ead,--if any
such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long,--to the very
end of the world.

Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and
uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted
itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after
it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness,
and is as follows:

My uncle Toby Shandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues
which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and
rectitude,--possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom
or never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and
unparallel'd modesty of nature;--though I correct the word nature, for
this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come
to a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or
acquir'd.--Whichever way my uncle Toby came by it, 'twas nevertheless
modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to
words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,--but
to things;--and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to
such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be,
even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward
cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the
awe of ours.

You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this
from this very source;--that he had spent a great part of his time in
converse with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and
the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he
had acquired this amiable turn of mind.

I wish I could say so,--for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my
father's wife and my mother--my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words
with the sex in as many years;--no, he got it, Madam, by a blow.--A
blow!--Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a
ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur, which struck
full upon my uncle Toby's groin.--Which way could that effect it? The
story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;--but it would be running
my history all upon heaps to give it you here.--'Tis for an episode
hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its proper place,
shall be faithfully laid before you:--'Till then, it is not in my power
to give farther light into this matte