XXII.

MY UNCLE TOBY

ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL CREATIONS OF A GREAT GENIUS.

“If I were requested,” says Leigh Hunt in his “Essay on Wit and Humor,” “to name the book of all others which combines wit and humor under their highest appearance of levity with the profoundest wisdom, it would be ‘Tristram Shandy,’” the chief work of Laurence Sterne, who was born in 1713, and died in 1768.  The following story of LeFevre, drawn from that unique book, full of simple pathos and gentle kindness, presents, perhaps, the best picture of the character that names this chapter: 

It was some time in the Summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies—­which was about seven years before my father came into the country, and about as many after the time that my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my father’s house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe—­when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard, the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlor, with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack. “’Tis for a poor gentleman, I think, of the army,” said the landlord, “who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste any thing till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast.  ‘I think,’ says he, taking his hand from his forehead, ‘it would comfort me.’”

“If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a thing,” added the landlord, “I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill.  I hope in God he will still mend,” continued he; “we are all of us concerned for him.”

“Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee,” cried my uncle Toby; “and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of sack thyself—­and take a couple of bottles, with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good.”

“Though I am persuaded,” said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, “he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I can not help entertaining a very high opinion of his guest, too; there must be something more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his host.”  “And of his whole family,” added the corporal, “for they are all concerned for him.”  “Step after him,” said my uncle Toby; “do, Trim; and ask if he knows his name.”

“I have quite forgot it, truly,” said the landlord, coming back into the parlor with the corporal, “but I can ask his son again.”  “Has a son with him then?” said my uncle Toby.  “A boy,” replied the landlord, “of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day; he has not stirred from the bedside these two days.”