As the corporal was entering the confines of Bohemia , my uncle Toby obliged him to halt for a single moment; he had set out bareheaded, having, since he pull’d off his Montero -cap in the latter end of the last chapter, left it lying beside him on the ground.
⸺The eye of Goodness espieth all things⸺so that before the corporal had well got through the first five words of his story, had my uncle Toby twice touch’d his Montero -cap with the end of his cane, interrogatively⸺as much as to say, Why don’t you put it on, Trim? Trim took it up with the most respectful slowness, and casting a glance of humiliation as he did it, upon the embroidery of the forepart, which being dismally tarnish’d and fray’d moreover in some of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, he lay’d it down again between his two feet, in order to moralise upon the subject.
⸺’Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle Toby , that thou art about to observe⸺
“ Nothing in this world , Trim, is made to last forever .”
⸺But when tokens, dear Tom , of thy love and remembrance wear out, said Trim , what shall we say?
There is no occasion, Trim , quoth my uncle Toby , to say anything else; and was a man to puzzle his brains till Doom’s day, I believe, Trim , it would be impossible.
The corporal, perceiving my uncle Toby was in the right, and that it would be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer moral from his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, which the text and the doctrine between them had engender’d, he return’d, with the same look and tone of voice, to his story of the king of Bohemia and his seven castles.