When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour has lain bleeding this half hour--I stop it, by pulling off one of my yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it----That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are written in the world, or for aught I know may be now writing in it--that it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse; besides, I look upon a chapter which has only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what worse things there are in the world--That it is no way a proper subject for satire----Why then was it left so? And here without staying for my reply, shall Ibe called as many blockheads, numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads, ninny-hammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoops, and sh..t-a-beds--and other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of Lerne cast in the teeth of King Garangantan's shepherds--And I'll let them do it, as Bridget said, as much as they please; for how was it possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 84th chapter of my book, before the 77th, &c?
--So I don't take it amiss--All I wish is, that it may be a lesson to the world, 'to let people tell their stories their own way.'
The Seventy-seventh Chapter.
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 sopha, 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 processe 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 man, who believe in it, almost as much as the Real Presence, 'That talking of love, is making it.'
