The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Laurence Sterne
----THAT provision should be made for continuing the race of so great, so exalted and godlike a Being as man--I am far from denying--but philosophy speaks freely of every thing; and therefore I still think and do maintain it to be a pity, that it should be done by means of a passion which bends down the faculties, and turns all the wisdom, contemplations, and operations of the soul backwards----a passion, my dear, continued my father, addressing himself to my mother, which couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us come out of our caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts than men.
I know it will be said, continued my father (availing himself of the Prolepsis), that in itself, and simply taken----like hunger, or thirst, or sleep----’tis an affair neither good or bad--or shameful or otherwise.----Why then did the delicacy of Diogenes and Plato so recalcitrate against it? and wherefore, when we go about to make and plant a man, do we put out the candle? and for what reason is it, that all the parts thereof--the congredients--the preparations--the instruments, and whatever serves thereto, are so held as to be conveyed to a cleanly mind by no language, translation, or periphrasis whatever?
----The act of killing and destroying a man, continued my father, raising his voice--and turning to my uncle Toby--you see, is glorious--and the weapons by which we do it are honourable----We march with them upon our shoulders----We strut with them by our sides----We gild them----We carve them----We in-lay them----We enrich them----Nay, if it be but a scoundrel cannon, we cast an ornament upon the breach of it.--
----My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to intercede for a better epithet----and Yorick was rising up to batter the whole hypothesis to pieces----
----When Obadiah broke into the middle of the room with a complaint, which cried out for an immediate hearing.
The case was this:
My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor, or as impropriator of the great tythes, was obliged to keep a Bull for the service of the Parish, and Obadiah had led his cow upon a pop-visit to him one day or other the preceding summer----I say, one day or other--because as chance would have it, it was the day on which he was married to my father’s house-maid----so one was a reckoning to the other. Therefore when Obadiah’s wife was brought to bed--Obadiah thanked God----
----Now, said Obadiah, I shall have a calf: so Obadiah went daily to visit his cow.
She’ll calve on Monday--on Tuesday--on Wednesday at the farthest----
The cow did not calve----no--she’ll not calve till next week----the cow put it off terribly----till at the end of the sixth week Obadiah’s suspicions (like a good man’s) fell upon the Bull.
Now the parish being very large, my father’s Bull, to speak the truth of him, was no way equal to the department; he had, however, got himself, somehow or other, thrust into employment--and as he went through the business with a grave face, my father had a high opinion of him.
----Most of the townsmen, an’ please your worship, quoth Obadiah, believe that ’tis all the Bull’s fault----
----But may not a cow be barren? replied my father, turning to Doctor Slop._
It never happens: said Dr. Slop, but the man’s wife may have come before her time naturally enough----Prithee has the child hair upon his head?--added Dr. Slop----
----It is as hairy as I am; said Obadiah.----Obadiah had not been shaved for three weeks----Wheu - - u - - - - u - - - - - - - - cried my father; beginning the sentence with an exclamatory whistle----and so, brother Toby, this poor Bull of mine, who is as good a Bull as ever p--ss’d, and might have done for Europa herself in purer times----had he but two legs less, might have been driven into Doctors Commons and lost his character----which to a Town Bull, brother Toby, is the very same thing as his life----
L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?----
A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick----And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard.
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