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

Volume II, Chapter 12

65 of 315 · 1 min of reading

----WHAT a conjuncture was here lost!----My father in one of his best explanatory moods--in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;--my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;--his head like a smoke-jack;----the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!--By the tomb-stone of Lucian----if it is in being----if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes!_----my father and my uncle Toby’s discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY----was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father’s humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.

· · ·

End of part 65 of 315