Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/98



man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day—was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion.—Will that set my child's nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger, and striking one hand against the other—It makes every thing straight for us, answered my uncle Toby—Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said