cried my father, turning his head round to Trim, who stood at
the back of his chair:--No, an' please your honour, replied the
corporal.--But thou couldst discourse about one, Trim, said my father,
in case of need?--How is it possible, brother, quoth my uncle Toby,
if the corporal never saw one?--'Tis the fact I want, replied my
father,--and the possibility of it is as follows.

A White Bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen
one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever
see one?

Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)

If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a
white bear, what then?

If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever
seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted?--described? Have I
never dreamed of one?

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a
white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the
white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?

--Is the white bear worth seeing?--

--Is there no sin in it?--

Is it better than a Black One?

Chapter 3.XLIV.

--We'll not stop two moments, my dear Sir,--only, as we have got through
these five volumes (In the first edition, the sixth volume began with
this chapter.), (do, Sir, sit down upon a set--they are better
than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have pass'd
through.--

--What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both
of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack
Asses?--How they view'd and review'd us as we passed over the rivulet at
the bottom of that little valley!--and when we climbed over that hill,
and were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did they
all set up together!

--Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses?....

--Heaven be their comforter--What! are they never curried?--Are they
never taken in in winter?--Bray bray--bray. Bray on,--the world is
deeply your debtor;--louder still--that's nothing:--in good sooth, you
are ill-used:--Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in
G-sol-re-ut from morning, even unto night.

Chapter 3.XLV.

When my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through
half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good an' all,--and in a kind