Widow Wadman Quotes in Tristram Shandy
My uncle Toby’s head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return to this.
This made an armistice (that is speaking with regard to my uncle Toby—but with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)—of almost eleven years. But in all cases of nature, as it is the second blow happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray—I chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.
This is not a distinction without a difference.
It is not like the affair of an old hat cock’d—and a cock’d old hat, about which your reverences have so often been at odds with one another—but there is a difference here in the nature of things—
And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too.
—God bless your honour! cried the Corporal—what has a woman’s compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of Landen, Mrs. Wadman would have troubled her head as little about it as Bridget; because, added the Corporal, lowering his voice and speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason—
“The knee is such a distance from the main body—whereas the groin, your honour knows, is upon the very curtin of the place.”
My uncle Toby gave a long whistle—but in a note which could scarce be heard across the table.
Widow Wadman Quotes in Tristram Shandy
My uncle Toby’s head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return to this.
This made an armistice (that is speaking with regard to my uncle Toby—but with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)—of almost eleven years. But in all cases of nature, as it is the second blow happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray—I chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.
This is not a distinction without a difference.
It is not like the affair of an old hat cock’d—and a cock’d old hat, about which your reverences have so often been at odds with one another—but there is a difference here in the nature of things—
And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too.
—God bless your honour! cried the Corporal—what has a woman’s compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of Landen, Mrs. Wadman would have troubled her head as little about it as Bridget; because, added the Corporal, lowering his voice and speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason—
“The knee is such a distance from the main body—whereas the groin, your honour knows, is upon the very curtin of the place.”
My uncle Toby gave a long whistle—but in a note which could scarce be heard across the table.
