For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to recollect 262 how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made.—Vespasian died in a jest upon his close-stool—Galba with a sentence—Septimus Severus in a dispatch—Tiberius in dissimulation, and Cæsar Augustus in a compliment.—I hope ’twas a sincere one—quoth my uncle Toby.
—’Twas to his wife,—said my father.
CHAPTER IV
——And lastly—for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my father,—this, like the gilded dome which covers in the fabric—crowns all.—
’Tis of Cornelius Gattus, the prætor—which, I dare say, brother Toby, you have read,—I dare say I have not, replied my uncle.——He died, said my father, as *************** —And if it was with his wife, said my uncle Toby—there could be no hurt in it—That’s more than I know—replied my father.
CHAPTER V
My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which led to the parlour, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word wife.—’Tis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it by leaving the door a little a-jar, so that my mother heard enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge of her finger across her two lips—holding in her breath, and bending her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neck—(not towards the door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink)—she listened with all her powers:——the listening slave, with the Goddess of Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an intaglio.
In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as Rapin does those of the church) to the same period.
CHAPTER VI
Though in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be 263 said for it, that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and impulses——that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour and advantages of a complex one,——and a number of as odd movements within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a Dutch silk-mill.
Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen.
Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was delivered in the parlour—or a discourse suspended till a servant went out—or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or mother—or, in short, when anything was supposed to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar—as it stands just now,—which, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended), it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this wind-ward trade, as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;—my mother at this moment stands profiting by it.—Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had well got over his surprise, and entered upon this harangue,—had Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.
A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Job’s stock—though by the by, your curious observers are seldom worth a groat—would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier.
My father—a man of deep reading—prompt memory—with Cato, and Seneca, and Epictetus, at his fingers ends.—
The corporal—with nothing—to remember—of no deeper reading than his muster-roll—or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of it.
The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit 264 and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.
The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to heaven thou had’st a better historian!—would thy historian had a better pair of breeches!——O ye critics! will nothing melt you?
CHAPTER VII
———My young master in London is dead! said Obadiah.—
———A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah’s exclamation brought into Susannah’s head.—Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfection of words.—Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning.—But note a second time: the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself—failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black,—all was green.——The green sattin night-gown hung there still.
—O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried Susannah.—My mother’s whole wardrobe followed.—What a procession! her red damask,—her orange tawney,—her white and yellow lutestrings,—her brown taffata,—her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats.—Not a rag was left behind.—“No,—she will never look up again,” said Susannah.
We had a fat, foolish scullion—my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity;—she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.—He is dead, said Obadiah,—he is certainly dead!—So am not I, said the foolish scullion.
——Here is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp’d into the kitchen,—master Bobby is dead and buried—the funeral was an interpolation of Susannah’s—we shall have all to go into mourning, said Susannah.
I hope not, said Trim.—You hope not! cried Susannah earnestly.—The mourning ran not in Trim’s head, whatever it did in Susannah’s.—I hope—said Trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true.—I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the Ox-moor.—Oh! he’s dead, said Susannah.—As sure, said the scullion, as I’m alive. 265