Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 5).pdf/157

 fer; shall; should; will; would; can; could; owe; ought; used; or is wont.—And these varied with tenses, present, past, future, and conjugated with the verb see,—or with these questions added to them;—''Is it? Was it? Will it be? Would it be? May it be? Might it be? And these again put negatively, Is it not? Was it not? Ought it not?—Or affirmatively,—It is; It was; It ought to be''. Or chronologically,—''Has it been always? Lately? How long ago?—Or hypothetically,—If it was; If it was not? What would follow?—If the French should beat the English? If the Sun go out of the Zodiac?''

Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in which