IF any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked
my uncle _Toby_, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse
use my father was always making of an expression of _Hilarion_ the
hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings,
flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would
say—tho’ with more facetiousness than became an hermit—“That they were
the means he used, to make his _ass_ (meaning his body) leave off
kicking.”
It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconick way of
expressing——but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and
appetites of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my
father’s life, ’twas his constant mode of expression—he never used the
word _passions_ once—but _ass_ always instead of them——So that he might
be said truly, to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass,
or else of some other man’s, during all that time.