Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/201



my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned discourses—'twas still but like the anointing of a broken bone—The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under us—He became pensive—walked frequently forth to the fish-pond—let down one loop of his hat—sigh'd often—forbore to snap—and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and digestion, as Hippocrates tell us—he had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his thoughts been criti-