Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 6).pdf/141



Told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which preceded my uncle Toby's apologetical oration,—though in a different trope from what I shall make use of now, That the peace of Utrecht was within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the confederating powers.

There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse, which as good as says to him, "I'll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my life, before I would ride a single mile upon your back again." Now my uncle Toby could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for in strictness of language, he could not be said to dis-