ousand seven hundred
and thirteen--then facing about, he march'd up abreast with her to the
sopha, and in three plain words--though not before he was sat down--nor
after he was sat down--but as he was sitting down, told her, 'he was in
love'--so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration
than he needed.

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up
in her apron, in expectation every moment, that my uncle Toby would go
on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love moreover of all
others being a subject of which he was the least a master--When he had
told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the
matter to work after its own way.

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as
he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother Toby
to his processe have added but a pipe of tobacco--he had wherewithal to
have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the
hearts of half the women upon the globe.

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume
to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which the bulk
of the world lie under--but the French, every one of 'em to a man, who
believe in it, almost as much as the Real Presence, 'That talking of
love, is making it.'

--I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt.

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so,
to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one
side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a
little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub blushing, as
she did it--she took up the gauntlet--or the discourse (if you like it
better) and communed with my uncle Toby, thus:

The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman,
are very great. I suppose so--said my uncle Toby: and therefore when
a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you are--so
happy, captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends and your amusements--I
wonder, what reasons can incline you to the state--

--They are written, quoth my uncle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book.

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth,
leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulph as she pleased.

--As for children--said Mrs. Wadman--though a principal end perhaps of
the institution, and the natural wish