,--as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the
apostrophe cool, than any thing else,--'tis not very material whether
upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.

In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the
parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his wound,
he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook
himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of
which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force.

It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily
regularity of a clean shirt,--to dismiss his barber unshaven,--and to
allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning
himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times
dressing, how it went on: when, lo!--all of a sudden, for the change
was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his
recovery,--complained to my father, grew impatient with the
surgeon:--and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs,
he shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to
expostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told
him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time:--He
dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his
four years melancholy imprisonment;--adding, that had it not been for
the kind looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,--he
had long since sunk under his misfortunes.--My father was by. My uncle
Toby's eloquence brought tears into his eyes;--'twas unexpected:--My
uncle Toby, by nature was not eloquent;--it had the greater effect:--The
surgeon was confounded;--not that there wanted grounds for such, or
greater marks of impatience,--but 'twas unexpected too; in the four
years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in
my uncle Toby's carriage; he had never once dropped one fretful or
discontented word;--he had been all patience,--all submission.

--We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;--but we
often treble the force:--The surgeon was astonished; but much more so,
when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his
healing up the wound directly,--or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the
king's serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him.

The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature;--the love of
liberty and enlargement is a sister-passi