It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh , to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to York ; which is about the halfway⸺nor does anybody wonder, if he goes on and asks about the corporation, etc. —
It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman , whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in the one case than in the other.
She had accordingly read Drake’s anatomy from one end to the other. She had peeped into Wharton upon the brain, and borrowed Graaf upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it.
She had reason’d likewise from her own powers⸺laid down theorems⸺drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion.
To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop , “if poor captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his wound⸺?”
⸺He is recovered, Doctor Slop would say⸺
What! quite?
Quite: madam⸺
But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say.
Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself.