y, and secure my own behind it.

Chapter 2.XLIII.

Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father,
yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put
together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets
with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen
times a day--was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret
spring within us.--Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be
Religion.--Will that set my child's nose on? cried my father, letting
go his finger, and striking one hand against the other.--It makes every
thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby.--Figuratively speaking,
dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I
am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of
counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered
machine, though it can't prevent the shock--at least it imposes upon our
sense of it.

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger, as
he was coming closer to the point--had my child arrived safe into the
world, unmartyr'd in that precious part of him--fanciful and extravagant
as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of
that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon
our characters and conducts--Heaven is witness! that in the warmest
transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once
wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what George or
Edward would have spread around it.

But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him--I
must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.

He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.

I wish it may answer--replied my uncle Toby, rising up.

Chapter 2.XLIV.

What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon
the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs, what
a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us!
Take pen and ink in hand, brother Toby, and calculate it fairly--I know
no more of calculation than this balluster, said my uncle Toby (striking
short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow
souse upon his shin-bone)--'Twas a hundred to one-cried my uncle Toby--I
thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin) you had known nothing of
calculations, brother Toby. A mere chance, said my uncle Toby.--Then it
a