The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother, -- he consulted Albertus Rubenius upon it; and Albertus Rubenius used my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my father had used my mother: For as Rubenius had wrote a quarto express, De re Vestiaria Veterum, -- it was Rubenius's business to have given my father some lights.

-- On the contrary, my father might as well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long beard, -- as of extracting a single word out of Rubenius upon the subject.