Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do
so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on
one side or the other generally becomes indecent; so edging herself a
little more toward him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing as she
did it, she took up the gantlet, or the discourse (if you like it
better), and communed with my uncle Toby thus:
"The cares and disquietudes of the marriage-state," quoth Mrs. Wadman,
"are very great."
"I suppose so," said my uncle Toby.
"And therefore when a person," continued Mrs. Wadman, "is so much at
his ease as you are, so happy, Captain Shandy, in yourself, your
friends, and your amusements, I wonder what reasons can incline you to
the state?"
"They are written," quoth my uncle Toby, "in the Common Prayer-Book."
Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth,
leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulf as she pleased.
"As for children," said Mrs. Wadman, "tho a principal end, perhaps, of
the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent, yet
do not we all find that they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain
comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches,
what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of
a suffering and defenseless mother who brings them into life?"
"I declare," said my uncle Toby, smitten with pity, "I know of none:
unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God ..."
"A fiddlestick!" quoth she....