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.

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.
