Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged Read online

  Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid to Mr. Dodsley, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition care shall be taken that this chapter be removed, and your Lordship’s titles, distinctions, coat of arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of the preceding chapter – all of which, from the words, De gustibus non est disputandum, and whatever else in this book relates to Hobby-Horses, but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship.

  The rest I dedicate to the Moon, who of all Patrons or Matrons has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world run mad after it.

  Bright Goddess,

  If thou art not too busy with Candid and Miss Cunegund’s affairs – take Tristram Shandy’s under thy protection also.

  CHAPTER 10

  Whatever merit that benign act to the midwife might have, at first sight seems not very relevant to this history; it was certain, however, that the parson’s wife gained all of it. And yet I cannot help thinking that the parson himself – though he did not hit upon the idea, yet heartily agreed with it, and as heartily parted with his money to see it carried out – had a claim to some share of the honour.

  The world at that time was pleased to decide otherwise.

  Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to guess at the reason for this.

  Be it known then, that about five years before the date of the midwife’s licence, this very parson had made himself the talk of the country by a breach of all decorum – which he had committed by appearing mounted upon a lean, sorry, jack-ass of a horse, value about one pound fifteen shillings; who was full brother to Rosinante, Don Quixote’s old nag. He matched his description in everything, except that I do not remember that Rosinante was broken-winded; and, moreover, Rosinante was undoubtedly a horse at all points. The parson’s horse was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as Humility herself could have ridden.

  Now, the parson owned a very handsome demi-peaked saddle, quilted with green plush, garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups; with a housing of grey superfine cloth, an edging of black lace and a black silk fringe, – all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, together with a grand embossed bridle. But he had hung all these up behind his study door: and, instead, he used just such a bridle and saddle as his steed truly deserved.

  In riding about his parish, the parson never could enter a village without catching the attention of both old and young. Work ceased as he passed – the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well – the spinning-wheel forgot its round – even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap players stood gaping till he rode out of sight; and as his movement was not quick, he had time to hear the groans of the serious, and the laughter of the light-hearted; all which he bore with excellent tranquillity. He loved a jest – and as he saw himself as ridiculous, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing him in the same light.

  So to his friends, he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and since he was as thin as his beast, he would sometimes insist that the horse was as good as the rider deserved; that they were, centaur-like, both of a piece.

  At other times, and in other moods, he would say that he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity, would pretend he could not bear the sight of a fat horse; and that he had chosen the lean one to keep himself in spirits.

  At different times he would give fifty humorous reasons for riding a meek-spirited, broken-winded horse: that on such a one he could sit and meditate; that he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along, as usefully as in his study; that he could draw up a long argument in his sermon that brisk trotting would not allow. Upon his steed he could compose his sermon, and even compose himself to sleep.

  In short, the parson would name any cause but the true one, which he withheld out of modesty.

  But the true story was this: in the gentleman’s youth, when he bought the superb saddle and bridle, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it what you will, to go to the opposite extreme. He was said to have loved a good horse, and generally had one of the best in the whole parish in his stable. As the nearest midwife, as I told you, lived seven miles distant from the village, every week the poor gentleman received some piteous application for his beast; and as he was not unkind, he had never the heart to refuse.

  The upshot generally was, that his horse was either clapped, or spavined, or lamed; or he was twitter-boned, or broken-winded, or something or other; so that the parson had every nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of, and a good horse to buy in his stead.

  Despite the cost of this, the honest gentleman bore it for many years without a murmur, till at length, after repeated ill accidents of this kind, he found it necessary to consider the matter. Upon weighing up the whole, he found it so heavy a cost as to disable him from any other act of generosity in his parish. He considered that with half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good; but as it was, it confined all charity into the child-bearing part of his parish, where he fancied it was least needed; leaving nothing for the aged, or poor, or sick.

  There appeared but two possible ways to extricate him from this expense; either to make it a rule to never lend out his steed again – or else to be content to ride the last poor devil, with all his aches and infirmities, to the very end of the chapter.

