Sharing Classic Literature: 2010

Laurence Sterne, 1713 – 1768

The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gen. by Laurence Sterne

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

From the Biographical note:
“My Birthday, “ Laurence Sterne records in the short autobiographical sketch written for his daughter, “was ominous to my poor father, who was the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers, broke and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife and two children.”

From the Biographical note:

Sterne was forty-six before his metamorphosis into a writer, and by the time he was fifty-five he was dead.

Dedication:
…every time a man smiles – but so much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; - that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; – and, for aught, they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost; - Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, - I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.

Laurence Sterne , The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gen., Book 1, Chapter 1, pg. 191

I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets, (except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for Venus) that it has in this vile dirty planet of ours,
Book 1, Chapter 5 pg. 194

-Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear;
Book 1, chapter 9, pg. 198

Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do exact justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work, - I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote’s horse ; - in all other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another, - for he was as lean, as a lank, and as sorry a jade as Humility herself could have bestrided.
Book 1, chapter 10, pg. 199

I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any of the noblest refinements of the peerless knight of La Mancha, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, thank the greatest hero of antiquity.
Book 1, chapter 10, pg. 201

In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest him that light too, and reckons up his friends, his family, his kindred and allies, - and musters up with them the many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger; - ‘tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou has got a hundred enemies; and til thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.
Book 1, chapter 12, pg. 205

... when a man sits down to write a history, - tho' it be but the history of Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way, - or what a dance he may be lead, by one excursion or another, before all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as muleteer drives on his mule, straight forward;
Book 1, chapter 14, pg. 210

To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be looked into, and rolls, records, documents and endless genealogies, which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of; - In short, there is no end of it; - for my own part, I declare I have been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could, - and am not yet born; -
Book 1, chapter 14, pg. 210

But I was begot and born to misfortunes; - for my poor mother, whether it was wind or water - or a compound of both, or - or neither; - or whether it was simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her; or how far a strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment: - in short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way becomes me to decide.
Book 1, chapter 15, pg. 212

The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness, - nor had he more faith, - or more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring his deeds, - or on Dulcinea's name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of Trismegistus or Archimedes, on the one hand -or of Nyky and Simpkin on the other.
Book 1, chapter 19, pg. 218

I wish the male-reader has not passed by many one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I wish it may have its effects; - and that all good people, both male and female, from her example, may be taught to think as well as read.
Book 1, chapter 20, pg. 222

The Romish rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases of danger, before it is born; - but upon this proviso, That some part or other of the child's body be seen by the baptizer; - But the Doctors of the Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10, 1733, - have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part of the child's body should appear, - that baptism shall, nevertheless, be administered to it by injection - par le moyen d'une petite canulle, - Anglice a squirt. - 'Tis very strange that St. Thomas Aquinas,who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of school divinity, - should after so much pains bestowed upon this, - give up the point at last, as second La Chose impossible,"Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Thomas!) baptizari possunt nullo modo.' - O Thomas! Thomas!
If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, with their consultation thereupon it is as follows. Vide Deventer, Paris edit. 410, 1734, p . 366
Book 1, chapter 20, pg. 222 footnote

... have thought proper to give a name to this particular species of argument, - I here take the liberty to do it myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every other species of argument - as the Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex Absurdo, ex Fortiori, or any other argument whatsoever; - and, Secondly, That it may be said by my children's children, when my head is laid to reast, - that their learned grandfather's head had been busied to as much purpose one, as other people's; - That he had invented a name, ...
Book 1, chapter 21, pg. 228

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciles, which were thought to be a variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too, - and at the same time.
Book 1, chapter 22, pg. 229

This is vile work.
Book 1, chapter 22, pg. 229

I am not ignorant that the Italians pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one particular sort of character among the, from the forte or piano of a certain wind-instrument they use, - which they say is infallible. - I dare not mention the name of the instrument in this place; - 'tis sufficient we have it amongst us, - but never think of making a drawing by it; this is enigmatical, and intended to be so, at leas ad populum; - And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about it.
Book 1, chapter 23, pg. 229

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it; - my uncle's visitor's 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, ...

Book 1, chapter 25, pg. 232

... that my uncle Toby did oft-times puzzle his visitors, and sometimes himself too.

To speak the truth, unless the company my father led up stairs were tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle Toby was in one his explanatory moods, 'twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse free from obscurity.

Book II, chapter 1, pg. 233

In the second year my uncle Toby purchase 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, which 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.
Book II, chapter 3, pg. 237

- Endless is the search of Truth.
Book II, chapter 3, pg. 237

My uncle Toby had a little country-house of his own, in the village where my father's estate lay at Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre; and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for; - so that as Trim uttered the words, "A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with," this identical bowling green instantly presented itself, and became curiously painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy; which was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least of heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree I spoke of.
Book II, chapter 5, pg. 242

- Go - says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and - and which after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him; - I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand, - I'll not hurt a hair of thy head; - Go, say he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; - go, poor devil, get the gone, why should I hurt thee? - This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened; but whether it was, that they action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation; - or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it; - or in what degree, or by what secret magic, - a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not; - this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind; And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the Literae humaniores, at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since; - yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.

