Explore "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" by Laurence Sterne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
-- -- What a conjecture was here lost! -- -- -My father in one of his best explanatory moods -- in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about; -- my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world; -- his head like a smoak-jack; -- -- -the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter! -- By the tombstone of Lucian -- -- -if it is in being -- -- -if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes! -- -- -- my father and my uncle Toby's discourse upon time and eternity -- -- -was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father's humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.