  He cheerfully took this second path; and though he could easily have explained it with honour, yet out of humility he chose rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the laughter of his friends, than tell the story.

  I have the highest idea of the sentiments of this reverend gentleman from this stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any of the honest refinements of Don Quixote himself, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to than the greatest hero of antiquity.

  But this is not the moral of my story. I wished to show the nature of the world in this affair. For so long as this explanation would have done the parson credit, nobody could find it out. But no sooner did he bestir himself on behalf of the midwife, and pay the expenses of her licence, than the whole secret came out; every horse he had lost was distinctly remembered.

  The story ran like wild-fire – ‘The parson had been seized by a fit of pride, and he was going to be well mounted once again; and he would pocket the expense of the licence ten times over, the very first year.’ The opinions of other people concerning this often disturbed his rest. But about ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made entirely easy upon that score, and stands accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain.

  There is a fatality attends the actions of some men: order them as they will, they become twisted from their true directions. Of this, the parson was a painful example.

  But to know how this came to pass, I insist that you read the two following chapters, which contain such a sketch of his life and conversation as will prove its moral. – When this is done, if nothing stops us in our way, we will go on with the midwife.

  CHAPTER 11

  Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable (as appears from an ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and in perfect preservation) it had been spelt exactly so for near – I almost said nine hundred years; but I would not risk my credit in telling an improbable truth, however indisputable; – and therefore I shall only say – it had been exactly so spelt for I do not know how long; which is more than I would venture to say of half of the best surnames in the kingdom, which, through the years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners. A villainous affair it is, that no one can stand up and swear, ‘That his own great grandfather was the man who did this or that.’

  This evil had been fenced against by the prudent care of Yorick’s family, and their religious preservation of these records, which farther inform us that the family was originally of Danish extra
ction, and had come to England in the reign of Horwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of Mr. Yorick’s held an important post. Of what nature this post was, this record says not. It only adds that for two centuries, it had been totally abolished, as unnecessary in every court of the Christian world.

  It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than that of the king’s Jester; and that Hamlet’s Yorick, in our Shakespeare, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon facts, was certainly the very man.

  I have not the time to look into Saxo-Grammaticus’s Danish history, to be certain of this; but if you have leisure, and can easily get at the book, you may do it as well yourself.

  In my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy’s eldest son, whom, in 1741, I accompanied as tutor, riding with him at a prodigious rate through Europe, and of which journey a most delectable narrative will be given in the progress of this work – in my travels I proved the truth of an observation made by one who had stayed long in Denmark; namely, ‘That nature was neither lavish not stingy in her gifts of genius to its inhabitants; but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to them all; distributing her favours so equally as to bring them pretty level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances of refinement in that kingdom; but a great deal of good plain household understanding amongst all ranks of people;’ which is, I think, very right.

  With us, you see, the case is quite different: – we are all ups and downs; you are a great genius; – or ’tis fifty to one, Sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead. Not that there is a total lack of steps in between; – but the two extremes are more common in this unsettled island, where nature is whimsical and capricious in her gifts.

  This is all that shook my faith in regard to Yorick’s ancestry – for he seemed not to have one single drop of phlegmatic blood in his body; in nine hundred years, it might have all run out. Instead of that cold phlegm and sense you would have looked for in one of Danish extraction, he was, on the contrary, mercurial, with as much life and whim and gaiety as the kindliest climate could have engendered.

  With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of twenty-six, knew as much about it as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen. So the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul of somebody ten times in a day; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, ’twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled.

  To speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition to gravity – not to gravity as such, for where gravity was needed, he would be the most grave of men – but he hated the affectation of it, and declared open war against it when it was a cloak for ignorance or folly.

  Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say that Gravity was a sly and dangerous scoundrel; and that more honest people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one year, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. He would say, there was no danger in merriment: whereas the very essence of gravity was deceit; ’twas a trick to gain credit for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth. A French wit called gravity ‘A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind’; which, Yorick would say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.

