I wish I may but manage it right; said my uncle Toby—but I declare, corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench——
—A woman is quite a different thing—said the corporal.
—I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby.
CHAPTER XXXI
If anything in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression 430 of Hilarion the hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would say—tho’ with more facetiousness than became an hermit—“That they were the means he used, to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.”
It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconick way of expressing——but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and appetites of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my father’s life, ’twas his constant mode of expression—he never used the word passions once—but ass always instead of them——So that he might be said truly, to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass, or else of some other man’s, during all that time.
I must here observe to you the difference betwixt
My father’s ass
and my hobby-horse—in order to keep characters as separate as may be, in our fancies as we go along.
For my hobby-horse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him——’Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour—a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick—an uncle Toby’s siege—or an anything, which a man makes a shift to get a-stride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life—’Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole creation—nor do I really see how the world would do without it——
——But for my father’s ass———oh! mount him—mount him—mount him—(that’s three times, is it not?)—mount him not:—’tis a beast concupiscent—and foul befal the man, who does not hinder him from kicking.
CHAPTER XXXII
Well! dear brother Toby, said my father, upon his first seeing him after he fell in love—and how goes it with your Asse?
Now my uncle Toby thinking more of the part where he had had the blister, than of Hilarion’s metaphor—and our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of things, he had imagined, that my father, who was not very ceremonious in his choice of words, had enquired after the part by its proper name; so notwithstanding my mother, doctor Slop, and Mr. Yorick, were sitting in the 431 parlour, he thought it rather civil to conform to the term my father had made use of than not. When a man is hemm’d in by two indecorums, and must commit one of ’em—I always observe—let him chuse which he will, the world will blame him—so I should not be astonished if it blames my uncle Toby.
My A—e, quoth my uncle Toby, is much better—brother Shandy—My father had formed great expectations from his Asse in this onset; and would have brought him on again; but doctor Slop setting up an intemperate laugh—and my mother crying out L— bless us!—it drove my father’s Asse off the field—and the laugh then becoming general—there was no bringing him back to the charge, for some time——
And so the discourse went on without him.
Everybody, said my mother, says you are in love, brother Toby,—and we hope it is true.
I am as much in love, sister, I believe, replied my uncle Toby, as any man usually is——Humph! said my father——and when did you know it? quoth my mother——
——When the blister broke; replied my uncle Toby.
My uncle Toby’s reply put my father into good temper—so he charg’d o’ foot.
CHAPTER XXXIII
As the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of love, according to the different parts which are affected by it—the Brain or Liver——I think when a man is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he is fallen into.
What signifies it, brother Shandy, replied my uncle Toby, which of the two it is, provided it will but make a man marry, and love his wife, and get a few children?
——A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking full in my mother’s face, as he forced his way betwixt her’s and doctor Slop’s—a few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle Toby’s words as he walk’d to and fro——
——Not, my dear brother Toby, cried my father, recovering himself all at once, and coming close up to the back of my uncle Toby’s chair—not that I should be sorry hadst thou a score—on the contrary, I should rejoice—and be as kind, Toby, to every one of them as a father—
My uncle Toby stole his hand unperceived behind his chair, to give my father’s a squeeze—— 432
——Nay, moreover, continued he, keeping hold of my uncle Toby’s hand—so much dost thou possess, my dear Toby, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities—’tis piteous the world is not peopled by creatures which resemble thee; and was I an Asiatic monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new project—I would oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strength—or dry up thy radical moisture too fast—or weaken thy memory or fancy, brother Toby, which these gymnics inordinately taken are apt to do—else, dear Toby, I would procure thee the most beautiful women in my empire, and I would oblige thee, nolens, volens, to beget for me one subject every month——
As my father pronounced the last word of the sentence—my mother took a pinch of snuff.
Now I would not, quoth my uncle Toby, get a child, nolens, volens, that is, whether I would or no, to please the greatest prince upon earth——
——And ’twould be cruel in me, brother Toby, to compel thee; said my father—but ’tis a case put to show thee, that it is not thy begetting a child—in case thou should’st be able—but the system of Love and Marriage thou goest upon, which I would set thee right in——
There is at least, said Yorick, a great deal of reason and plain sense in captain Shandy’s opinion of love; and ’tis amongst the ill-spent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have read so many flourishing poets and rhetoricians in my time, from whom I never could extract so much——
I wish, Yorick, said my father, you had read Plato; for there you would have learnt that there are two Loves—I know there were two Religions, replied Yorick, amongst the ancients——one—for the vulgar, and another for the learned;—but I think one Love might have served both of them very well—