such as it would be criminal in any one to support and encourage. Nay," said Mr Allworthy to him, "your audacious attempt to steal away the young lady, calls upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. The world who have already censured the regard I have shown for you may think, with some colour at least of justice, that I connive at so base and barbarous an action an action of which you must have known my abhorrence: and which, had you had any concern for my ease and honour, as well as for my friendship, you would never have thought of undertaking. Fie upon it, young man! indeed there is scarce any punishment equal to your crimes, and I can scarce think myself justifiable in what I am now going to bestow on you. However, as I have educated you like a child of my own, I will not turn you naked into the world. When you open this paper, therefore, you will find something which may enable you, with industry, to get an honest livelihood; but if you employ it to worse purposes, I shall not think myself obliged to supply you farther, being resolved, from this day forward, to converse no more with you on any account. I cannot avoid saying, there is no part of your conduct which I resent more than your ill-treatment of that good young man (meaning Blifil) who hath behaved with so much tenderness and honour towards you." These last words were a dose almost too bitter to be swallowed. A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before he was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing; which he at length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult to be affected, and as difficult to be described. The reader must be very weak, if, when he considers the light in which Jones then appeared to Mr Allworthy, he should blame the rigour of his sentence. And yet all the neighbourhood, either from this weakness, or from some worse motive, condemned this justice and severity as the highest cruelty. Nay, the very persons who had before censured the good man for the kindness and tenderness shown to a bastard (his own, according to the general opinion), now cried out as loudly against turning his own child out of doors. The women especially were unanimous in taking the part of Jones, and raised more stories on the occasion than I have room, in this chapter, to set down. One thing must not be omitted, that, in their censures on this occasion, none ever mentioned the sum contained in the paper which Allworthy gave Jones, which was no less than five hundred pounds; but all agreed that he was sent away penniless, and some said naked, from the house of his inhuman father. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT. LAURENCE STERNE BOOK II. CHAPTER XII [MY UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY1] My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries; — not from want of courage, I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of courage:" And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth, I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter ;- nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts; for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do; - but he was of a peaceful, placid nature, — no jarring element in it, — all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. - -Go says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and which after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him; - I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand, I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: - Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee thee? and me. I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at 1 The fragmentary appearance of the excerpts from "Tristram Shandy" and "The Man of Feeling" is due to the formlessness of the books themselves; both of these novels illustrate the breaking down of plot, one of the signs of decadence in the novel of the late eighteenth century. The responsibility, therefore, for abrupt transition lies not with the editors, but with the authors. that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation; — or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it; - or in what degree, or by what secret magick, — a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not; - this I know, that the lesson of universal goodwill then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the Litera humaniores, at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since; yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression. HERE is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp'd into the kitchen, -master Bobby is dead and buried the funeral was an interpolation of Susannah's we shall have all to go into mourning, said Susannah. I HOPE not, said Trim. You hope not! cried Susannah earnestly. The mourning ran not in Trim's head, whatever it did in Susannah's. I hope said Trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the Ox-moor. - Oh! he's dead, said Susannah. As sure, said the scullion, as I'm alive. I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said Trim, fetching a sigh. Poor creature! - poor boy! - poor gentle man. He was alive last Whitsontide! said the coachman. Whitsontide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon, - what is Whitsontide, Jonathan (for that was the coachman's name), or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability) - and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment! - 'Twas infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears. We are not stocks and stones. Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous'd with it. The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in church and state, and possibly the preservation of the whole world or what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal's eloquence - I do demand your attention — your worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease. I said, "we were not stocks and stones" - 'tis very well. I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, — but men clothed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations; and what a junketing piece of work of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul, gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey or sometimes get rid of. -I've gone a little about no matter, 'tis for health — let us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of Trim's hat. -"Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?" There was nothing in the sentence- 'twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head he had made nothing at all of it. - "Are we not here now;" continued the corporal, "and are we not" (dropping his hat plump upon the groundand pausing, before he pronounced the word) -"gone! in a moment?" The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of |