This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon the subject.

Book II, chapter 12, pg. 250

Surely, you will think conscience must lead such a man of troublesome life; he can have no rest night or day from its reproaches.

"Alas! Conscience had something else to do all this time, than break in upon him; as Elijah reproached the god Baal, - this domestic god 'was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure he slept and could not be awoke.'
Book II, chapter 17, pg. 259

"I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in, " [There is no need, cried Dr. Slop (waking) to call in any physician in this case] " to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well; notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one; - and what is dearer still tome, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.

Now let me examine what is the reason for this great confidence. Why in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage; I consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life; - I know their success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters. In a word, I'm persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting themselves more.
Book II, chapter 17, pg. 263

In this case, what hold have I of either of them? - Religion, the strongest of all motives, is out of the question;
Book II, chapter 17, pg. 263

First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passion, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'tis for no other cause but quietness' sake.
Book II, chapter 17, pg. 266

Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families and the good of the species, - they claim a right of deciding, en Souveraines, in whose hands, and in what fashion they choose to undergo it.
Book II, chapter 18, pg. 268

Now, as it was plain to my father that all souls were by nature equal, - and that the great difference between the most acute and the most obtuse understanding – was from no original sharpness or bluntness of one thinking substance above or below another, but arose merely from the lucky or unlucky organization of the body, in that part where the soul principally took up her residence, - he had made it the subject of his enquiry to find out the identical place.
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 270

… the lax and pliable state of the child’s head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that time, was such, - that by force of the women’s efforts, which in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 pounds …
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 272

…what havoc an destruction must this make in infinitely find and tender texture of the cerebellum!
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 272

But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a child was turned topsy-turvy, which as easy for the operator to do, and extracted by the feet; that instead of the cerebrum being propelled towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate seat of the understanding!
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 272

No wonder the intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and that so many of our bet heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk, - all perplexity, - all confusion within-side.
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 272

…being moreover my mother’s first child, coming into the world with his head foremost, and turning out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts, - my father spelt all these together into his opinion; and as he had failed at one end, - he was determined to try the other.
This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not easily to be put out of their way, - and was therefore one of my father’s great reason in favour of a man of science, whom he could better deal with.
Book II, chapter 19, pg. 273

And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night? – Oh, against all rule, my Lord, - most ungrammatically! Betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and gender, he made a breach thus, - stopping, as if the point wanted settling; and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three fifth by a stopwatch, my Lord, each time – Admirable grammarian!
Book III, chapter 12, pg. 288

Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many different places all at one time – he could not have exerted more mechanical function in fewer seconds – or started half so much, as with one single quaere of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him in his hobby-horsical career.
Book III, chapter 41 pg. 319

I will make no reflection upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic – and I think, has more of Latinity in it.
Book IV, pg. 322

Was I left, like Sancho Pança, to choose my kingdom, it should not be maritime – or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of; - no, it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects; And as the bilious and more saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politic as body natural – and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passion, and subject them to reason – I should add to my prayer – that God would give my subjects grace to be as wise as they are merry; and then should I be the happiest monarch, and they the happiest people under heaven.
Book IV, chapter 32, pg. 380

Sciences may be learned by rote, but Wisdom not.
Book V, chapter 32 pg. 412

… for in consideration of the corporal’s knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain) – when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand ; and the poor fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself, with less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a time when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal’s leg was at rest he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect;
Book VI, chapter 6, pg. 425

…when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson, - though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.
-Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby, - for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not;
Book VI, chapter 7, pg. 428

… when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house, - thou shouldst have offered him my house too; - A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us, - we could tend and look to him. Thoui art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim, and what with thy care of him, and the old woman’s, and his boy’s, and mine together, we might recruit him again at one, and set him upon his legs.
Book VI, chapter 8, pg. 429

For this sermon I shall be hanged, - for I have stolen the greatest part of it. Doctor Paidagunes found me out. ☞Set a thief to catch a thief.
Book VI, chapter 11, pg. 431

Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the Romans manufactured stuffs of various fabrics, - some plain, some stripped, - others diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, and silk and gold – That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire when the Egyptians, coming to settle amongst them, brought it into vogue.
- That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and wore on their birth-days and public rejoicings, - That it appeared from the best historians of those time, that they frequently sent their clothes to the fuller, to be cleaned and whitened; - but that then inferior people, to avoid that expense, generally wore brown clothes, and something coarser texture, - till towards the beginning of Augustus’s reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the Latus Clavus.
And what was the Latus Clavus? Said my father.
Rubinus told him that the point was still litigating amongst the learned: That Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius Ticinensis, Bayfius, Budaeus, Salmasius, Lipsius, Lazius, Isaac Casaubon, and Joseph Scaliger, all differed from each other, and he from the: That some took it to be the button, - some the coat itself, - others only the colour of it; - That the great Bayfius, in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12 – honestly said, he knew not what it was, - whether a tibula, - a stud, - a button, - a loop, - a buckled, - or clasps and keepers. -
Book VI, chapter 19, pg. 439

