All womankind, continued Trim , (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.⸺
⸺I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby , better than the thing itself⸺
⸺Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure.
I hope, Trim , answered my uncle Toby , I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world⸺and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of Ambition , and intrench the lives and fortunes of the few , from the plunderings of the many ⸺whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march.
In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and march’d firmly as at the head of his company⸺and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first step⸺march’d close behind him down the avenue.
⸺Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother⸺by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation.