THOUGH my father was a good natural philosopher,-yet
he was something of a moral philosopher too; for which
reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapped short in the middle,
-he had nothing to do,-as such,-but to have taken
hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the
back of the fire.-He did no such thing;-he threw them
with all the violence in the world;-and, to give the action
still more emphasis,-he started up upon both his legs to
do it.
This looked something like heat;-and the manner of his
reply to what my uncle Toby was saying, proved it was so.
-'Not choose,' quoth my father, (repeating my uncle
Toby's words) 'to let a man come so near her.'-By heaven,
brother Toby! you would try the patience of a job;-and I
think I have the plagues of one already without it.-Why?
-Where?-Wherein?-Wherefore?-Upon what
account? replied my uncle Toby, in the utmost astonish-
ment.-To think, said my father, of a man living to Your
age, brother, and knowing so little about women ! - I know
nothing at all about them,-replied my uncle Toby; and I
think, continued he, that the shock I received the year
after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with widow
Wadman;-which shock you know I should not have re-
ceived, but from my total ignorance of the sex,-has given
me just cause to say, That I neither know, nor do pretend
to know, any thing about 'em or their concerns either.-
Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at least,
know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.
It is said in Aristotle's Master-Piece, 'That when a man
doth think of any thing which is past,-he looketh down
upon the ground;-but that when he thinketh of some-
thing that is to come, he looketh up towards the heavens.'
My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither, for he
looked horizontally.-Right end, quoth my uncle Toby,
muttering the two words low to himself, and fixing his two
eyes insensibly as he muttered them, upon a small crevice,
formed by a bad joint in the chimney-piece.-Right end
of a woman !- I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more
which it is, than the man in the moon;-and if I was to
think, continued my uncle Toby, (keeping his eye still fixed
upon the bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should
not be able to find it out.
Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you.
Every thing in this world, continued my father (filling a
fresh pipe)-every thing in this earthly world, my dear
brother Toby, has two handles.-Not always, quoth my
uncle Toby.-At least, replied my father, every one has
two hands,-which comes to the same thing.-Now, if a
man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the
make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and con-
venience of all the parts which constitute the whole of that
animal, called Woman, and compare them analogically.
I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,-
quoth my uncle Toby.-ANALOGY, replied my father, is the
certain relation and agreement, which different-Here a
devil of a rap at the door snapped my father's definition
(like his tobacco-pipe) in two,-and, at the same time,
crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation
as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;-it was
some months before my father could get an opportunity to
be safely delivered of it: -And, at this hour, it is a thing full
as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself,-
(considering the confusion and distresses of our domestic
misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the
back of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for
it in the third volume or not.