MY mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till
they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor
_Slop_ was overthrown by _Obadiah_ on the coach-horse: as this was
directly opposite to the front of Mrs. _Wadman_’s house, when my father
came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle _Toby_ and the
corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about——“Let us just
stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother
_Toby_ and his man _Trim_ make their first entry——it will not detain
us, added my father, a single minute:”——No matter, if it be ten
minutes, quoth my mother.
——It will not detain us half one; said my father.
The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother
_Tom_ and the _Jew_’s widow: the story went on—and on——it had episodes
in it——it came back, and went on——and on again; there was no end of
it——the reader found it very long——
——G— help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and
gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to
as many devils as chose to accept of them.
When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging
in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the
principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have
power to see it out.
Curiosity governs the _first moment;_ and the second moment is all
œconomy to justify the expence of the first——and for the third, fourth,
fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment—’tis a point
of HONOUR.
I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to
Patience; but that VIRTUE, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient
of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled
castles which HONOUR has left him upon the earth.
My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries
to the end of _Trim_’s story; and from thence to the end of my uncle
_Toby_’s panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when
seeing, that instead of marching up to Mrs. _Wadman_’s door, they both
faced about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his
expectation—he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of
humour, which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from
that of all other men.