this genial sun,
where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and
dancing to the vintage, and every step that's taken, the judgment is
surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been
said upon straight lines (Vid. Vol. III.) in sundry pages of my book--I
defy the best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants
backwards or forwards, it makes little difference in the account
(except that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in
the other)--I defy him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically,
planting his cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical
distances, especially if slits in petticoats are unsew'd up--without
ever and anon straddling out, or sidling into some bastardly
digression--In Freeze-land, Fog-land, and some other lands I wot of--it
may be done--

But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea,
sensible and insensible, gets vent--in this land, my dear Eugenius--in
this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing
my ink-horn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with all the meanders
of Julia's track in quest of her Diego, in full view of my study
window--if thou comest not and takest me by the hand--

What a work it is likely to turn out!

Let us begin it.

Chapter 4.XXVI.

It is with Love as with Cuckoldom--

But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon
my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can
never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the Comparison may
be imparted to him any hour in the day)--I'll just mention it, and begin
in good earnest.

The thing is this.

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in
practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing
it is the best--I'm sure it is the most religious--for I begin with
writing the first sentence--and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his
street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk,
with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c.
only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the
plan follows the whole.

I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence,
as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up--catching the idea, even sometimes
before it half way reach