—Yorick could not forbear smiling.—Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,—that ’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.—
“Join your right-hand to your firelock,” cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion.—
“Poise your firelock,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both of adjutant and private man.
“Rest your firelock;”—one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see leads into another.—If his honour will begin but with the first—
The first—cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand upon his side— asterisks("hisside",1.7,0); * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The second—cried my uncle Toby, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment.—The corporal went through his manual with exactness! and having honoured his father and mother, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.
Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest,—and has wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out.
—Here is the scaffold work of Instruction, its true point of folly, without the BUILDING behind it.
—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true dimensions.—
Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!