The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,
Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

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Title: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Author: Laurence Sterne

Posting Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #1079]
Release Date: October, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM SHANDY ***

Produced by Sue Asscher and Stephen Radcliffe

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN.

By Laurence Sterne

(two lines in Greek)

To the Right Honourable Mr. Pitt.

Sir,

Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication,
than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the
kingdom, and in a retir'd thatch'd house, where I live in a constant
endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other
evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man
smiles,--but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this
Fragment of Life.

I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it--(not
under your Protection,--it must protect itself, but)--into the country
with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or can
conceive it has beguiled you of one moment's pain--I shall think myself
as happy as a minister of state;--perhaps much happier than any one (one
only excepted) that I have read or heard of.

I am, Great Sir, (and, what is more to your Honour) I am, Good Sir, Your
Well-wisher, and most humble Fellow-subject,

The Author.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.--VOLUME THE FIRST

Chapter 1.I.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they
were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about
when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what
they were then doing;--that not only the production of a rational
Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and
temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his
mind;--and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of
his whole house might take their turn from the humours and di