But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it.
It did my uncle Toby's business....
The world is ashamed of being virtuous. My uncle Toby knew little of
the world; and therefore, when he felt he was in love with Widow
Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a
mystery of than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap'd knife
across his finger. Had it been otherwise--yet, as he ever looked upon
Trim as a humbler friend, and saw fresh reasons every day of his life
to treat him as such--it would have made no variation in the manner in
which he informed him of the affair.
"I am in love, Corporal!" quoth my uncle Toby....
Tho the Corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle
Toby's great Ramillies wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to
produce any great effects from it; it had lain many years squeezed up
in the corner of his old campaign-trunk; and as bad forms are not so
easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well
understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished.
The Corporal, with cheery eye and both arms extended, had fallen back
perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with
a better air:--had Spleen given a look at it, 'twould have cost her
ladyship a smile; it curled everywhere but where the Corporal would
have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it
honor, he could as soon have raised the dead.
Such it was, or rather, such would it have seemed upon any other brow;
but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's
assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature
had, moreover, wrote gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of
his countenance, that even his tarnished gold-laced hat and huge
cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and, tho not worth a button in
themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became
serious objects, and, altogether, seemed to have been picked up by the
hand of Science to set him off to advantage.
Nothing, in this world could have cooperated more powerfully toward
this than my uncle Toby's blue and gold, had not Quantity, in some
measure, been necessary to grace. In a period of fifteen or sixteen
years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle
Toby's life (for he seldom went further than the bowling green), his
blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him that it was
with the utmost difficulty the Corporal was able to get him into them;
the taking up at the sleeves was of no advantage; they were laced,
however, down the back, and at the seams of the sides, etc., in the
mode of King William's reign; and to shorten all description, they
shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallic and
doughty an air with them, that, had my uncle Toby thought of attacking
in armor, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.
As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripped by the tailor
between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens.
Yes, madam; but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held
impracticable the night before; and, as there was no alternative in my
uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.
The Corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fevre's regimental coat;
and with his hair tucked up under his Montero-cap, which he had
furbished up for the occasion, marched three paces distant from his
master; a whiff of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the
wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipt into a tassel
beyond the knot, hung the Corporal's stick. My uncle Toby carried his
cane like a pike.
"It looks well, at least," quoth my father to himself....
When my uncle Toby and the Corporal had marched down to the bottom of
the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they
faced about, and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman's door.
"I warrant your Honor," said the Corporal, touching his Montero-cap
with his hand as he passed him in order to give a knock at the door.
My uncle Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful
servant, said nothing good or bad; the truth was, he had not
altogether marshaled his ideas; he wished for another conference, and,
as the Corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door, he
hem'd twice; a portion of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at
each expulsion, toward the Corporal; he stood with the rapper of the
door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why.
Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the
latch, benumbed with expectation; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready
to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of
her bed-chamber, watching their approach.
"Trim!" said my uncle Toby; but, as he articulated the word, the
minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper.
My uncle Toby, perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knocked
on the head by it, whistled Lillabullero.
As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the Corporal had well given the
rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into
the parlor was so short that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from
behind the curtain, lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or
two toward the door to receive him.
My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women
were saluted by men in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred
and thirteen; then facing about, he marched up abreast with her to the
sofa, and in three plain words, tho not before he was sat down, nor
after he was sat down, but as he was sitting down, told her, "he was
in love"; so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the
declaration than he needed.
Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down upon a slit she had been darning up
in her apron, in expectation every moment that my uncle Toby would go
on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love, moreover, of
all others, being a subject of which he was the least a master, when
he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and
left the matter to work after its own way.
My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's,
as he falsely called it, and would often say, That could his brother
Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco, he had
wherewithal to have his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb,
toward the hearts of half the women upon the globe.
My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I
presume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error which
the bulk of the world lie under; but the French, every one of them to
a man, who believe in it almost as much as the Real Presence, "That
talking of love is making it."