---- ----And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too--so look to yourselves.
'Tis either _Plato_, or _Plutarch_, or _Seneca_, or _Xenophon_, or _Epictetus_, or _Theophrastus_, or _Lucian_--or some one perhaps of later date--either _Cardan_, or _Budus_, or _Petrarch_, or _Stella_--or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. _Austin_, or St. _Cyprian_, or _Barnard_, who affirms that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children--and _Seneca_ (I'm positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel --And accordingly we find, that _David_ wept for his son _Absalom_--_Adrian_ for his _Antinous_--_Niobe_ for her children, and that _Apollodorus_ and _Crito_ both shed tears for _Socrates_ before his death.
My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the _Hebrews_ and the _Romans_--or slept it off, as the _Laplanders_--or hanged it, as the _English_, or drowned it, as the _Germans_--nor did he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or lillabullero it.----
----He got rid of it, however.
Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two pages?
When _Tully_ was bereft of his dear daughter _Tullia_, at first he laid it to his heart, --he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it. --O my _Tullia!_ my daughter! my child! --still, still, still, --'twas O my _Tullia!_--my _Tullia!_ Methinks I see my _Tullia_, I hear my _Tullia_, I talk with my _Tullia_. --But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion--nobody upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.
My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength--and his weakness too. ----His strength--for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness--for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one--(bating the case of a systematic misfortune)--he had all he wanted. --A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as _ten_, and the pain of the misfortune but as _five_--my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him.
This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's domestic character; and it is this, that, in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture.
My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke, --and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some neglect or other in _Obadiah_, it so fell out, that my father's expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced.
My mother and my uncle _Toby_ expected my father would be the death of _Obadiah_--and that there never would be an end of the disaster. ----See here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have done! ----It was not me, said _Obadiah_. ----How do I know that? replied my father.
Triumph swam in my father's eyes, at the repartee--the _Attic_ salt brought water into them--and so _Obadiah_ heard no more about it.
Now let us go back to my brother's death.
Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. --For _Death_ it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father's head, that 'twas difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent show out of them. --He took them as they came.
"'Tis an inevitable chance--the first statute in _Magna Charta_--it is an everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother, ----_All must die._
"If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder, --not that he is dead.
"Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.
"--_To die_, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon." (My father found he got great ease, and went on)-- "Kingdoms and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them together, have performed their several evolutions, they fall back." --Brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, laying down his pipe at the word _evolutions_ --Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father, --by heaven! I meant revolutions, brother _Toby_--evolutions is nonsense. ----'Tis not nonsense, --said my uncle _Toby_. ----But is it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my father--do not--dear _Toby_, continued he, taking him by the hand, do not--do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis. ----My uncle _Toby_ put his pipe into his mouth.
"Where is _Troy_ and _Mycen_, and _Thebes_ and _Delos_, and _Persepolis_ and _Agrigentum?_" --continued my father, taking up his book of post-cards, which he had laid down. --"What is become, brother _Toby_, of _Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, of _Cizicum_ and _Mitylen?_ The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with everything in a perpetual night: the world itself, brother _Toby_, must--must come to an end.
"Returning out of _Asia_, when I sailed from _gina_ towards _Megara_," (_when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby_) "I began to view the country round about. _gina_ was behind me, _Megara_ was before, _Pyrus_ on the right hand, _Corinth_ on the left. --What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his presence ----Remember, said I to myself again--remember thou art a man."--
Now my uncle _Toby_ knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of _Servius Sulpicius's_ consolatory letter to _Tully_. --He had as little skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity. --And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the _Turkey_ trade, had been three or four different times in the _Levant_, in one of which he had staid a whole year and an half at _Zant_, my uncle _Toby_ naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had taken a trip across the _Archipelago_ into _Asia_; and that all this sailing affair with _gina_ behind, and _Megara_ before, and _Pyrus_ on the right hand, &c., &c., was nothing more than the true course of my father's voyage and reflections. --'Twas certainly in his _manner_, and many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations. --And pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying the end of his pipe upon my father's hand in a kindly way of interruption--but waiting till he finished the account--what year of our Lord was this? --'Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father. --That's impossible, cried my uncle _Toby_. --Simpleton! said my father, --'twas forty years before Christ was born.
My uncle _Toby_ had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother to be the wandering _Jew_, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain. --"May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him," said my uncle _Toby_, praying silently for my father, and with tears in his eyes.
--My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his harangue with great spirit.
"There is not such great odds, brother _Toby_, betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines"----(this way of setting off, by the bye, was not likely to cure my uncle _Toby's_ suspicions.)---- "Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life." --Much good may it do them--said my uncle _Toby_ to himself.------
"My son is dead! --so much the better; --'tis a shame in such a tempest to have but one anchor."
"But he is gone for ever from us! --be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was bald--he is but risen from a feast before he was surfeited--from a banquet before he had got drunken."
"The _Thracians_ wept when a child was born"--(and we were very near it, quoth my uncle _Toby_)-- "and feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world; and with reason. ----Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it, --it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hands."
"Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I'll shew thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty."
Is it not better, my dear brother _Toby_, (for mark--our appetites are but diseases)--is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat? --not to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?
Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?
There is no terrour, brother _Toby_, in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions--and the blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man's room. --Strip it of these, what is it? --'Tis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle _Toby_. --Take away its herses, its mutes, and its mourning, --its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aids --What is it? ----_Better in battle!_ continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother _Bobby_--'tis terrible no way--for consider, brother _Toby_, --when we _are_--death is _not_; --and when death _is_--we are _not_. My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to consider the proposition; my father's eloquence was too rapid to stay for any man--away it went, --and hurried my uncle _Toby's_ ideas along with it.----
For this reason, continued my father, 'tis worthy to recollect how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made. --_Vespasian_ died in a jest upon his close-stool--_Galba_ with a sentence--_Septimus Severus_ in a dispatch--_Tiberius_ in dissimulation, and _Csar Augustus_ in a compliment. --I hope 'twas a sincere one--quoth my uncle _Toby_.
