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

one from another in their testimonies and description of the stranger’s nose⁠—they all agreed together in two points⁠—namely, that he was gone to Frankfort, and would not return to Strasburg till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was true or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect paragons of beauty⁠—the finest-made man⁠—the most genteel!⁠—the most generous of his purse⁠—the most courteous in his carriage that had ever entered the gates of Strasburg⁠—that as he rode, with scymetar slung loosely to his wrist, thro’ the streets⁠—and walked with his crimson-sattin breeches across the parade⁠—’twas with so sweet an air of careless modesty, and so manly withal⁠⸺⁠as would have put the heart in jeopardy (had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had cast her eyes upon him.

I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of Quedlingberg, the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for sending at noonday for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the streets of Strasburg with her husband’s trumpet in her hand,⁠⸺⁠the best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the illustration of her theory⁠—she stayed no longer than three days.

The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer!⁠⸺⁠nothing on this side of old Athens could equal them! they read their lectures under the city-gates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a Chrysippus and a Crantor in their porticos.

The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also in the same stile⁠—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard⁠—his wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; not promiscuously⁠—but to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and credulity marshal’d them⁠⸺⁠in a word, each Strasburger came crouding for intelligence⁠⸺⁠and every Strasburger had the intelligence he wanted.

’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural philosophy, etc., that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the abbess of Quedlingberg’s private lecture, and had begun to read in public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great parade,⁠⸺⁠she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of Strasburg for her auditory⁠⸺⁠But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries Slawkenbergius) has a trumpet for an apparatus, pray what rival in science can pretend to be heard besides him?

Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where Truth keeps her little court⁠⸻were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up thro’ the conduits of dialect induction⁠⸺⁠they concerned themselves not with facts⁠⸻they reasoned⁠⸻

Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the Faculty⁠—had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of Wens and œdematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for their bloods and souls⁠⸻the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either with wens or œdematous swellings.

It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous mass of heterogeneous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to the nose, whilst the infant was in Utero, without destroying the statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine months before the time.⁠⸻

⸺⁠The opponents granted the theory⁠⸺⁠they denied the consequences.

And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, etc., said they, was not laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world (bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained afterwards.

This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and prolongation of the muscular parts of the greatest growth and expansion imaginable⁠—In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to the size of the man himself.

The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs⁠⸺⁠For the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception of food, and turning it into chyle⁠—and the lungs the only engine of sanguification⁠—it could possibly work off no more, than what the appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s overloading his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs⁠—the engine was of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a certain quantity in a given time⁠⸻that is, it could produce just as much blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that, if there was as much nose as man⁠⸺⁠they proved a mortification must necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man inevitably fall off from his nose.

Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the opponents⁠—else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach⁠—a whole pair of lungs, and but half a man, when both his legs have been unfortunately shot off?

He dies of a plethora, said they⁠—or must spit blood, and in a fortnight or three weeks go off in a consumption.⁠⸻

⸺⁠It happens otherwise⁠—replied the opponents.⁠⸺⁠

It ought not, said they.

The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings, though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself.

They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to its several destinations, offices, and functions which could not be transgressed but within certain limits⁠—that nature, though she sported⁠⸺⁠she sported within a certain circle;⁠—and they could not agree about the diameter