——NOW my father had a way, a little like that of _Job_’s (in case there
ever was such a man——if not, there’s an end of the matter.——
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in
fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived;—whether, for
instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c.——to vote, therefore, that
he never lived at all, is a little cruel,—’tis not doing as they would
be done by,—happen that as it may)——My father, I say, had a way, when
things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally
of his impatience,—of wondering why he was begot,—wishing himself
dead;—sometimes worse:——And when the provocation ran high, and grief
touched his lips with more than ordinary powers—Sir, you scarce could
have distinguished him from _Socrates_ himself.——Every word would
breathe the sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about
all its issues; for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no
deep reading, yet the abstract of _Socrates_’s oration, which my father
was giving my uncle _Toby_, was not altogether new to her.—She listened
to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so to the end of
the chapter, had not my father plunged (which he had no occasion to
have done) into that part of the pleading where the great philosopher
reckons up his connections, his alliances, and children; but renounces
a security to be so won by working upon the passions of his judges.—“I
have friends—I have relations,—I have three desolate children,”—says
_Socrates._—
——Then, cried my mother, opening the door,——you have one more, Mr.
_Shandy_, than I know of.
By heaven! I have one less,—said my father, getting up and walking out
of the room.