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 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 though I would not depreciate what the study of the Literae 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.
☞ This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon the subject.
I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle Toby’s picture, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,—that taking in no more than the mere Hobbyhorsical likeness:⸺this is a part of his moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with a little soreness of temper; though this never transported him to anything which looked like malignancy:—yet in the little rubs and vexations of life, ’twas apt to show itself in a drollish and witty kind of peevishness:⸺He was, however, frank and generous in his nature;⸺at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my uncle Toby , whom he truly loved:⸺he would feel more pain, ten times told (except in the affair of my aunt Dinah , or where an hypothesis was concerned) than what he ever gave.