’TIS a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours
painful translation of _Slawkenbergius_——’tis a pity, cried my father,
putting my mother’s threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he
spoke——that truth, brother _Toby_, should shut herself up in such
impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself
sometimes up upon the closest siege.——
Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle
_Toby_’s fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of
_Prignitz_ to him——having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short
flight to the bowling-green;——his body might as well have taken a turn
there too—so that with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent
upon the _medius terminus_——my uncle _Toby_ was in fact as ignorant of
the whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been
translating _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ from the _Latin_ tongue into the
_Cherokee._ But the word _siege_, like a talismanic power, in my
father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle _Toby_’s fancy, quick as a
note could follow the touch—he open’d his ears——and my father observing
that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer
the table, as with a desire to profit—my father with great pleasure
began his sentence again——changing only the plan, and dropping the
metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father
apprehended from it.
’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side,
brother _Toby_——considering what ingenuity these learned men have all
shewn in their solutions of noses.——Can noses be dissolved? replied my
uncle _Toby_.
——My father thrust back his chair——rose up—put on his hat——took four
long strides to the door——jerked it open——thrust his head half way
out——shut the door again——took no notice of the bad hinge—returned to
the table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius_’s
book——went hastily to his bureau—walked slowly back—twisted my mother’s
thread-paper about his thumb—unbutton’d his waistcoat—threw my mother’s
thread-paper into the fire——bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d
his mouth with bran—confounded it;—but mark!—the oath of confusion was
levell’d at my uncle _Toby_’s brain—which was e’en confused enough
already——the curse came charged only with the bran—the bran, may it
please your honours, was no more than powder to the ball.
’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they
did last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most
unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human
nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make
his passions go off so like gun-powder, as the unexpected strokes his
science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby_’s
questions.——Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many
different places all at one time—he could not have exerted more
mechanical functions in fewer seconds——or started half so much, as with
one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him
in his hobby-horsical career.
’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_——he smoked his pipe on with unvaried
composure——his heart never intended offence to his brother—and as his
head could seldom find out where the sting of it lay——he always gave my
father the credit of cooling by himself.——He was five minutes and
thirty-five seconds about it in the present case.
By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself,
and taking the oath out of _Ernulphus_’s digest of curses——(though to
do my father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. _Slop_ in the
affair of _Ernulphus_) which he as seldom committed as any man upon
earth)——By all that’s good and great! brother _Toby_, said my father,
if it was not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as
they do—you would put a man beside all temper.——Why, by the _solutions_
of noses, of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known,
had you favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts
which learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world
of the causes of short and long noses.——There is no cause but one,
replied my uncle _Toby_——why one man’s nose is longer than another’s,
but because that God pleases to have it so.——That is _Grangousier_’s
solution, said my father.—’Tis he, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking
up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us all, and
frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such
ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom,.——’Tis a pious account,
cried my father, but not philosophical—there is more religion in it
than sound science. ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle _Toby_’s
character——that he feared God, and reverenced religion.——So the moment
my father finished his remark——my uncle _Toby_ fell a whistling
_Lillabullero_ with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.—
What is become of my wife’s thread-paper?