The Fates, who certainly all foreknew of these amours of widow Wadman and my uncle Toby, had, from the first creation of matter and motion (and with more courtesy than they usually do things of this kind), established such a chain of causes and effects hanging so fast to one another, that it was scarce possible for my uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other garden in Christendom, but the very house and garden which join’d and laid parallel to Mrs. Wadman’s; this, with the advantage of a thickset arbour in Mrs. Wadman’s garden, but planted in the hedge-row of my uncle Toby’s, put all the occasions into her hands which Love-militancy wanted; she could observe my uncle Toby’s motions, and was mistress likewise of his councils of war; and as his unsuspecting heart had given leave to the corporal, through the mediation of Bridget, to make her a wicker-gate of communication to enlarge her walks, it enabled her to carry on her approaches to the very door of the sentry-box; and sometimes out of gratitude, to make an attack, and endeavour to blow my uncle Toby up in the very sentry-box itself.
CHAPTER XV
It is a great pity——but ’tis certain from every day’s observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end—provided there is a sufficient wick standing out; if there is not—there’s an end of the affair; and if there is—by lighting 406 it at the bottom, as the flame in that case has the misfortune generally to put out itself—there’s an end of the affair again.
For my part, could I always have the ordering of it which way I would be burnt myself—for I cannot bear the thoughts of being burnt like a beast—I would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the top; for then I should burn down decently to the socket; that is, from my head to my heart, from my heart to my liver, from my liver to my bowels, and so on by the meseraick veins and arteries, through all the turns and lateral insertions of the intestines and their tunicles to the blind gut——
——I beseech you, doctor Slop, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting him as he mentioned the blind gut, in a discourse with my father the night my mother was brought to bed of me——I beseech you, quoth my uncle Toby, to tell me which is the blind gut; for, old as I am, I vow I do not know to this day where it lies.
The blind gut, answered doctor Slop, lies betwixt the Ilion and Colon——
In a man? said my father.
——’Tis precisely the same, cried doctor Slop, in a woman.——
That’s more than I know; quoth my father.
CHAPTER XVI
——And so to make sure of both systems, Mrs. Wadman predetermined to light my uncle Toby neither at this end or that; but, like a prodigal’s candle, to light him, if possible, at both ends at once.
Now, through all the lumber rooms of military furniture, including both of horse and foot, from the great arsenal of Venice to the Tower of London (exclusive), if Mrs. Wadman had been rummaging for seven years together, and with Bridget to help her, she could not have found any one blind or mantelet so fit for her purpose, as that which the expediency of my uncle Toby’s affairs had fix’d up ready to her hands.
I believe I have not told you——but I don’t know——possibly I have——be it as it will, ’tis one of the number of those many things, which a man had better do over again, than dispute about it—That whatever town or fortress the corporal was at work upon, during the course of their campaign, my uncle Toby always took care, on the inside of his sentry-box, which was 407 towards his left hand, to have a plan of the place, fasten’d up with two or three pins at the top, but loose at the bottom, for the conveniency of holding it up to the eye, &c. . . . as occasions required; so that when an attack was resolved upon, Mrs. Wadman had nothing more to do, when she had got advanced to the door of the sentry-box, but to extend her right hand; and edging in her left foot at the same movement, to take hold of the map or plan, or upright, or whatever it was, and with out-stretched neck meeting it half way,—to advance it towards her; on which my uncle Toby’s passions were sure to catch fire——for he would instantly take hold of the other corner of the map in his left hand, and with the end of his pipe in the other, begin an explanation.
When the attack was advanced to this point;——the world will naturally enter into the reasons of Mrs. Wadman’s next stroke of generalship——which was, to take my uncle Toby’s tobacco-pipe out of his hand as soon as she possibly could; which, under one pretence or other, but generally that of pointing more distinctly at some redoubt or breastwork in the map, she would effect before my uncle Toby (poor soul!) had well march’d above half a dozen toises with it.
—It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.
The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, as in the first case, with the end of her forefinger against the end of my uncle Toby’s tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, along the lines, from Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby’s lines reach’d so far, without any effect: For as there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment——it could neither give fire by pulsation——or receive it by sympathy——’twas nothing but smoke.
Whereas, in following my uncle Toby’s forefinger with hers, close thro’ all the little turns and indentings of his works—pressing sometimes against the side of it——then treading upon its nail——then tripping it up——then touching it here——then there, and so on——it set something at least in motion.
This, tho’ slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it, close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manœuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place her’s close beside it; this at once opened a communication, 408 large enough for any sentiment to pass or repass, which a person skill’d in the elementary and practical part of love-making, has occasion for——
By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby’s——it unavoidably brought the thumb into action——and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in its right place——Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving——to get it press’d a hair breadth of one side out of her way.
Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it was her leg (and no one’s else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, which slightly press’d against the calf of his——So that my uncle Toby being thus attacked and sore push’d on both his wings——was it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?——