——I WON’T go about to argue the point with you—’tis so——and I am
persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman
bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a
horizontal position.”
The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself
prostrate across his bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the
same time in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with
sorrows, that ever the eye of pity dropp’d a tear for.——The palm of his
right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and
covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his
head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the
quilt;——his left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his
knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out
beyond the valance—his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his
body) hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon
his shin bone—He felt it not. A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took
possession of every line of his face.—He sigh’d once——heaved his breast
often—but uttered not a word.
An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with party
coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the side
where my father’s head reclined.—My uncle _Toby_ sat him down in it.
Before an affliction is digested—consolation ever comes too soon;—and
after it is digested—it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there
is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a
comforter to take aim at:—my uncle _Toby_ was always either on this
side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart
he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down
in the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear
at every one’s service——he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief——gave a
low sigh——but held his peace.