It appears that Mr. Shandy, senior, was a sagacious, an observant, and a learned man. We need not add, therefore, that he was deeply impressed with the importance of his son having a good Nose; and most pathetic was his sorrow when the bridge of it was broken. His own family had suffered through several generations from a defect in the length of an ancestor’s Nose. His great-grandfather, when tendering his hand and heart to the lady who afterwards consented to make him “the happiest of men,” was forced to capitulate to her terms, owing to the brevity of his Nose.
“It is most unconscionable, Madam,” said he, “that you, who have only two thousand pounds to your fortune, should demand from me an allowance of three hundred pounds a year.”
“Because you have no Nose, Sir.”
“’Sdeath! Madam, ’tis a very good Nose.”
“’Tis for all the world like an ace-of-clubs.”
“My great-grandfather was silenced:” and for many years after the Shandy family was burdened with the payment of this large annuity out of a small estate, because his great-grandfather had a Snub Nose. Well might Mr. Shandy (the father of Tristram) say, “that no family, however high, could stand against a succession of short Noses!”
In lack of other instances, we have introduced those of fictitious writers; for they corroborate our views, and serve to thicken other proofs which in this Class do demonstrate thinly. And this necessarily so. For we have determined to refrain from giving examples from our personal acquaintance, and the Snubs have never any of them won such eminence, as to have their names handed down by fame, or their portraits limned for the benefit of posterity. The evidence in these two last Classes is necessarily negative.
Their best proof lies in their want of proofs. They will, however, receive some general illustration when we come to speak of national Noses.
It now only remains to treat of some obstinate Noses which will not come within our classification.
One of these is that curious formation, a compound of Roman, Greek, Cogitative, and Celestial, with the addition of a button at the end, prefixed to the front of my Lord Brougham. We are bound from its situation to admit that it is a Nose, and we must, therefore, treat of it; but it’s a queer one. “Sure such a Nose was never seen.”