osiopesis.--Just
Heaven! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian
artists;--the insensible more or less, determine the precise line of
beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! How do the slight
touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-stick, et
caetera,--give the true swell, which gives the true pleasure!--O my
countrymen:--be nice; be cautious of your language; and never, O! never
let it be forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your
fame depend.

--'My sister, mayhap,' quoth my uncle Toby, 'does not choose to let a
man come so near her....' Make this dash,--'tis an Aposiopesis,--Take
the dash away, and write Backside,--'tis Bawdy.--Scratch Backside
out, and put Cover'd way in, 'tis a Metaphor;--and, I dare say, as
fortification ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, that if he had been
left to have added one word to the sentence,--that word was it.

But whether that was the case or not the case;--or whether the snapping
of my father's tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident or
anger, will be seen in due time.

Chapter 1.XXXII.

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