When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or, in other words, when his Hobbyhorse grows headstrong,⸺farewel cool reason and fair discretion!
My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprise, and could get leave to say as much⸺he told him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of,—it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Toby’s mind.⸺The succession of his ideas was now rapid,—he broiled with impatience to put his design in execution;⸺and so, without consulting farther with any soul living,—which, by the by, I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice,⸺he privately ordered Trim , his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change.⸺So leaving a banknote upon the table for the surgeon’s care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s—he packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, etc. , and by the help of a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other,⸺my uncle Toby embarked for Shandy-Hall .
The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as follows:
The table in my uncle Toby’s room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, etc. , about him—being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it—he had