----I wonder what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour and a half's silence, to my uncle _Toby_, ----who, you must know, was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches which he had got on: --What can they be doing, brother? --quoth my father, --we can scarce hear ourselves talk.
I think, replied my uncle _Toby_, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb, as he began his sentence, ----I think, says he: ----But to enter rightly into my uncle _Toby's_ sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on as well again.
Pray what was that man's name, --for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to recollect or look for it, ----who first made the observation, "That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?" Whoever he was, 'twas a just and good observation in him. --But the corollary drawn from it, namely, "That it is this which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and whimsical characters;" --that was not his; --it was found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then again, --that this copious store-house of original materials, is the true and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of _France_, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the Continent: ----that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of King _William's_ reign, --when the great _Dryden_, in writing one of his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed toward the latter end of Queen _Anne_, the great _Addison_ began to patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in one or two of his Spectators; --but the discovery was not his. --Then, fourthly and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, ----doth thereby, in some sort, make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors, --that observation is my own; --and was struck out by me this very rainy day, _March_ 26, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning.
Thus--thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, nigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it, (most of 'em ending as these do, in _ical_) have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping upwards towards that of their perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off.
When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of writings whatsoever; --the want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading; --and that in time, _As war begets poverty; poverty peace_, ----must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge, --and then----we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be exactly where we started.
------Happy! thrice happy times! I only wish that the ra of my begetting, as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter'd, ----or that it could have been put off, with any convenience to my father or mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance.----
But I forget my uncle _Toby_, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe.
His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he derived the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho' I believe he had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity, in my course, when I was a boy, --should never once endeavour to account for them in this way: for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original character throughout: ----I mean the males, --the females had no character at all, --except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.
It will seem very strange, ----and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader's way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my father and my uncle _Toby_. One would have thought, that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the family at first, --as is generally the case. --But nothing ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its office. ----Observe, I determine nothing upon this. ----My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell; --not with a pedantic _Fescue_, --or in the decisive manner of _Tacitus_, who outwits himself and his reader; --but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive; --to them I write, ----and by them I shall be read, ----if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long, --to the very end of the world.
Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows:
My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude, ----possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and unparallel'd modesty of nature; ----though I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or acquir'd. ----Whichever way my uncle _Toby_ came by it, 'twas nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them, --but to things; ----and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours.
You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle _Toby_ had contracted all this from this very source; --that he had spent a great part of his time in converse with your sex; and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he had acquired this amiable turn of mind.
I wish I could say so, --for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my father's wife and my mother----my uncle _Toby_ scarce exchanged three words with the sex in as many years; --no, he got it, Madam, by a blow. ----A blow! --Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of _Namur_, which struck full upon my uncle _Toby's_ groin. --Which way could that effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting; --but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here. ----'Tis for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you: --'Till then, it is not in my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more than what I have said already, ----That my uncle _Toby_ was a gentleman of unparallel'd modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride, ----they both so wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the affair of my aunt DINAH touch'd upon, but with the greatest emotion. ----The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face; --but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do, --the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would set my uncle _Toby's_ honour and modesty o'bleeding; and he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him anything in the world, only to let the story rest.
My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle _Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir'd of another, to have made my uncle _Toby's_ heart easy in this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power.
----My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain, --speculative, --systematical; --and my aunt _Dinah's_ affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to _Copernicus_: --The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit fortified the _Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father's system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be called the _Shandean System_, after this.
In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever; ----and neither he, nor, I dare say, _Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed, as they thought, to truth. --_Amicus Plato_, my father would say, construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt; --_sed magis amica veritas_----but TRUTH is my sister.
This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace recorded, ----and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end without some hint at it.
For God's sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry, ----and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_, --do let this story of our aunt's and her ashes sleep in peace; ----how can you, ----how can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family? ----What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply. ----Nay, if you come to that--what is the life of a family? ----The life of a family! --my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg. ----Yes, the life, ----my father would say, maintaining his point. How many thousands of 'em are there every year that come cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)----and considered as nothing but common air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my uncle _Toby_ would answer, ----every such instance is downright MURDER, let who will commit it. ----There lies your mistake, my father would reply; ----for, in _Foro Scienti_ there is no such thing as MURDER, ----'tis only DEATH, brother.
My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of _Lillabullero_. ----You must know it was the usual channel thro' which his passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him: ----but especially when any thing, which he deem'd very absurd, was offered.
As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon them, that I remember, 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 rest, ----that their learn'd grandfather's head had been busied to as much purpose once, as other people's; --That he had invented a name, --and generously thrown it into the TREASURY of the _Ars Logica_, for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And, if the end of disputation is more to silence than convince, --they may add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.
I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it be known and distinguished by the name and title of the _Argumentum Fistulatorium_, and no other; --and that it rank hereafter with the _Argumentum Baculinum_ and the _Argumentum ad Crumenam_, and for ever hereafter be treated of in the same chapter.
As for the _Argumentum Tripodium_, which is never used but by the woman against the man; --and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is made use of by the man only against the woman; --As these two are enough in conscience for one lecture; ----and, moreover, as the one is the best answer to the other, --let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves.
'I wonder what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for, upstairs,' said my father, after an hour and a half's silence, to my uncle Toby, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his pipe in mute contemplation of his new pair of black plush breeches.
'What can they be doing, brother?' said my father. 'We can scarce hear ourselves talk.'
'I think,' replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, 'I think,' says he:
- But to enter into my uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on again.
