THO’ my father was a good natural philosopher,—yet he was something of
a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe
snapp’d short in the middle,—he had nothing to do, as such, but to have
taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of
the fire.——He did no such thing;——he threw them with all the violence
in the world;—and, to give the action still more emphasis,—he started
upon both his legs to do it.
This looked something like heat;—and the manner of his reply to what my
uncle _Toby_ was saying, proved it was so.
—“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle _Toby_’s words) “to
let a man come so near her!”——By Heaven, brother _Toby!_ you would try
the patience of _Job_;—and I think I have the plagues of one already
without it.——Why?——Where?——Wherein?——Wherefore?——Upon what account?
replied my uncle _Toby_: in the utmost astonishment.—To think, said my
father, of a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little
about women!——I know nothing at all about them,—replied my uncle
_Toby_: And I think, continued he, that the shock I received the year
after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in my affair with widow
_Wadman_;—which shock you know I should not have received, but from my
total ignorance of the sex,—has given me just cause to say, That I
neither know nor do pretend to know any thing about ’em or their
concerns either.—Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at
least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.
It is said in _Aristotle’s Master Piece_, “That when a man doth think
of any thing which is past,—he looketh down upon the ground;——but that
when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards
the heavens.”
My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d
horizontally.—Right end! quoth my uncle _Toby_, muttering the two words
low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered them,
upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the chimney-piece——Right
end of a woman!——I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is
than the man in the moon;——and if I was to think, continued my uncle
_Toby_ (keeping his eyes still fixed upon the bad joint) this month
together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out.
Then, brother _Toby_, replied my father, I will tell you.
Every thing in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh
pipe)—every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two
handles.——Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby._——At least, replied my
father, every one has two hands,——which comes to the same thing.——Now,
if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make,
the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all
the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and
compare them analogically—I never understood rightly the meaning of
that word,—quoth my uncle _Toby._—
ANALOGY, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which
different——Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s
definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two,—and, at the same time,
crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was
engendered in the womb of speculation;—it was some months before my
father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it:—And, at
this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the
dissertation itself,—(considering the confusion and distresses of our
domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back
of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third
volume or not.