gard to my brother Bobby- -let Obadiah say what he would. In point of interest the contest, I own, at first sight, did not appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and burning, and fencing in the Ox-moor, &c. &c.—with the certain profit it would bring him in return- the latter turned out so prodigiously in his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the Oxmoor would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first year-besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following-and the year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred but in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty- if not two hundred quarters of pease and beans- -besides potatoes with out end. But then, to think he was all this while breeding up my brother like a hog to eat themeat them knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state of suspence- -that, as he often declared to my uncle Toby he knew no more than his heels what to do. No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart to the head, and so on—it is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time as it goes backwards and forwards. My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME- -had he not been rescued out of it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil the misfortune of my brother Bobby's death. What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side ? sorrow? vexation -from sorrow to -to button up one cause of -and unbutton another? CHAPTER XXXII. ROM this moment I am to be con FRO sidered as heir-apparent to the Shandy family- and it is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE and my OPINIONS sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have but been clearing the ground to raise the building -and such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was executed since Adam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it-I have but half a score things to do in the time I have a thing to a thing to lament- -a thing to hope- -a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten-I have a thing to suppose-a thing to declare- a thing to conceal -a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for- -This chapter, therefore, I name the chapter of THINGS- and my next chapter to it, that is, the first chapter of my next vol name ume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my works. The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards which, I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby, the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves excite in my ownI will answer for it the book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done before it.-Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once brought about- -the credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils which have befallen thee as a manthou wilt feast upon the one when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other! No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours-They are the choicest -I morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at 'em- -assure yourselves, good folks -(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words!—and that's the thing I have to declare. shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fear and the thing I hope is, that your worships and reverences are not offended-if you are, depend upon't I'll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be offended at-that's my dear Jenny's way-but who my Jenny is-and which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealed it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my chapter of Buttonholes—and not one chapter before. And now that you have just got to the end of these* four volumes the thing I have to ask is, how you feel your heads? my own akes dismally! as for your healths, I know, they are much better.— True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, * According to the original Editions. |