3 Books By Laurence Sterne. Laurence Sterne
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carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner.
In the second year my uncle Toby purchased Ramelli and Cataneo, translated from the Italian;--likewise Stevinus, Moralis, the Chevalier de Ville, Lorini, Cochorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel, with almost as many more books of military architecture, as Don Quixote was found to have of chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library.
Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August, ninety-nine, my uncle Toby found it necessary to understand a little of projectiles:--and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain-head, he began with N. Tartaglia, who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball's doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line--This N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing.
--Endless is the search of Truth.
No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannon-ball did not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he was obliged to set off afresh with old Maltus, and studied him devoutly.--He proceeded next to Galileo and Torricellius, wherein, by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be a Parabola--or else an Hyperbola,--and that the parameter, or latus rectum, of the conic section of the said path, was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct ratio, as the whole line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breech upon an horizontal plane;--and that the semiparameter,--stop! my dear uncle Toby--stop!--go not one foot farther into this thorny and bewildered track,--intricate are the steps! intricate are the mazes of this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this bewitching phantom Knowledge will bring upon thee.--O my uncle;--fly--fly,--fly from it as from a serpent.--Is it fit--goodnatured man! thou should'st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with hectic watchings?--Alas! 'twill exasperate thy symptoms,--check thy perspirations--evaporate thy spirits--waste thy animal strength, dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive habit of body,--impair thy health,--and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age.--O my uncle! my uncle Toby.
Chapter 1.XXIX.
I would not give a groat for that man's knowledge in pen-craft, who does not understand this,--That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby--would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate;--therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the middle of my story.
--Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than beauty. This is to be understood cum grano salis; but be it as it will,--as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the apostrophe cool, than any thing else,--'tis not very material whether upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.
In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force.
It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt,--to dismiss his barber unshaven,--and to allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times dressing, how it went on: when, lo!--all of a sudden, for the change was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his recovery,--complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon:--and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time:--He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years melancholy imprisonment;--adding, that had it not been for the kind looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,--he had long since sunk under his misfortunes.--My father was by. My uncle Toby's eloquence brought tears into his eyes;--'twas unexpected:--My uncle Toby, by nature was not eloquent;--it had the greater effect:--The surgeon was confounded;--not that there wanted grounds for such, or greater marks of impatience,--but 'twas unexpected too; in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in my uncle Toby's carriage; he had never once dropped one fretful or discontented word;--he had been all patience,--all submission.
--We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;--but we often treble the force:--The surgeon was astonished; but much more so, when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his healing up the wound directly,--or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the king's serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him.
The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature;--the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle Toby had in common with his species--and either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of doors;--but I have told you before, that nothing wrought with our family after the common way;--and from the time and manner in which this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my uncle Toby's head:--There was so, and 'tis the subject of the next chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when that's done, 'twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, where we left my uncle Toby in the middle of his sentence.
Chapter 1.XXX.
When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows headstrong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion!
My uncle Toby's wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much--he told him, 'twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of,--it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Toby's mind.--The succession of his ideas was now rapid,--he broiled with impatience to put his design in execution;--and so, without consulting farther with any soul living,--which, by the bye, I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul's advice,--he privately ordered Trim, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by twelve o'clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon 'Change.--So leaving a bank-note upon the table for the surgeon's care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother's--he packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c. and by the help of a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other,--my uncle Toby embarked for Shandy-Hall.
The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as follows:
The table in my uncle Toby's room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c. about him--being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it--he had the accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers;--and as the dice took a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling,--he thrust Monsieur Blondel off the table, and Count de Pagon o'top of him.
'Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of redressing these evils by himself,--he rung his bell for his man Trim;--Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, prithee see what confusion I have here been making--I must have some better contrivance, Trim.--Can'st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again?--Yes, an' please your Honour, replied Trim, making a bow; but I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where,--as your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification,