WE live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles—and so
’tis no matter——else it seems strange, that Nature, who makes every
thing so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs,
unless for pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes to whatever
passes through her hands, that whether she designs for the plough, the
caravan, the cart—or whatever other creature she models, be it but an
asse’s foal, you are sure to have the thing you wanted; and yet at the
same time should so eternally bungle it as she does, in making so
simple a thing as a married man.
Whether it is in the choice of the clay——or that it is frequently
spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too
crusty (you know) on one hand——or not enough so, through defect of
heat, on the other——or whether this great Artificer is not so attentive
to the little Platonic exigences _of that part_ of the species, for
whose use she is fabricating _this_——or that her Ladyship sometimes
scarce knows what sort of a husband will do——I know not: we will
discourse about it after supper.
It is enough, that neither the observation itself, or the reasoning
upon it, are at all to the purpose—but rather against it; since with
regard to my uncle _Toby_’s fitness for the marriage state, nothing was
ever better: she had formed him of the best and kindliest clay——had
temper’d it with her own milk, and breathed into it the sweetest
spirit——she had made him all gentle, generous, and humane——she had
filled his heart with trust and confidence, and disposed every passage
which led to it, for the communication of the tenderest offices——she
had moreover considered the other causes for which matrimony was
ordained——
And accordingly * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.
The DONATION was not defeated by my uncle _Toby_’s wound.
Now this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is
the great disturber of our faiths in this world, had raised scruples in
Mrs. _Wadman_’s brain about it; and like a true devil as he was, had
done his own work at the same time, by turning my uncle _Toby_’s Virtue
thereupon into nothing but _empty bottles, tripes, trunk-hose_, and
_pantofles._