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

Volume IV, Chapter 29

252 of 315 · 2 min of reading

WHY weavers, gardeners, and gladiators--or a man with a pined leg (proceeding from some ailment in the foot)--should ever have had some tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and duly settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists.

A water-drinker, provided he is a profess’d one, and does it without fraud or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, “That a rill of cold water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a torch in my Jenny’s--”

----The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run opposite to the natural workings of causes and effects----

But it shews the weakness and imbecility of human reason.

----“And in perfect good health with it?”

--The most perfect,--Madam, that friendship herself could wish me----

“And drink nothing!--nothing but water?”

--Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of the brain----see how they give way!----

In swims CURIOSITY, beckoning to her damsels to follow--they dive into the center of the current----

FANCY sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits----And DESIRE, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her, with the other----

O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn’d this world about like a mill-wheel--grinding the faces of the impotent--bepowdering their ribs--bepeppering their noses, and changing sometimes even the very frame and face of nature----

If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, Eugenius--And, if I was you, Yorick, replied Eugenius, so would I.

Which shews they had both read Longinus--

For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as long as I live.

· · ·

End of part 252 of 315