Did any one of you shed more tears for Hector?
Book VI, chapter 32, pg. 450

Not that the phrase is at all to my liking; for to say a man is fallen in love, - or that he is deeply in love, - or up to the ears in love, - and sometimes even over head and ears in it, - carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man: - this is recurring again to Plato’s opinion, which, with all his divinityship, - I hold to be damnable and heretical – and so much for that.
Let love therefore be what it will, - my uncle Toby fell into it.
Book VI, chapter 37, pg. 454

It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.
-That she is not a woman of science, my father would say – is her misfortune – but she might ask a question. -
My mother never did – in short, she went out of this world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still – My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was, but she always forgot.
For these reason, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition, - a reply, and rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.
Book VI, chapter 39, pg. 456

The French are certainly misunderstood; - but whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves, or speaking with the exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contest by us – or whether the fault my not be altogether on our side, in not understanding their language always critically as to know “what they would be at” – I shall not decide ; but ‘tis evident to me, when they affirm, “That they who have seen Paris, have seen every thing,” they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light.
As for candle-light – I give it up – I have said before there is no depending upon it – and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and shades are too sharp or the tints confounded – or that there is neither beauty or keeping , etc… for that is not truth – but it is an uncertain light in this respect, that in all the five hundred Hotels, which they number up to you in Paris – and the five hundred good things, at a modest computation (for ‘tis only allowing one good thing to a Hotel), which by candle-light are best to be seen, felt, heard, and understood (which by the bye, is a quotation from Lilly) – the devil a one of us out of fifty, can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them.
Book VII, chapter 18, pg. 470

I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which y the bye is excellently good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee together – otherwise, ‘tis only coffee and milk)
Book VII, chapter 30, pg. 481

In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots, jackdaws, etc. – I never exchange a word with them – nor with the apes, etc., for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent; nay my dog and my cat, though I value them both – (and for my dog he would speak if he could) – yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation – I can make nothing of discourse with them beyond the proposition, the reply, and rejoinder, which terminated my that’s and my mother’s conversations, in his beds of justice – and those uttered - there’s an end of the dialogue – But with an ass I can commune forever
Come Honesty! Said I, seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate – art thou for coming in, or going out?
The ass twisted his head round to look up the street – “Well – replied I- we’ll wait a minute for thy driver:
- He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way -
I understand thee perfectly, answered I – If thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death – Well! A minute is but a minute, and if it save a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.
He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on and in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, head dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and picked it up again-
Book VII, chapter 32, pg. 484

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best - I'm sure it is the most religious - for I being with writing the first sentence - and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
Book VIII, chapter 2, pg. 495

And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name - the errantest Tartuffe, in science - in politics - or in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me...
Book VIII, chapter 2, pg. 496

For my own part, I m resolved never to read any book but my own, as long as I live.
Book VIII, chapter 5, pg. 497

But the truth is, my uncle Toby was not a water-drinker; he drank it neither pure nor mixed, or any how, or any where, except fortuitously upon some advanced posts, where better liquour was not to be hand - or during the time he was under cure; when the surgeon was telling him it would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner into contact my uncle Toby drank it for quietness sake.
Book VIII, chapter 6, pg. 498

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 xtavagant
F utilitous
G alligaskinish
H andy-dandyish
I racundulous (there is not K to it) and
L ryical of all human passions; 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
Book VIII, chapter 13, pg. 502

VOCABULARY

Laurence Sterne , The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gen.

Ab Ovo,

Book 1, Chapter 4, pg. 193

(Latin: "from the beginning, the origin, the egg") is a reference to one of the twin eggs of Leda and Zeus disguised as a swan from which Helen was…

, in literature, the practice of beginning a poetic narrative at the earliest possible chronological point. The Latin poet and c

communibus annis,
Book 1, chapter 10, pg. 201

On the annual average; one year with another
The principle that property is to be rated at its value

cudgel,
Book VII, chapter 32, pg. 484
Verb: Beat with a cudgel. To beat or strike as with a cudgel.

Noun: A short thick stick used as a weapon.
A club, baton, truncheon, nightstick or bludgeon

De gustibus non disputandum est,

Book 1, chapter 8, pg. 196

a Latin maxim. It means “there is no disputing about tastes.”

Higgling,
Book 1, Chapter 9, pg. 198
form of haggle

panegyrics,
Book 1, Chapter 14, pg. 210

a formal public speech, or (in later use) written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied; A formal eulogistic composition intended as a public compliment. 2. Elaborate praise or laudation; an encomium.; a eulogistic oration or writing; also : formal or elaborate praise

pasquinades,
Book 1, Chapter 14, pg. 210

A satire or lampoon, especially one that ridicules a specific person, traditionally written and posted in a public place.

brief and generally anonymous satirical comment in prose or verse that ridicules a contemporary leader or national event.

quaere
Book III, chapter 41 pg. 319
ask or inquire: used esp to introduce a question.
literally meaning "inquire" or "query". In legal drafting it is usually used to indicate that the person expressing the view that precedes the phrase may not adhere to the hypothesis following it.
extensible framework that adds a querying syntax reminiscent of SQL to Java applications.

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