-WHAT can they be doing, brother? said my father.-I
think, replied my uncle Toby,-taking, as I told you, his
pipe from his mouth, and striking the ashes out of it as he
began his sentence;-I think, replied he,-it would not be
amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. Pray, what's all
that racket over our heads, Obadiah? quoth my father;-
my brother and I can scarce hear our- selves speak.
Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow towards his left
shoulder,-my Mistress is taken very badly;-and where's
Susannah running down the garden there, as if they were
going to ravish her?-Sir, she is running the shortest cut
into the town, replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife.-
Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go directly
for Dr Slop, the man-midwife, with all our services,-and let
him know your Mistress is fallen into labour-and that I
desire he will return with you with all speed.
It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to
my uncle Toby, as Obadiah shut the door, - as there is so
expert an operator as Dr Slop so near-that my wife should
persist to the very last in this obstinate humour of hers, in
trusting the life of my child, who has had one misfortune
already, to the ignorance of an old woman;-and not only
the life of my child, brother-but her own life, and with
it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have
begot out of her hereafter.
Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does
it to save the expence: -A pudding's end,-replied my
father, - the doctor must be paid the same for inaction as
action,-if not better, - to keep him in temper.
-Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world,
quoth my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his heart,-but
M0DESTY: -My Sister, I dare say, added he, does not care
to let a man come so near her ****. I will not say whether
my uncle Toby had completed the sentence or not; - 'tis
for his advantage to suppose he had,-as, I think, he
could have added no ONE WORD which would have im-
proved it.
If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived
at the period's end,then the world stands indebted to the
sudden snapping of my father's tobacco pipe, for one of the
neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which
Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis.-Just heaven ! how does
the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists;-the
insensible MORE or LESS, determine the precise line of
beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! How do the
slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-
stick, et caeterai-give the true swell, which gives the true
pleasure!- O my countrymen,-be nice;-be caution,--, of your
language;-and never, 0 1 never let it be forgotten upon
what small particles your eloquence and your fame depend.
-,My sister, mayhap,' quoth my uncle Toby, 'doe-, not
choose to let a man come so near her ****.' Make this dash,-
'tis an Aposiopesis.-Take the dash away, and write Back-
side,-'tis Bawdy. Scratch Backside out, and put Covered
way in, 'tis a Metaphor;-and, I dare say, as fortification
ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, that if he had been
left to have added one word to the sentence, - that word
was it.
But whether that was the case or not the case;-or whether
the snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe so critically, hap-
pened through accident or anger,-will be seen in due
time.