Will this be good for your worships’ eyes?
It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my Opinions will be the death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this self-same life of mine; or, in other words, shall lead a couple of fine lives together.
As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it no way alters my prospect—write as I will, and rush as I may into the middle of things, as Horace advises—I shall never overtake myself whipp’d and driven to the last pinch; at the worst I shall have one day the start of my pen—and one day is enough for two volumes——and two volumes will be enough for one year.—
Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, which is now opened to us——as I trust its providence will prosper everything else in it that is taken in hand.——
As for the propagation of Geese—I give myself no concern—Nature is all bountiful—I shall never want tools to work with.
—So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle Toby off the stairs, and seen them to bed?———And how did you manage it?——You dropp’d a curtain at the stair-foot—I thought you had no other way for it———Here’s a crown for your trouble.
CHAPTER XIV
—Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to Susannah.——There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried Susannah—the child is as black in the face as my——As your what? said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into comparisons.—Bless me, Sir, said Susannah, the child’s in a fit.—And where’s Mr. Yorick?—Never where he should be, said Susannah, but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name—and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it should not be called after him.
Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment 209 my brother Toby as not—and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him——but he may recover.
No, no,——said my father to Susannah, I’ll get up———There is no time, cried Susannah, the child’s as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father———But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father; canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head, the length of the gallery without scattering?———Can I? cried Susannah, shutting the door in a huff.——If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery.
My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.
Susannah got the start, and kept it—’Tis Tris—something, cried Susannah—There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, beginning with Tris—but Tristram. Then ’tis Tristram-gistus, quoth Susannah.
——There is no gistus to it, noodle!—’tis my own name, replied the curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason—Tristram! said he, &c. &c. &c. &c., so Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death.
My father followed Susannah, with his night-gown across his arm, with nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a single button, and that button through haste thrust only half into the button-hole.
——She has not forgot the name? cried my father, half opening the door.——No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence.——And the child is better, cried Susannah.——And how does your mistress? As well, said Susannah, as can be expected.—Pish! said my father, the button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole—So that whether the interjection was levelled at Susannah, or the button-hole—whether Pish was an interjection of contempt or an interjection of modesty, is a doubt, and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three following favourite chapters, that is, my chapter of chamber-maids, my chapter of pishes, and my chapter of button-holes.
All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, that the moment my father cried Pish! he whisk’d himself about—and with his breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm of the other, he turned along the gallery to bed, something slower than he came. 210
CHAPTER XV
I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep.
A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this moment offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn—the candles put out—and no creature’s eyes are open but a single one, for the other has been shut these twenty years, of my mother’s nurse.
It is a fine subject!
And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single chapter upon this.
Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of ’em——and trust me, when I get amongst ’em——You gentry with great beards——look as grave as you will———I’ll make merry work with my button-holes—I shall have ’em all to myself—’tis a maiden subject—I shall run foul of no man’s wisdom or fine sayings in it.
But for sleep——I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin—I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place—and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world—’tis the refuge of the unfortunate—the enfranchisement of the prisoner—the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us——that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lies down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her—no desire—or fear—or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.
“God’s blessing,” said Sancho Pança, “be upon the man who first invented this self-same thing called sleep—it covers a man all over like a cloak.” Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeez’d out of the heads of the learned together upon the subject. 211
—Not that I altogether disapprove of what Montaigne advances upon it—’tis admirable in its way—(I quote by memory).
The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep, without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by.—We should study and ruminate upon it, in order to render proper thanks to him who grants it to us.—For this end I cause myself to be disturbed in my sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it.——And yet I see few, says he again, who live with less sleep, when need requires; my body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and sudden agitation—I evade of late all violent exercises——I am never weary with walking——but from my youth, I never liked to ride upon pavements. I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife——This last word may stagger the faith of the world——but remember, “La Vraisemblance (as Bayle says in the affair of Liceti) n’est pas toujours du Côté de la Verité.” And so much for sleep.