—Has the bend-sinister been brush’d out, I say? said my father.——There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered Obadiah, but the lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to Yorick.——Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said Yorick.—No matter for that, cried my father——I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them.—Never mind the bend-sinister, said my uncle Toby, putting on his tye-wig.——No, indeed, said my father—you may go with my aunt Dinah to a visitation with a bend-sinister, if you think fit—My poor uncle Toby blush’d. My father was vexed at himself.———No——my dear brother Toby, said my father, changing his tone——but the damp of the coach-lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did December, January, and February last winter—so if you please you shall ride my wife’s pad——and as you are to preach, Yorick, you had better make the best of your way before——and leave me to take care of my brother Toby, and to follow at our own rates.
Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this cavalcade, in which Corporal Trim and Obadiah, upon two coach-horses a-breast, led the way as slow as a patrole——whilst my uncle Toby, in his laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep roads and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and arms, as each could get the start.
—But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so much above the stile and manner of anything else I have been able to paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it—but, in my opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a song—but in tune with yourself, madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it.
—This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well——(as Yorick told my uncle Toby one night) by siege.——My uncle 232 Toby looked brisk at the sound of the word siege, but could make neither head or tail of it.
I’m to preach at court next Sunday, said Homenas——run over my notes——so I humm’d over doctor Homenas’s notes—the modulation’s very well——’twill do, Homenas, if it holds on at this rate——so on I humm’d——and a tolerable tune I thought it was; and to this hour, may it please your reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an air in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly,—it carried my soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as Montaigne complained in a parallel accident)—had I found the declivity easy, or the ascent accessible———certes I had been outwitted.———Your notes, Homenas, I should have said, are good notes;——but it was so perpendicular a precipice———so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first note I humm’d I found myself flying into the other world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into it again.
A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.—And so much for tearing out of chapters.
CHAPTER XXVI
——See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to light their pipes!——’Tis abominable, answered Didius; it should not go unnoticed, said doctor Kysarcius——— he was of the Kysarcii of the Low Countries.
Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and Yorick——you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a more proper place, Mr. Yorick—or at least upon a more proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with——’twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if ’twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body——’twas certainly, Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards.
——I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemma——let him get off as he can.
I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion———that I 233 declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom—and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me——it came from my head instead of my heart———and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this manner—To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit—to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsel’d over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth——is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands—’Tis not preaching the gospel—but ourselves——For my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.—
As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles——when a single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one’s ears towards it—a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected—a word I am ashamed to write—yet must be written——must be read—illegal—uncanonical—guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves—rack—torture your invention for ever, you’re where you was————In short, I’ll tell it in the next chapter.