Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/159

 could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

Defend me, gracious heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us.—Never,—O never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors!

For three generations at least, this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually been taking root in our family.— was all along on its side, and was every half year stepping in to strengthen it; so that the whimsicality of my father's brain was far from