WHEN my uncle _Toby_ first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said,
fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my
uncle _Toby_ had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb
and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same
precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal
_Trim_ left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off
the bed—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again,
before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam——’tis the
transition from one attitude to another——like the preparation and
resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.
For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe
upon the floor——pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within
the valance—gave a hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just
beginning to address himself to my uncle _Toby_—when recollecting the
unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude——he got upon his
legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short
before my uncle _Toby_; and laying the three first fingers of his
right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed
himself to my uncle _Toby_ as follows: