⸺Now, What do’st thou believe?
That widow Wadman , an’ please your worship, cannot hold it out ten days⸺
And whence, cried Slop , jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of woman, friend?
By falling in love with a popish clergywoman; said Trim .
’Twas a Beguine , said my uncle Toby .
Doctor Slop was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my father taking that very crisis to fall in helter-skelter upon the whole order of Nuns and Beguines , a set of silly, fusty, baggages⸺ Slop could not stand it⸺and my uncle Toby having some measures to take about his breeches—and Yorick about his fourth general division—in order for their several attacks next day—the company broke up: and my father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt that and bedtime; he called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote my uncle Toby the following letter of instructions:
My dear brother Toby , What I am going to say to thee is upon the nature of women, and of lovemaking to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee—though not so well for me—that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon that head, and that I am able to write it to thee. Had it been the good pleasure of him who disposes of our lots—and thou no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou should’st have dipp’d the pen this moment into the ink, instead of myself; but that not being the case⸻⸻ Mrs. Shandy being now