 vicissim ad jocos transire.
                                                           Joan. Saresberiensis,
                                                               Episcopus Lugdun.
 

                                    Chap. I.

- »I Wish, Dr. Slop,« quoth my uncle Toby (repeating his wish for Dr. Slop a
second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of
wishing, than he had wished it at first5) --»I wish, Dr. Slop,« quoth my uncle
Toby, »you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders.«
    My uncle Toby's wish did Dr. Slop a disservice which his heart never
intended any man, -- Sir, it confounded him - and thereby putting his ideas
first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for the
soul of him.
    In all disputes, -- male or female, -- whether for honour, for profit or for
love, - it makes no difference in the case; - nothing is more dangerous, madam,
than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner upon a man: the safest way
in general to take off the force of the wish, is, for the party wished at,
instantly to get up upon his legs - and wish the wisher something in return, of
pretty near the same value, -- so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand
as you were - nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.
    This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes. --
    Dr. Slop did not understand the nature of this defence; -- he was puzzled
with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four minutes and a half;
-- five had been fatal to it: - my father saw the danger -- the dispute was one
of the most interesting disputes in the world, »Whether the child of his prayers
and endeavours should be born without a head or with one:« -- he waited to the
last moment to allow Dr. Slop, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of
returning it; but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued
looking with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare
with, -- first in my uncle Toby's face -- then in his -- then up -- then down --
then east -- east and by east, and so on, -- coasting it along by the plinth of
the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the compass, - and that he
had actually begun to count the
