CHAPTER VII
Tho’ my father was a good natural philosopher, --yet he was something of a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapp’d 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 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 _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 astonishment. --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 received, but from my total ignorance of the sex, --has given me just cause to say, That I neither know nor do pretend to know anything 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 anything which is past, ----he looketh down upon the ground; ----but that when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards the heavens.”
My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d 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.
Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh pipe)--every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two handles. ----Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----At least, replied my father, everyone 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 convenience 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 domestick 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.
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