 this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was
delivered in the parlour, - or a discourse suspended till a servant went out -
or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or
mother - or, in short, when any thing was supposed to be upon the tapis worth
knowing or listening to, 'twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut,
but somewhat a-jar - as it stands just now, - which, under covert of the bad
hinge, (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never
mended) it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a
passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the Dardanells, but wide
enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this windward trade, as was
sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house; - my mother at
this moment stands profiting by it. - Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he
had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brother's death;
so that before my father had well got over his surprize, and entered upon his
harangue, - had Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the
subject.
    A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Job's
stock - though, by the bye, your curious observers are seldom worth a groat -
would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim and my father, two
orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier.
    My father a man of deep reading - prompt memory - with Cato, and Seneca, and
Epictetus, at his fingers ends. -
    The corporal - with nothing - to remember - of no deeper reading than his
muster-roll - or greater names at his finger's end, than the contents of it.
    The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and
striking the fancy as he went along, (as men of wit and fancy do) with the
entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.
    The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that;
but leaving the images on one side, and the pictures on the other, going strait
forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to heaven thou
had'st a better historian! - would! - thy historian had a better pair of
breeches! --
