This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not easily to be put out of their way,⸺and was therefore one of my father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could better deal with.
Of all men in the world, Dr. Slop was the fittest for my father’s purpose;⸺for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book, in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy;⸺though not with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical.
This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. Slop , in the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle Toby .⸺In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, could bear up against two such allies in science,—is hard to conceive.—You may conjecture upon it, if you please,⸺and whilst your imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle Toby got his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin.—You may raise a system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles,—and show the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to be called Tristram , in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family, Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted.—These, with fifty other points left yet unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time;⸺but I tell you beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage Alquife , the magician in Don Belianis of Greece , nor the no less famous Urganda , the sorceress his wife, (were they alive), could pretend to come within a league of the truth.
The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the next year,⸺when a series of things will be laid open