  But, in truth, he was a man unpractised in the world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every subject. Yorick would express himself bluntly, without considering either person, time, or place; so that if mention was made of an ungenerous proceeding, he never gave himself time to reflect who was the hero of the piece, what his position was, or how far the man had power to hurt him hereafter; – but if it was a dirty action, he called the man a dirty fellow – and so on.

  As his comments were usually enlivened with humour, it gave wings to Yorick’s indiscretion. Although he never sought occasions for speaking out, he had too many temptations of scattering his wit and his jests. They were not lost on his audience.

  What were the consequences, and what was Yorick’s catastrophe thereupon, you will read in the next chapter.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Mortgager and the Jester differ in this: the one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expense, and they think no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; the periodical or accidental payments of it just serving to keep the memory of the affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour – pop comes the creditor upon each, demanding full payment on the spot.

  As the reader (for I hate your ifs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature, I need not say more than that my Hero, Yorick, had some slight experience of this. He had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small debts of this sort, which, despite Eugenius’s frequent advice, he disregarded; thinking that as his jests had been made not through any malignancy, but, on the contrary, from honesty and jocund humour, he would not be held to account for them.

  Eugenius would often tell him sorrowfully that one day or other he would certainly be reckoned with. To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness, would answer with a pshaw! – and if the subject was started in the fields, with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it. But if pent up in the social chimney-corner, where he was barricadoed in with a table and a couple of armchairs, and could not escape, Eugenius would then lecture him in this way:

  ‘Trust me, dear Yorick, this jesting will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, from which thy wit will not rescue thee. A person laughed at, considers himself an injured man; and when he counts up his friends, family, and allies, ’tis no extravagance to say that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; yet till thou hast raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

  ‘I know that there is no ill-will in your jests – I believe them to be honest and playful. But consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not: and depend upon it, they will wage war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too.

  ‘Revenge from some baneful corner shall tell a tale of dishonour about thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right. The fortunes of thy house shall totter – thy character shall bleed: thy faith questioned, thy works belied, thy wit forgotten, thy learning trampled on. Cruelty and Cowardice, twin ruffians, hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall strike together at thy weaknesses. Trust me, Yorick, when it is decided that an innocent creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis easy to pick up enough sticks from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to burn it on.’

  Yorick scarce ever heard this sad lecture without fear and promises to act more soberly. But, alas, too late! – A grand confederacy, with ***** and ***** at its head, was already formed. The plan of the attack, just as Eugenius had foreboded, was put in execution with so little mercy on the side of the allies, and so little suspicion in Yorick of what was going on, that when he thought, good easy man! that surely preferment was ripening – they cut him down at root, and then he fell.

  Yorick fought gallantly for some time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out, he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last, he died, it seems, quite broken-hearted.

  What inclined Eugenius to think this was as follows:

  A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius took his final farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick’s curtain, and asking how he felt, Yorick looked up in his face and grasped his hand. After thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship, Yorick told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.

  ‘I hope not,’ answered Eugenius tenderly, with tears trickling down his cheeks.

  Yorick replied only with a look and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius’s hand, which cut him to the heart.

  ‘Come, come, Yorick,’ said he, ‘my dear lad, be comforted,
let not thy fortitude forsake thee now; who knows what the power of God may yet do for thee?’

  Yorick gently shook his head.

  Eugenius continued, crying bitterly, ‘I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee. I hope that thou mayst still live long enough to be made a bishop.’

  ‘I beseech thee, Eugenius,’ said Yorick, taking off his night-cap with his left hand, his right still grasping that of Eugenius, ‘I beseech thee to take a view of my head.’

  ‘I see nothing wrong with it.’

  ‘Alas! my friend,’ said Yorick, ‘’tis so bruised and mis-shapen with the blows which ***** and ***** have given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Panza, that should I recover, and bishops’ mitres “rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit.”’

  Yorick’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips as he uttered this: yet still it was said with something of a Cervantick tone; and as he spoke, Eugenius perceived a fire light up for a moment in his eyes; a faint reflection of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!

  Eugenius was convinced from this, that his friend’s heart was broken: he squeezed his hand, and then walked softly out of the room, weeping. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door: he then closed them, and never opened them more.