Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 5).pdf/103



a point settled,—and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius, who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story—that provided he keeps along the line of his story,—he may go backwards and forwards as he will,—'tis still held to be no digression.

This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself.

thousand pannier loads of devils—(not of the Archbishop of Beneventos,—I mean of Rabelaiss devils) with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabo-