CHAPTER XXXIII
As the ancients agree, brother _Toby_, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of _love_, according to the different parts which are affected by it--the Brain or Liver ----I think when a man is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he is fallen into.
What signifies it, brother _Shandy_, replied my uncle _Toby_, which of the two it is, provided it will but make a man marry, and love his wife, and get a few children?
----A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking full in my mother’s face, as he forced his way betwixt her’s and doctor _Slop’s_--a few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle _Toby’s_ words as he walk’d to and fro----
----Not, my dear brother _Toby_, cried my father, recovering himself all at once, and coming close up to the back of my uncle _Toby’s_ chair--not that I should be sorry hadst thou a score--on the contrary, I should rejoice--and be as kind, _Toby_, to every one of them as a father--
My uncle _Toby_ stole his hand unperceived behind his chair, to give my father’s a squeeze----
----Nay, moreover, continued he, keeping hold of my uncle _Toby’s_ hand--so much dost thou possess, my dear _Toby_, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities--’tis piteous the world is not peopled by creatures which resemble thee; and was I an _Asiatic_ monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new project --I would oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strength--or dry up thy radical moisture too fast--or weaken thy memory or fancy, brother _Toby_, which these gymnics inordinately taken are apt to do--else, dear _Toby_, I would procure thee the most beautiful women in my empire, and I would oblige thee, _nolens, volens_, to beget for me one subject every _month_----
As my father pronounced the last word of the sentence--my mother took a pinch of snuff.
Now I would not, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get a child, _nolens, volens_, that is, whether I would or no, to please the greatest prince upon earth----
----And ’twould be cruel in me, brother _Toby_, to compel thee; said my father--but ’tis a case put to show thee, that it is not thy begetting a child--in case thou should’st be able--but the system of Love and Marriage thou goest upon, which I would set thee right in----
There is at least, said _Yorick_, a great deal of reason and plain sense in captain _Shandy’s_ opinion of love; and ’tis amongst the ill-spent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have read so many flourishing poets and rhetoricians in my time, from whom I never could extract so much----
I wish, _Yorick_, said my father, you had read _Plato_; for there you would have learnt that there are two LOVES --I know there were two RELIGIONS, replied _Yorick_, amongst the ancients----one--for the vulgar, and another for the learned; --but I think ONE LOVE might have served both of them very well--
It could not; replied my father--and for the same reasons: for of these Loves, according to _Ficinus’s_ comment upon _Velasius_, the one is rational----
----the other is _natural_----
the first ancient----without mother----where _Venus_ had nothing to do: the second, begotten of _Jupiter_ and _Dione_--
----Pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, what has a man who believes in God to do with this? My father could not stop to answer, for fear of breaking the thread of his discourse----
This latter, continued he, partakes wholly of the nature of _Venus_.
The first, which is the golden chain let down from heaven, excites to love heroic, which comprehends in it, and excites to the desire of philosophy and truth----the second, excites to _desire_, simply----
----I think the procreation of children as beneficial to the world, said _Yorick_, as the finding out of the longitude----
----To be sure, said my mother, _love_ keeps peace in the world----
----In the _house_--my dear, I own--
----It replenishes the earth; said my mother----
But it keeps heaven empty--my dear; replied my father.
----’Tis Virginity, cried _Slop_, triumphantly, which fills paradise.
Well push’d, nun! quoth my father.
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