The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Laurence Sterne

Volume III, Chapter 44

164 of 315 · 1 min of reading

----WE’LL not stop two moments, my dear Sir,--only, as we have got through these five volumes, (do, Sir, sit down upon a set----they are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have pass’d through.----

----What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack Asses?----How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of that little valley!----and when we climbed over that hill, and were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did they all set up together!

----Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses? * * *

----Heaven be their comforter----What! are they never curried?----Are they never taken in in winter?----Bray bray--bray. Bray on,--the world is deeply your debtor;----louder still--that’s nothing:--in good sooth, you are ill-used:----Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in G-sol-re-ut from morning, even unto night.

In the first edition, the sixth volume began with this chapter.

· · ·

End of part 164 of 315