; -- I'll not hurt
thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with
the fly in his hand, -- I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: - Go, says he, lifting
up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; - go poor
Devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? -- This world surely is wide
enough to hold both thee and me.
    I was but ten years old when this happened; -- but whether it was, that the
action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which
instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasureable sensation;
- or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it; -- or in what
degree, or by what secret magick, -- a tone of voice and harmony of movement,
attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not; - this I know,
that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle
Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate
what the study of the Literæ humaniores, at the university, have done for me in
that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed
upon me, both at home and abroad since; - yet I often think that I owe one half
of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.
    This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon
the subject.
    I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle Toby's picture, by the
instrument with which I drew the other parts of it, -- that taking in no more
than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness; -- this is a part of his moral character.
My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I mention, was very
different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he had a much more acute and
quick sensibility of nature, attended with a little soreness of temper; tho'
this never transported him to any thing which looked like malignancy; -- yet, in
the little rubs and vexations of life, 'twas apt to shew itself in a drollish
and witty kind of peevishness: -- He was, however, frank and generous in his
nature; -- at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of
this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards
