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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 72 of 810
Table of Contents

XII

hand,⁠⸺⁠his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius ,⁠⸺⁠I beseech thee to take a view of my head.⁠—I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius . Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick , let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows which * and ***, and some others have so unhandsomely given me, in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Pança , that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it.”⁠⸺⁠ Yorick’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready to depart as he uttered this:⁠⸺⁠yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantick tone;⁠⸺⁠and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes;⁠⸺⁠faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!

Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke: he squeezed his hand,⁠⸺⁠and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,⁠—he then closed them,⁠—and never opened them more.

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