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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 186 of 810
Table of Contents

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loves his men, will never do, if he can help it, because two sentinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty.⁠—I have been a commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde a hundred times, continued Trim , rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,⁠—and all the time I had the honour to serve his Majesty King William , in relieving the most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life.⁠⸺⁠Very right, Trim , quoth my uncle Toby ,⁠—but you do not consider, Trim , that the towers, in Solomon’s days, were not such things as our bastions, flanked and defended by other works;⁠—this, Trim , was an invention since Solomon’s death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before the curtin, in his time;⁠⸺⁠or such a fossé as we make with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a Coup de main:⁠—So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the Corps de Garde , set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.⁠—They could be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s Guard.⁠—My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly;⁠—the subject being rather too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.⁠—So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,⁠—he contented himself with ordering Trim to read on. He read on as follows:] > > “To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:⁠⸺⁠The first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;⁠—the second, those of

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