Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht , it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary’s heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby’s . To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,—or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette , without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.
My father, who was a great motive-monger , and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,—for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself—would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which showed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his hobbyhorse .⸺Never mind, brother Toby , he would say,—by God’s blessing we shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does,—the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.⸺I defy ’em, my dear Toby , he would add, to take countries without taking towns,⸺or towns without sieges.
My uncle Toby never took this backstroke of my father’s at his hobbyhorse kindly.⸺He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.
I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:⸺I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it