The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 8/Chapter 1
THE
LIFE and OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gent.
CHAP. I.
——— But softly—for in these sportive plains, and under this genial sun, where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and dancing to the vintage, and every step that's taken, the judgment is surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been said upon straight lines[1] in sundry pages of my book—I defy the best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants backwards or forwards, it makes little difference in the account (except that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in the other)—I defy him to go on cooly, critically, and canonically, planting his cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical distances, especially if flits in petticoats are unsew'd up—without ever and anon straddling out, or sidling into some bastardly digression—In Freeze-land, Fog-land and some other lands I wot of—it may be done———
But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible and insensible, gets vent—in this land, my dear Eugenius—in this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing my ink-horn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with all the meanders of Julia's track in quest of her Diego, in full view of my study window—if thou comest not and takest me by the hand———
What a work is it likely to turn out!
Let us begin it.
- ↑ Vid. Vol. VI. p. 152.