⁠⸻and had they more of either the one or the other, it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.

Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and humours runs high⁠⸻where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason⁠⸻the height of our wit, and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our necessities⁠⸻and accordingly we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of descent and creditable plenty, that no one thinks he has any cause to complain.

It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and cold⁠—wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way;⁠—so that sometimes for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of amongst us:⁠⸺⁠the small channels of them shall seem quite dried up⁠⸺⁠then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of running again like fury⁠⸺⁠you would think they would never stop:⁠⸺⁠and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant things, we drive all the world before us.

It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectick induction⁠⸻that I draw and set up this position as most true and veritable;

That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d’ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it⁠—I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives⁠⸺⁠running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end;⁠⸺⁠some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks⁠⸺⁠others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs.⁠—Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way.⁠—What confusion!⁠—what mistakes!⁠⸺⁠fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears⁠—admirable!⁠—trusting to the passions excited⁠—in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart⁠⸺⁠instead of measuring them by a quadrant.

In the foreground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round⁠⸺⁠against the stream of corruption⁠—by Heaven!⁠⸺⁠instead of with it.

In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worse⁠—feeling his patient’s pulse, instead of his apothecary’s⁠⸺⁠a brother of the Faculty in the background upon his knees in tears⁠—drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness;⁠—offering a fee⁠—instead of taking one.

In that spacious hall, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way!⁠⸺⁠kicking it out of the great doors, instead of in⁠⸺⁠and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind:⁠⸺⁠perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still⁠⸻a litigated point fairly hung up;⁠⸻for instance, Whether John o’Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o’Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not⁠—rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months⁠⸺⁠and if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an action should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein,⁠⸻such as feints,⁠⸺⁠forced marches,⁠⸺⁠surprises⁠⸺⁠ambuscades⁠⸺⁠mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides⁠⸻might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.

As for the Clergy⁠⸻No⁠⸺⁠if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.⁠⸺⁠I have no desire;⁠—and besides, if I had⁠—I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject⁠⸺⁠with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account⁠—and therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up⁠⸺⁠and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men