Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Vol. 1 — Chapter 24-25

C H A P.

XXIV

IF I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience for my uncle _Toby_’s character,——I would here previously have convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing with, as that which I have pitch’d upon.

A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind; and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the manner of electrified bodies,—and that, by means of the heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the HOBBY-HORSE,—by long journies and much friction, it so happens, that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of HOBBY-HORSICAL matter as it can hold;—so that if you are able to give but a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and character of the other.

Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the score of his great singularity;—for you might have travelled from _York_ to _Dover_,—from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in _Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a view of him.

Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of dispute,——whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: But as the Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle _Toby_ use no other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after that, to determine the point as it thought fit.

In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and he carried my uncle _Toby_ so well,——that he troubled his head very little with what the world either said or thought about it.

It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:—But to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him.

C H A P.

XXV

THE wound in my uncle _Toby_’s groin, which he received at the siege of _Namur_, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he should return to _England_, in order, if possible, to be set to rights.

He was four years totally confined,—part of it to his bed, and all of it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in hand, suffer’d unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_,——both which bones were dismally crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho’ it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it had done my uncle _Toby_’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the stone itself, than to the projectile force of it,—which he would often tell him was a great happiness.

My father at that time was just beginning business in _London_, and had taken a house;—and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted between the two brothers,—and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_ could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house,——he assign’d him the very best apartment in it.

—And what was a much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but he would take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his brother _Toby_, and chat an hour by his bed-side.

The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it;—my uncle’s visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the discourse to that subject,—and from that subject the discourse would generally roll on to the siege itself.

These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle _Toby_ received great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they would have laid him in his grave.

What these perplexities of my uncle _Toby_ were,——’tis impossible for you to guess;—if you could,—I should blush; not as a relation,—not as a man,—nor even as a woman,—but I should blush as an author; inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at any thing.

And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page,—I would tear it out of my book.