and makes us come out of our
caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts than
men.

I know it will be said, continued my father (availing himself of the
Prolepsis), that in itself, and simply taken--like hunger, or thirst,
or sleep--'tis an affair neither good or bad--or shameful or
otherwise.--Why then did the delicacy of Diogenes and Plato so
recalcitrate against it? and wherefore, when we go about to make and
plant a man, do we put out the candle? and for what reason is it,
that all the parts thereof--the congredients--the preparations--the
instruments, and whatever serves thereto, are so held as to be conveyed
to a cleanly mind by no language, translation, or periphrasis whatever?

--The act of killing and destroying a man, continued my father, raising
his voice--and turning to my uncle Toby--you see, is glorious--and the
weapons by which we do it are honourable--We march with them upon our
shoulders--We strut with them by our sides--We gild them--We carve
them--We in-lay them--We enrich them--Nay, if it be but a scoundrel
cannon, we cast an ornament upon the breach of it.--

--My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to intercede for a better
epithet--and Yorick was rising up to batter the whole hypothesis to
pieces--

--When Obadiah broke into the middle of the room with a complaint, which
cried out for an immediate hearing.

The case was this:

My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor, or as impropriator
of the great tythes, was obliged to keep a Bull for the service of the
Parish, and Obadiah had led his cow upon a pop-visit to him one day or
other the preceding summer--I say, one day or other--because as chance
would have it, it was the day on which he was married to my father's
house-maid--so one was a reckoning to the other. Therefore when
Obadiah's wife was brought to bed--Obadiah thanked God--

--Now, said Obadiah, I shall have a calf: so Obadiah went daily to visit
his cow.

She'll calve on Monday--on Tuesday--on Wednesday at the farthest--

The cow did not calve--no--she'll not calve till next week--the cow put
it off terribly--till at the end of the sixth week Obadiah's suspicions
(like a good man's) fell upon the Bull.

Now the parish being very large, my father's Bull, to speak the truth of
him, was no way equal to the department; he had, however, got himself,
somehow or other, thrust into employment--and as he went through the
business with a grave face, my father h