Part 58 (1/2)

Chapter 4.x.x.xV.

Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby-and my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby-or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

-Gracious heaven!-but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly G.o.ddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her-and that she careth not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no-

-Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal nitch where I do not take her divinitys.h.i.+p and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the pa.s.sions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the milky-way-

Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon some one-

-The duce take her and her influence too-for at that word I lose all patience-much good may it do him!-By all that is hirsute and gashly! I cry, taking off my furr'd cap, and twisting it round my finger-I would not give sixpence for a dozen such!

-But 'tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears)-and warm-and soft; especially if you stroke it the right way-but alas! that will never be my luck-(so here my philosophy is s.h.i.+pwreck'd again.)

-No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor)- Crust and Crumb Inside and out Top and bottom-I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it-I'm sick at the sight of it-

'Tis all pepper, garlick, staragen, salt, and devil's dung-by the great arch-cooks of cooks, who does nothing, I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fire-side and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world-

-O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny.

O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the thirty-sixth chapter.

Chapter 4.x.x.xVI.

-'Not touch it for the world,' did I say-

Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor!

Chapter 4.x.x.xVII.

Which shews, let your reverences and wors.h.i.+ps say what you will of it (for as for thinking-all who do think-think pretty much alike both upon it and other matters)-Love is certainly, at least alphabetically speaking, one of the most

A gitating B ewitching C onfounded D evilish affairs of life-the most E xtravagant F utilitous G alligaskinish H andy-dandyish I racundulous (there is no K to it) and L yrical of all human pa.s.sions: at the same time, the most M isgiving N innyhammering O bstipating P ragmatical S tridulous R idiculous -though by the bye the R should have gone first-But in short 'tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle Toby upon the close of a long dissertation upon the subject-'You can scarce,' said he, 'combine two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage'-What's that? cried my uncle Toby.

The cart before the horse, replied my father-