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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 311 of 810
Table of Contents

Slawkenbergius’s Tale

I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of Quedlingberg , the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for sending at noonday for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the streets of Strasburg with her husband’s trumpet in her hand,⁠⸺⁠the best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the illustration of her theory⁠—she stayed no longer than three days.

The sentinel and bandy-legg’d drummer!⁠⸺⁠nothing on this side of old Athens could equal them! they read their lectures under the city-gates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a Chrysippus and a Crantor in their porticos.

The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also in the same stile⁠—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard⁠—his wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; not promiscuously⁠—but to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and credulity marshal’d them⁠⸺⁠in a word, each Strasburger came crouding

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