——I am half distracted, captain _Shandy_, said Mrs. _Wadman_, holding
up her cambrick handkerchief to her left eye, as she approach’d the
door of my uncle _Toby_’s sentry-box——a mote——or sand——or something——I
know not what, has got into this eye of mine——do look into it—it is not
in the white—
In saying which, Mrs. _Wadman_ edged herself close in beside my uncle
_Toby_, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she
gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up—Do look into
it—said she.
Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart,
as ever child look’d into a raree-shew-box; and ’twere as much a sin to
have hurt thee.
——If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that
nature——I’ve nothing to say to it——
My uncle _Toby_ never did: and I will answer for him, that he would
have sat quietly upon a sofa from _June_ to _January_ (which, you know,
takes in both the hot and cold months), with an eye as fine as the
_Thracian_[40] _Rodope_’s besides him, without being able to tell,
whether it was a black or blue one.
The difficulty was to get my uncle _Toby_, to look at one at all.
’Tis surmounted. And
I see him yonder with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes
falling out of it—looking—and looking—then rubbing his eyes—and looking
again, with twice the good-nature that ever _Galileo_ look’d for a spot
in the sun.
——In vain! for by all the powers which animate the organ——Widow
_Wadman_’s left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right——there is
neither mote, or sand, or dust, or chaff, or speck, or particle of
opake matter floating in it—There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle!
but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part
of it, in all directions, into thine——
——If thou lookest, uncle _Toby_, in search of this mote one moment
longer,——thou art undone.
[40] _Rodope Thracia_ tam inevitabili fascino instructa, tam exactè
oculus intuens attraxit, ut si in illam quis incidisset, fieri non
posset, quin caperetur.——I know not who.