opposition to many misconceptions, that my uncle Toby did ofttimes puzzle his visitors, and sometimes himself too.
To speak the truth, unless the company my father led upstairs were tolerably clearheaded, or my uncle Toby was in one of his explanatory moods, ’twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse free from obscurity.
What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle Toby , was this,—that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the gate of St. Nicolas , extending itself from the bank of the Maes , quite up to the great water-stop,—the ground was cut and cross cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all sides,—and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his life; and was ofttimes obliged to give up the attack upon that very account only.
These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Toby Shandy more perturbations than you would imagine: and as my father’s kindness to him was continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers,⸺he had but a very uneasy task of it.
No doubt my uncle Toby had great command of himself, could guard appearances, I believe, as well as most men;—yet anyone may imagine, that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly:—He did so; and the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no account to the man who has not read Hippocrates , yet, whoever has read Hippocrates , or Dr. James Mackenzie , and has considered well the effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the