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Chapter 45 Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I know, as my father and my uncle Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps:let that be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny:A sudden impulse comes across medrop the curtain, ShandyI drop itStrike a line here across the paper, TristramI strike itand hey for a new chapter. The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affairand if I had oneas I do all things out of all ruleI would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had doneAm I warm? I am, and the cause demands ita pretty story! is a man to follow rulesor rules to follow him? Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world a story of a roasted horsethat chapters relieve the mindthat they assistor impose upon the imaginationand that in a work of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of sceneswith fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted him?O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Dianas templeyou must read Longinusread away- -if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time overnever fearread him againAvicenna and Licetus read Aristotles metaphysicks forty times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.But mark the consequenceAvicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of writingfor he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus, (Ce Foetus netoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais son pere layant examine en qualite de Medecin, & ayant trouve que cetoit quelque chose de plus quun Embryon, le fit transporter tout vivant a Rapallo, ou il le fit voir a Jerome Bardi & a dautres Medecins du lieu. On trouva quil ne lui manquoit rien dessentiel a la vie; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience, entreprit dachever louvrage de la Nature, & de travailler a la formation de lEnfant avec le meme artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire ecclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce quelle avoit a faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour proprement accommode, il reussit a lelever & a lui faire prendre ses accroissemens necessaires, par luniformite dune chaleur etrangere mesuree exactement sur les degres dun Thermometre, ou dun autre instrument equivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri a 223. 488.) On auroit toujours ete tres satisfait de lindustrie dun pere si experimente dans lArt de la Generation, quand il nauroit pu prolonger la vie a son fils que pour Puelques mois, ou pour peu dannees. Mais quand on se represente que lEnfant a vecu pres de quatre-vingts ans, & quil a compose quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits dune longue lectureil faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable nest pas toujours faux, & que la Vraisemblance nest pas toujours du cote la Verite. Il navoit que dix neuf ans lorsquil composa Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animae humanae. (Les Enfans celebres, revus & corriges par M. de la Monnoye de lAcademie Francoise.)) of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himselfthe learned know I mean his Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul. So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as well employed, as in picking straws. |
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