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nydus/The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanPublic

A man describes his birth and upbringing through the adventures of his family.

Page 147 of 810
Table of Contents

VII

My uncle Toby , I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d horizontally.⁠—Right end! quoth my uncle Toby , muttering the two words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the chimneypiece⁠⸺⁠Right end of a woman!⁠⸺⁠I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is than the man in the moon;⁠⸺⁠and if I was to think, continued my uncle Toby (keeping his eye still fixed upon the bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out.

Then, brother Toby , replied my father, I will tell you.

Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh pipe)⁠—everything in this world, my dear brother Toby , has two handles.⁠⸺⁠Not always, quoth my uncle Toby .⁠⸺⁠At least, replied my father, everyone has two hands,⁠⸺⁠which comes to the same thing.⁠⸺⁠Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and compare them analogically⁠⸺⁠I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,⁠—quoth my uncle Toby .⁠—

Analogy , replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which different⁠⸺⁠Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two,⁠—and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;⁠—it was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it:⁠—And, at this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself,⁠—(considering the confusion and distresses of our domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third volume or not.

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