Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/181

 When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this sublunary world—the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a substance, naturally takes a flight, behind the scenes, to see what is the cause and first spring of them—The search was not long in this instance.

It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of the treatise which Phutatorius had wrote de Concubinis retinendis, as a thing which he feared had done hurt in the world—and 'twas easily found out, that there was a mystical meaning in Yoricks prank—and that his chucking the chesnut hot into Phutatoriuss ***—*****, was a sarcastical fling at his book—the doctrines of which, they said, had inflamed many an honest man in the same place.