THOUGH my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these
learned discourses——’twas still but like the anointing of a broken
bone——The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned
upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we
lean on slips from under us.—He became pensive—walked frequently forth
to the fish-pond—let down one loop of his hat——sigh’d often——forbore to
snap—and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so
much assist perspiration and digestion, as _Hippocrates_ tells us—he
had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his
thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health rescued by a fresh
train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a thousand pounds, by
my aunt _Dinah._
My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the
right end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay
it out mostly to the honour of his family.—A hundred-and-fifty odd
projects took possession of his brains by turns—he would do this, and
that and t’other—He would go to _Rome_——he would go to law——he would
buy stock——he would buy _John Hobson_’s farm—he would new fore front
his house, and add a new wing to make it even——There was a fine
water-mill on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other
side of the river in full view to answer it—But above all things in the
world, he would inclose the great _Ox-moor_, and send out my brother
_Bobby_ immediately upon his travels.
But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every
thing——and in truth very few of these to any purpose—of all the
projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last
seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have
determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at
above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour
either of the one or the other.
This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though ’tis certain my
father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my
brother’s education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to
carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the
second creation of actions in the _Missisippi_-scheme, in which he was
an adventurer——yet the _Ox-moor_, which was a fine, large, whinny,
undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the _Shandy_-estate, had
almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his
heart upon turning it likewise to some account.
But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of
things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice
of their claims——like a wise man he had refrained entering into any
nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of
every other project at this crisis——the two old projects, the OX-MOOR
and my BROTHER, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for
each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old
gentleman’s mind—which of the two should be set o’going first.
——People may laugh as they will—but the case was this.
It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was
almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it
should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before
marriage—not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by
the benefit of exercise and change of so much air—but simply for the
mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of
having been abroad—_tantum valet_, my father would say, _quantum
sonat._
Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian
indulgence——to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore——and thereby
make an example of him, as the first _Shandy_ unwhirl’d about _Europe_
in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad——would be using
him ten times worse than a _Turk._
On the other hand, the case of the _Ox-moor_ was full as hard.
Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred
pounds——it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit
about fifteen years before—besides the Lord knows what trouble and
vexation.
It had been moreover in possession of the _Shandy_-family ever since
the middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before
the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other
by the projected wind-mill spoken of above—and for all these reasons
seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care
and protection of the family—yet by an unaccountable fatality, common
to men, as well as the ground they tread on——it had all along most
shamefully been overlook’d; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered
so much by it, that it would have made any man’s heart have bled
(_Obadiah_ said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode
over it, and only seen the condition it was in.
However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground—nor indeed the
placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of
my father’s doing——he had never thought himself any way concerned in
the affair——till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of
that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its
boundaries)——which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it
naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing
them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he
was bound to do something for it——and that now or never was the time.
I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it,
that the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced
by each other; for though my father weigh’d them in all humours and
conditions——spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and
abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done—reading books of
farming one day——books of travels another——laying aside all passion
whatever—viewing the arguments on both sides in all their lights and
circumstances—communing every day with my uncle _Toby_—arguing with
_Yorick_, and talking over the whole affair of the _Ox-moor_ with
_Obadiah_——yet nothing in all that time appeared so strongly in behalf
of the one, which was not either strictly applicable to the other, or
at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of equal weight,
as to keep the scales even.
For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho’
the _Ox-moor_ would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the
world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay——yet
every tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother _Bobby_——let
_Obadiah_ say what he would.——
In point of interest——the contest, I own, at first sight, did not
appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and
ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and
burning, and fencing in the _Ox-moor_, &c. &c.—with the certain profit
it would bring him in return——the latter turned out so prodigiously in
his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the _Ox-moor_
would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a
hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first
year——besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following——and the
year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred——but in all
likelihood, a hundred and fifty——if not two hundred quarters of pease
and beans——besides potatoes without end.——But then, to think he was all
this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat them——knocked all
on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state
of suspense——that, as he often declared to my uncle _Toby_——he knew no
more than his heels what to do.
No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it
is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength,
both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for
to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is
unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which
you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the
heart to the head, and so on——it is not to be told in what a degree
such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid
parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time
as it goes backwards and forwards.
My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had
done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME——had he not been rescued out of
it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil——the misfortune of my
brother _Bobby_’s death.
What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?——from
sorrow to sorrow?——to button up one cause of vexation——and unbutton
another?