--'Twas to his wife, --said my father.
And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too - so look out.
'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon - or perhaps Cardan or Petrarch or Stella - or possibly it may be some church father, St. Austin or St. Cyprian, who affirms that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children. And so we find that David wept for his son Absalom, Adrian for his Antinous, Niobe for her children, and Apollodorus shed tears for Socrates.
My father managed his affliction differently from most men; for he neither wept it away, or slept it off, as the Laplanders do, or hanged it, like the English; nor did he curse it, or damn it, or rhyme it, or lillabullero it.
He got rid of it, however.
Will your worships allow me to squeeze in a story?
When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia, at first he took it to heart, grieving, 'O my Tullia! my child! Methinks I see her, I hear her, I talk with my Tullia.'
But when he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and realise how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion - 'nobody can conceive,' says the great orator, 'how happy and joyful it made me.'
My father was proud of his eloquence, and with reason: it was indeed his strength - and his weakness too, for if an occasion would permit him to say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one - he had all he wanted. A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better. For instance, if the pleasure of the harangue was 10 and the pain of the misfortune only 5, my father gained from it.
This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's character; that when provoked by the blunders of servants and other family mishaps, his anger, or rather the duration of it, ran contrary to all conjecture.
My father had a favourite little mare, which he had bred with a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a foal out of her for his own riding: he talked about this foal every day as if it had already been reared, broke, and saddled. By some neglect or other in Obadiah, it so fell out that my father's expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast as ever was produced.
My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiah - and that there would never be an end of it.
'See here! you rascal,' cried my father, pointing to the mule, 'what you have done!'
'It was not me,' said Obadiah.
'How do I know that?' replied my father.
Triumph swam in my father's eyes at this repartee - and so Obadiah heard no more about it.
Now let us go back to my brother's death.
Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. - For Death it has an entire set; the trouble was, they all rushed at once into my father's head, so that 'twas difficult to set them in order. - He took them as they came.
''Tis inevitable - the first statute in Magna Carta - it is an everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother. All must die.
'If my son could not have died, that would have been a matter of wonder.
'Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.
'To die is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and monuments pay it; the proudest pyramid of all has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon.' (My father found he got great ease, and went on.)
'Kingdoms, towns and cities, have they not their ends? and when those powers, which at first cemented them together, have performed their evolutions, they fall back.'
'Brother Shandy,' said my uncle Toby, laying down his pipe.
'Revolutions, I meant,' quoth my father, 'evolutions is nonsense.'
''Tis not nonsense,' said my uncle Toby.
'But is it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion?' cried my father. '-Do not, dear Toby, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.'
My uncle put his pipe into his mouth.
'Where is Troy and Mycenae, and Thebes and Delos?' continued my father. 'What is become of Nineveh and Babylon? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are left, and those in time will be forgotten, and lost in a perpetual night: the world itself, brother Toby, must come to an end.
'Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara,' ('when can this have been?' thought my uncle Toby) 'I began to view the country round about. Aegina was behind me, Megara was before, Piraeus on the right hand, Corinth on the left. What flourishing towns, now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when all this lies buried - remember, said I - remember thou art a man.'
Now my uncle Toby did not know that this last paragraph was an extract of Sulpicius's letter to Tully. And as my father, when he did business in the Turkey trade, had been three or four times in the Levant, and had once stayed a whole year and an half, my uncle Toby naturally concluded that, in one of these visits, he had taken a trip into Asia; and that all this sailing affair with Aegina behind, and Megara before, &c., &c., was nothing more than the course of my father's voyage.
'Pray, brother,' quoth my uncle in a kindly way, 'what year of our Lord was this?'
''Twas no year of our Lord,' replied my father.
'That's impossible,' cried my uncle Toby.
'Simpleton!' said my father, ''twas forty years before Christ was born.'
My uncle Toby had only two things for it; either to suppose his brother to be the wandering Jew, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain.
'May the Lord God protect and restore him,' said he silently, with tears in his eyes.
My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with spirit.
'There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines.' (This, by the bye, was not likely to cure my uncle Toby's suspicions.) 'Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness and woe, are the sauces of life.
'My son is dead! - so much the better; 'tis a shame in such a tempest to have but one anchor.
'But he is gone for ever from us! - be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was bald - he is but risen from a feast before he was surfeited. The Thracians wept when a child was born' ('and we were very near it,' quoth my uncle Toby) '-and feasted and made merry when a man died. For death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy; it unlooses the captive's chain.
'Show me the man who dreads death, and I'll show thee a prisoner who dreads liberty.
'Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, not to hunger at all, than to eat?
'Is it not better to be freed from cares and melancholy, than be like a traveller, who comes weary to his inn, only to have to start his journey afresh?
'There is no terror, brother Toby, in death's looks, except what it borrows from groans and convulsions, and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man's room. Strip it of these, and what is it?'
''Tis better in battle than in bed,' said my uncle Toby.
'Better in battle!' continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby. ''Tis not terrible - for when we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not.'
My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider this.
'For this reason,' continued my father, ''tis worthy to recollect how little change, in great men, the approaches of death have made. Vespasian died in a jest; Galba with a sentence - Tiberius in concealment, and Augustus in a compliment.'
'I hope 'twas a sincere one,' quoth my uncle Toby.
''Twas to his wife,' said my father.
Book 5 - Chapter 3