 - Whitsontide! alas!
cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same
attitude in which he read the sermon, - what is Whitsontide, Jonathan, (for that
was the coachman's name) or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this? Are
we not here now, continued the corporal, (striking the end of his stick
perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability) -
and are we not - (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment! - 'Twas
infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears. - We are not stocks
and stones. - Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. - The foolish fat
scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous'd with
it. - The whole kitchen crouded about the corporal.
    Now as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in
church and state, - and possibly the preservation of the whole world - or what
is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power, may
in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of
the corporal's eloquence - I do demand your attention, - your worships and
reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in any other
part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.
    I said, »we were not stocks and stones« - 'tis very well. I should have
added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, - but men cloathed with bodies, and
governed by our imaginations; - and what a junketting piece of work of it there
is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own
part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all
the senses, the eye, (for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your
Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul, - gives a
smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than
words can either convey - or sometimes get rid of.
    - I've gone a little about - no matter, 'tis for health - let us only carry
it back in our mind to the mortality of Trim's hat. - »Are we not here now, -
and gone in a moment?« - There was nothing in the sentence - 'twas
