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Chapter 60 I call all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Tobys amours, till this very moment, that my mothers curiosity, as she stated the affair,or a different impulse in her, as my father would have itwished her to take a peep at them through the key- hole. Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through the key-hole as long as you will. Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have often spoken of, in my fathers habit, could have vented such an insinuationhe was however frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him. My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of hisshe raised her fingers, and let them fallit could scarce be calld a tap; or if it was a taptwould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession: my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, classd it rightConscience redoubled her blowhe turnd his face suddenly the other way, and my mother supposing his body was about to turn with it in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he turned his head, he met her eye Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himselfa thin, blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom of it, had it existedit did notand how I happen to be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxesHeaven above knowsMy mothermadamwas so at no time, either by nature, by institution, or example. A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no meaning in them, nature is oft-times obliged to find oneAnd as for my fathers example! twas so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that twas the whole business of his life, to keep all fancies of that kind out of her headNature had done her part, to have spared him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew itAnd here am I sitting, this 12th day of August 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most tragicomical completion of his prediction, That I should neither think, nor act like any other mans child, upon that very account. The mistake in my father, was in attacking my mothers motive, instead of the act itself; for certainly key- holes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it wasit became a violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal. It is for this reason, an please your Reverences, That key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together. which leads me to my uncle Tobys amours. |
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