Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 2).pdf/60

 the whole of that animal, call'd Woman, and compare them analogically.—I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,—quoth my uncle Toby.—, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement, which different—Here a devil of a rap at the door snapp'd my father's definition (like his tobacco pipe) in two,—and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;—it was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely deliver'd of it:—And, at this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself,—(considering the confusion and distresses of our domestic misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another) whether