em
on, we were answering the great ends of our creation.

Chapter 3.LXXVI.

I told the Christian reader--I say Christian--hoping he is one--and if
he is not, I am sorry for it--and only beg he will consider the matter
with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book--

I told him, Sir--for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the
strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going backwards
and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader's fancy--which,
for my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there
is so much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, with so many breaks
and gaps in it,--and so little service do the stars afford, which,
nevertheless, I hang up in some of the darkest passages, knowing that
the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights the sun itself at
noon-day can give it--and now you see, I am lost myself--!

--But 'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be
dissected, you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a
large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of
cambrick, running along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly,
you cannot so much as cut out a..., (here I hang up a couple of lights
again)--or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt.--

Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum, sayeth Cardan.
All which being considered, and that you see 'tis morally impracticable
for me to wind this round to where I set out--

I begin the chapter over again.

Chapter 3.LXXVII.

I told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which
preceded my uncle Toby's apologetical oration,--though in a different
trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace of Utrecht was
within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and
his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the
confederating powers.

There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse,
which, as good as says to him, 'I'll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my
life before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.' Now my
uncle Toby could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for
in strictness of language, he could not be said to dismount his horse at
all--his horse rather flung him--and somewhat viciously, which made my
uncle Toby take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be settled
by state-jockies as