Trim

“ Let not the critic ask how Corporal Trim could come by all this.—I've told him it should be explained;—but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and Dr. Slop,—so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure,—a statuary might have modelled from it;—nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it.
Trim made a bow, and read as follows:
The Sermon.
Hebrews xiii. 18.
—For we trust we have a good Conscience. ”

“ Trim, though vain as we have seen, was not like those young men who, being assured of an independence, spend their youth in idle trifling, and consider all serious application as pedantic and derogatory, or at least to be useless; he was, on the contrary, animated with a noble zeal for the improvement of his faculties. ”

“ Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low bow—Two misfortunes, quoth the corporal to himself, are twice as many at least as are needful to be talked over at one time,—the mischief the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his honour hereafter—Trim's casuistry and address, under the cover of his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle Toby, so he went on with what he had to say to Trim as follows. ”

“ I would not read another line of it, quoth Trim for all this world;—I fear, an’ please your Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother Tom is. I tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, ’tis not an historical account,—’tis a description.—’Tis only a description, honest man, quoth Slop, there’s not a word of truth in it.——That’s another story, replied my father.—However, as Trim reads it with so much concern,—’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.—Give me hold of the sermon, Trim,—I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st go. ”

“ Oh! 'tis my brother, cried poor Trim in a most passionate exclamation, dropping the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his hands together—I fear 'tis poor Tom. My father's and my uncle Toby's heart yearned with sympathy for the poor fellow's distress; even Slop himself acknowledged pity for him.—Why, Trim, said my father, this is not a history,—'tis a sermon thou art reading ”

“ Whether after this Trim intends to rally a second Time,—or whether Trim may not take it into his Head to claim the Vic­tory,—no one but Trim himself can inform you:—However, the general Opi­nion, upon the whole, is this,—That, in three several pitch'd Battles, Trim has been so trimm'd, as never disastrous Hero was trimm'd before him. ”

“ I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal Trim's character,— and it is the only dark line in it.—The fellow lov'd to advise,—or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going,—you had no hold of him;—he was voluble;—the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his elocution,—that tho' you might have been incommoded,—you could not well be angry. ”

“ I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so full.—That was the very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in what they deliver as deeply as this poor fellow has done,—as their compositions are fine;— [I deny it, quoth Dr. Slop] —I maintain it,—that the eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole world:——But alas! ”

“ Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.—Aye, Aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,——these are but sorry fortifications, Trim.———O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your Honour and I make of it.——The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us, a man’s conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,——three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. ”

“ Trim had one day missed a fine morsel from the hungry activity of one of the young gentlemen who dined in the gunroom. Seeing him, however, talking and eating at the same time, my persevering gentle-man did not give it up, though the piece was half masticated and only waited for a period to disappear; but running up the waistcoat of our unsuspecting guest, for Trim was but then a kitten, and placing one paw at each corner of his mouth, he laid vigorous siege to his morsel; and whilst the astonished midshipman inarticulately exclaimed "G--d d--n the cat!" ”

“ How many men are there, who have no claim either from birth, fortune, or acquirements, personal or mental, whose vanity is not to be confined within such harmless bounds, as was that of Trim! And I will say for him, that he never spoke ill of or objected to the pretensions of others, which is more than can be said for very many bipeds. ”

“ Then, thank God,——he is dead, quoth Trim,—he is out of his pain,—and they have done their worst at him.—O Sirs!—Hold your peace, Trim, said my father, going on with the sermon, lest Trim should incense Dr. ”

“ THERE was, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, raising his voice and rubbing the palms of his two hands cheerily together as he begun, a certain king of Bohemia——
——Leave out the date entirely, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaning forwards, and laying his hand gently upon the corporal’s shoulder to temper the interruption—leave it out entirely, Trim; a story passes very well without these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of ’em——Sure of ’em! ”

“ Finding at length that nature had not designed him for an astronomer, Trim had too much good sense to continue a useless pursuit; but a musket ball slung with a piece of twine, and made to whirl round upon the deck by a slight motion of the finger, never failed to attract his notice, and to give him pleasure ”

“ After a moment of reflection, Trim said to the interpreter:
“Tell him that it is very important for the white traveler to go on to the west; it would be impossible for him to turn back, even if by going on he should go to certain death. ”

“ We had a fat, foolish scullion—my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity;—she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.—He is dead, said Obadiah,—he is certainly dead!—So am not I, said the foolish scullion.
——Here is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp’d into the kitchen,—master Bobby is dead and buried—the funeral was an interpolation of Susannah’s—we shall have all to go into mourning, said Susannah. ”

