My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullius Cicero could be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength—and his weakness too.——His strength—for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness—for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one—(bating the case of a systematic misfortune)—he had all he wanted.—A blessing which tied up my father’s tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune but as five—my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him.
This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father’s domestic character; and it is this, that, in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture.
My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke,—and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some neglect or other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father’s expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced.
My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiah—and that there never would be an end of the disaster.——See here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have done!——It was not me, said Obadiah.——How do I know that? replied my father.
Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee—the Attic salt brought water into them—and so Obadiah heard no more about it.
Now let us go back to my brother’s death.
Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.—For Death it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father’s head, that ’twas difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent show out of them.—He took them as they came.
“’Tis an inevitable chance—the first statute in Magna Charta—it is an everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother,——All must die.
“If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder,—not that he is dead.
“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.