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

Volume IV, Chapter 67

290 of 315 · 2 min of reading

ALL womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.----

----I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby, better than the thing itself----

----Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure.

I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world----and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of AMBITION, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the few, from the plunderings of the many----whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march.

In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and march’d firmly as at the head of his company----and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first step----march’d close behind him down the avenue.

----Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother----by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation.

I dare say, quoth my mother----But stop, dear Sir----for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion----and what my father did say upon it----with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon--or to say it all in a word, shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart----I say, by Posterity--and care not, if I repeat the word again--for what has this book done more than the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?

I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen: the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny!_ than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more----every thing presses on----whilst thou art twisting that lock,----see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.----

----Heaven have mercy upon us both!

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End of part 290 of 315