“ Thereupon Trim, thwarted in one direction, endeavoured to rob his neighbour Lorry Slim, ‘an unlucky wight,’ of a threadbare pair of black plush breeches. The sketch ends with Trim's signal humiliation. Much of the jesting is coarse, but throughout Sterne gave proofs of his capacity as a literary artist in humour. In its general tone it adumbrates many characteristic features of ‘Tristram Shandy.’ The name Trim Sterne transferred to his novel unaltered. ”

“ —The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle Toby.—And the greatest cowards, an' please your honour, in our regiment, were the greatest rascals in it.—There was serjeant Kumber, and ensign—
—We'll talk of them, said my father, another time. ”

“ According to Sterne's sketch, Trim was detected in carrying home ‘the warm watch-coat’ which was parish property, and was held by him in right only of his office of sexton. But the parish clerk came upon Trim just in time to prevent him from cutting out of the parochial garment an under-petticoat for his wife and a jerkin for himself. ”

“ My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries to the end of Trim’s story; and from thence to the end of my uncle Toby’s panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, that instead of marching up to Mrs. Wadman’s door, they both faced about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his expectation—he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of humour, which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from that of all other men. ”

“ I'll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal, directly—Provided, said my uncle Toby, looking earnestly towards Dunkirk and the mole again—provided it is not a merry one; to such, Trim, a man should ever bring one half of the entertainment along with him ”

“ Nicolas;——the idea of which drew off his attention so entirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand to the bell to ring up Trim to go and fetch his map of Namur, and his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the returning angles of the traverses of that attack,—but particularly of that one, where he received his wound upon his groin.
My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his body seemed to rush up into his face——my uncle Toby dismounted immediately. ”

“ I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all. I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it. Are you sure of it? replied the curate. A soldier, an' please your reverence, said I, prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world. 'Twas well said of thee, Trim, said my Uncle Toby. ”

“ The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit 264 and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.
The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to heaven thou had’st a better historian!—would thy historian had a better pair of breeches!——O ye critics! will nothing melt you? ”

“ The interpreter spoke as directed, and the elder after listening gravely replied:
“He says,” translated the interpreter, “that he admires the white traveler and does not wish him to come to harm; he thinks, therefore, that the white traveler had better face to the rising sun and so escape.
“He assures you that if you do so no one of his warriors will be permitted to touch you.”
“Tell him,” said Trim, sternly, “that the white traveler proposes to go toward the setting sun, and that there must be no delay about it.” ”

“ Scarce were the Words out of his Mouth, when in pops Trim with the whole Subject of the Exclamation under both his Arms.—I say, under both his Arms;—for he had actually got it ripp’d and cut out ready, his own Jerkin under one Arm, and the Petticoat under the other, in order to be carried to the Taylor to be made up,—and had just stepp’d in, in high Spirits, to shew the Parson how cleverly it had held out. ”

“ When things move upon bad hinges, an' please your lordships, how can it be otherwise?
Pray what's the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the moment the door began to creak.—I wish the smith would give a peep at that confounded hinge.—'Tis nothing, an' please your honour, said Trim, but two mortars I am bringing in.—They shan't make a clatter with them here, cried my father hastily.—If Dr. ”

“ Never in my whole world’s existence have I come upon anybody who was able to answer his own prayers about himself, and about other people, with such conviction, avidity, and enthusiasm as Mr. Trimblerigg. ”

“ Trimm became the primitive man. He was filled with those elemental emotions that make a man see in spatters of crimson. Gathering strength from passion out of an exhausted frame, he sprang forward at the tramp. He struck at him with his head, his shoulders, his knees, his manacled wrists, all at once. ”

“ Bridget our fortifications, and in going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in——Very well, Trim! my father would cry—— (smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod—but without interrupting him) ——and being 152 link’d fast, an’ please your honour, arm in arm with Mrs. ”

“ It may well be that when human nature appears, to those whose business is to understand it, most unexpected and incalculable, is the very time when it is or ought to be most instructive to eyes which are open. And certainly at this preliminary period—before I got accustomed to him—Mr. Trimblerigg did make me open my eyes wider and wider, till he got me to the point when nothing that he did surprised me. ”

“ A malignant growth so close to the brain that at her age an operation was too serious a risk, and without it she might linger in agony for months,—this was what life had been holding in store for Trimmer during those long years of incessant toil, and self-sacrifice, and obstinate belief that a drunken husband, a selfish brother, an empty purse, were all for the best in our best of all possible worlds. ”

“ Seated in the lobby of the De la Pax on Sunday morning, Mr. Trimmer turned a disapproving eye upon the lank Englishman at his side as he made this query. And his question was not without good foundation. For the aspirant to the title of Lord Harrowby was at the moment a jelly quaking with fear.
"Fawncy meeting you after all these years," said poor old George in an uncertain treble.
"Come, come," cried Mr. Trimmer, "put a little more authority into your voice. You can't walk up and claim your rights with your knees dancing the tango. This is the moment we've been looking forward to. ”