
when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of
honour -- what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people,
with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within
bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken
in these things, - and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended
my sieges in my bowling green, has arose within me, and I hope in the corporal
too, from the consciousness we both had, that in carrying them on, we were
answering the great ends of our creation.
 

                                 Chap. XXXIII.

I told the Christian reader -- I say Christian -- hoping he is one -- and if he
is not, I am sorry for it -- and only beg he will consider the matter with
himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book, --
    I told him, Sir -- for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the
strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going backwards and
forwards to keep all tight together in the reader's fancy -- which, for my own
part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there is so much unfixed
and equivocal matter starting up, with so many breaks and gaps in it, - and so
little service do the stars afford, which, nevertheless, I hang up in some of
the darkest passages, knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all
the lights the sun itself at noon day can give it -- and now, you see, I am lost
myself! --
    -- But 'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be dissected,
you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a large uneven thread,
as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of cambrick, running along the whole
length of the web, and so untowardly, you cannot so much as cut out a * *, (here
I hang up a couple of lights again) -- or a fillet, or a thumbstall, but it is
seen or felt. --
    Quanto id diligentius in liberis procreandis cavendum, sayeth Cardan. All
which being considered, and that you see 'tis morally impracticable for me to
wind this round to where I set out --
    I begin the chapter over again.
 

                                  Chap. XXXIV.

I Told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which preceded my
uncle Toby
