EVERY day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have
it mended—’tis not mended yet;—no family but ours would have borne with
it an hour——and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in
the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of
door-hinges.——And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the
greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his
rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs.—Never did the
parlour-door open—but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to
it;——three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer,
had saved his honour for ever.
——Inconsistent soul that man is!——languishing under wounds, which he
has the power to heal!—his whole life a contradiction to his
knowledge!—his reason, that precious gift of God to him—(instead of
pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities—to multiply
his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them!—Poor
unhappy creature, that he should do so!——Are not the necessary causes
of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his
stock of sorrow;—struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and
submit to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him
would remove from his heart for ever?
By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be
got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of _Shandy Hall_——the
parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign.