ins, glands, genitals,
humours, and articulations;--is a Being of as much activity,--and in all
senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord
Chancellor of England.--He may be benefitted,--he may be injured,--he
may obtain redress; in a word, he has all the claims and rights of
humanity, which Tully, Puffendorf, or the best ethick writers allow to
arise out of that state and relation.

Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way
alone!--or that through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller,
my little Gentleman had got to his journey's end miserably spent;--his
muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;--his own animal
spirits ruffled beyond description,--and that in this sad disorder'd
state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a
series of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months
together.--I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for
a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the
physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly
to rights.

Chapter 1.III.

To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding
anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher,
and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft,
and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as
my uncle Toby well remember'd, upon his observing a most unaccountable
obliquity, (as he call'd it) in my manner of setting up my top, and
justifying the principles upon which I had done it,--the old gentleman
shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than
reproach,--he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified
in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me,
That I should neither think nor act like any other man's child:--But
alas! continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away
a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, My Tristram's misfortunes
began nine months before ever he came into the world.

--My mother, who was sitting by, look'd up, but she knew no more than
her backside what my father meant,--but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who
had been often informed of the affair,--understood him very well.

Chapter 1.IV.

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people
in it, who are no readers at all,--who find themselves ill at ease,