 in the family at first, - as is generally the case: - But nothing
ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time
this happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as afflictions
are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done the SHANDY FAMILY
any good at all, it might lye waiting till apt times and circumstances should
give it an opportunity to discharge its office. -- Observe, I determine nothing
upon this. -- My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of
investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell; - not with a
pedantic Fescue, - or in the decisive Manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and
his reader; - but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the
assistance merely of the inquisitive; - to them I write, -- and by them I shall
be read, -- if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long,
to the very end of the world.
    Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and
uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself,
so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to
operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows:
    My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which
usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude, -possessed
one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue;
and that was a most extream and unparallel'd modesty of nature; -- tho' I
correct the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which
must shortly come to a hearing; and that is, Whether this modesty of his was
natural or acquir'd. -- Which ever way my uncle Toby came by it, 'twas
nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in
regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them, -
but to things; -- and this kind of modesty so possess'd him, and it arose to
such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the
modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind
and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much
