Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/95

 rupting my father—but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?—What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby.—That's another concern, said my father testily—But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross reckonings and sorrowful items with which the heart of man is overcharged, 'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand it out, and bear itself up, as it does against the impositions laid upon our nature.—'Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together—'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy—a sentinel in a wooden centry-box, might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men,—we are upheld