As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby’s introduction into the parlour, was so short, that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from behind the curtain⸺lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two towards the door to receive him.
My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman , after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and thirteen⸺then facing about, he march’d up abreast with her to the sofa, and in three plain words⸺though not before he was sat down⸺nor after he was sat down⸺but as he was sitting down, told her, “ he was in love ”⸺so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration than he needed.
Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every moment, that my uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love moreover of all others being a subject of which he was the least a master⸺When he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way.
My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby’s , as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco⸺he had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe.
My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under⸺but the French every one of ’em to a