Pray who was that man - for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to look it up - who first observed 'That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?' Whoever he was, 'twas a good observation. Someone I forget, a century later observed, 'It is this which has given us such a variety of odd and whimsical characters.' This copious store-house of original materials is the cause why our Comedies are so much better than those of France: that discovery was not made till about the middle of King William's reign, when the great Dryden, in writing one of his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Then, toward the latter end of Queen Anne, the great Addison took up the notion, and fully explained it to the world in the Spectator.
This strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, gives us something to make merry with when the weather will not allow us to go out of doors. - That observation is my own; and was created by me this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, between nine and ten in the morning.
Thus, my fellow-labourers in this great harvest of our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches (most ending in -ical) have for these two last centuries been creeping up towards that Acme of perfection, from which we cannot be far off.
When that perfection is reached, it will put an end to all writing; the lack of writing will put an end to all reading; - and in time, as war begets poverty; poverty peace, - that must, in due course, put an end to all knowledge - and we shall have to begin again, exactly where we started.
Happy! thrice happy times! I only wish that the time of my begetting, as well as the manner of it, had been a little altered, - or that it could have been put off, without any inconvenience to my father or mother, for another five-and-twenty years, when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance.
But I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes from his pipe.
His character was of the type which does honour to our atmosphere; and I should have ranked him amongst the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared such a strong family-likeness, which showed that he derived his unusual nature more from blood, than from water or weather. And I have often wondered that my father, when he observed signs of eccentricity in me when I was a boy, should never have tried to account for them in this way: for all the Shandy family were of an original character: - I mean the males, the females had no character at all - except, indeed, my great aunt Dinah, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of names, would often say, 'She might thank her christening.'
It will seem very strange to the reader, that this event, so many years after it happened, should interrupt the cordial peace and unity between my father and my uncle Toby. But nothing ever affected our family in the ordinary way. Perhaps at the time the event happened, our family had something else to afflict it; and it lay waiting for an opportunity to do its work. - I do not say this for a fact: I merely point out different paths of investigation, in order to find the first springs of the events I tell; - not like the decisive Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader, but with the humility of a heart devoted to aiding the inquisitive; to them I write - and by them I shall be read, to the very end of the world.
I can explain exactly how my great aunt Dinah created a rift between my father and my uncle. It occurred as follows:
My uncle Toby Shandy was a gentleman who had a most extreme modesty of nature. Whether 'twas natural or acquired, 'twas nevertheless modesty in its truest sense; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, but to things. His modesty even equalled, if possible, the modesty of a woman: that female cleanliness of mind, Madam, which makes your sex so much an object of awe to ours.
You might imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby spent much of his time talking with your sex, and that from such fair examples acquired this turn of mind.
I wish I could say so, - but unless it was with his sister-in-law, my mother, my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words with the female sex in as many years. No; he got this modesty, Madam, by a blow.
- A blow!
- Yes, Madam, a blow from a stone, broke off by a cannon-ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur, which struck full upon my uncle Toby's groin.
- How could that cause it?
- The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting; but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here. Later on, every detail of it shall be faithfully laid before you: but till then, I can say only that my uncle Toby was a gentleman of unparalleled modesty.
Since he also had some family pride, he could never bear to hear the affair of my aunt Dinah mentioned, without the greatest emotion. The least hint of it made him blush; but when my father told the story in mixed company, which he did frequently, it would set my uncle Toby's modesty bleeding; and he would take my father aside to expostulate with him, saying he would give him anything if he would only let the story rest.
My father, I believe, had the truest love for my uncle Toby, and would have done anything to ease his brother's heart. But this lay out of his power.
My father, as I told you, was a philosopher; and my aunt Dinah's affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the movements of the planets in their systems. Just as Venus's orbit fortified the Copernican system, so the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father's system of names, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be called the Shandean System.
In any other family dishonour, my father would not have revealed the affair to the world; but he felt he owed an obligation to truth. My father would say to my uncle Toby, 'Dinah was my aunt; - but Truth is my sister.'
These contrasting tempers of my father and my uncle were the source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace, and the other would scarce let a day pass without some hint at it.
'For God's sake,' my uncle Toby would cry, 'and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother Shandy, do let this story of our aunt's sleep in peace! How can you have so little feeling for the character of our family?'
'What is the character of a family to an hypothesis?' my father would reply. 'Nay, if you come to that - what is the life of a family?'
'The life of a family!' my uncle Toby would say, throwing himself back in his armchair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg.
'Yes, the life,' my father would say. 'How many thousands of 'em are every year cast away, (in all civilized countries at least) - and considered as nothing, compared to an hypothesis?'
My uncle Toby would answer, 'Every such instance is downright Murder.'
'There lies your mistake,' my father would reply; 'for, in Science there is no such thing as murder; 'tis only Death, brother.'
My uncle Toby would never answer this by any other argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of Lillabullero. This was the usual channel through which his passions got vent, when anything shocked or surprised him, or when he was presented with an absurdity.
As none of our logical writers 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 it may stand distinguished for ever from every other type of argument - like the Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex Absurdo, ex Fortiori, etc; - and secondly, that it may be said by my grandchildren, when I am laid to rest, that their learned grandfather's head had been busy once; that he had invented a name for one of the best and most unanswerable arguments in the whole science of Logic.
I do therefore command that it be known by the name and title of the Argumentum Fistulatorium (or Whistlers' Argument); and that it should rank hereafter with the Argumentum Baculinum (or Argument of Sticks) and the Argumentum ad Crumenam (or Moneybags' Argument), and for ever after be treated of in the same chapter.
As for the Argumentum Tripodium, (or Three-footed Argument), which is never used except by the woman against the man; - and the Argumentum ad Rem (or Argument to the Point), which, contrarywise, is only used by the man against the woman; - as the one of these is the best answer to the other, let them be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves.
Book 1 - Chapter 21