It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to _Ernulphus's_ curse, which was laid upon the corner of the chimney-piece----as to my uncle _Toby_ who sat under it----it is in vain longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human persuasions ----I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother _Toby_, or the sins and follies of the _Shandy_ family, Heaven has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force of it is directed to play. ------Such a thing would batter the whole universe about our ears, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_--if it was so --Unhappy _Tristram_: child of wrath! child of decrepitude! interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or disaster in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or entangle thy filaments! which has not fallen upon thy head, or ever thou camest into the world----what evils in thy passage into it! ------what evils since! ----produced into being, in the decline of thy father's days----when the powers of his imagination and of his body were waxing feeble----when radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which should have temper'd thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found thy stamina in, but negations--'tis pitiful------brother _Toby_, at the best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention on both sides could give it. 
'It is in vain,' said my father, 'to struggle any longer against this most uncomfortable idea. I see plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, or for the sins and follies of the Shandy family, Heaven has arrayed its heaviest artillery against me; and its force is directed against the prosperity of my child.'
'Such a thing would batter the universe about our ears, brother Shandy,' said my uncle Toby, 'if it was so.'
'Unhappy Tristram: child of wrath! mistake! and discontent! What misfortune in the book of embryonic evils, has not fallen upon thy head, ever since thou camest into the world, in the decline of thy father's days - 'tis pitiful, brother Toby. 