Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby⁠⸺⁠and my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby⁠⸺⁠or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

⸺⁠Gracious heaven!⁠⸺⁠but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t’other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her⁠⸺⁠and that she careth not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal nitch where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very centre of the milky-way⁠⸺⁠

Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon someone⁠⸻

⸺⁠The duce take her and her influence too⁠⸺⁠for at that word I lose all patience⁠⸺⁠much good may it do him!⁠⸺⁠By all that is hirsute and gashly! I cry, taking off my furr’d cap, and twisting it round my finger⁠⸺⁠I would not give sixpence for a dozen such!

⸺⁠But ’tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears)⁠—and warm⁠—and soft; especially if you stroke it the right way⁠—but alas! that will never be my luck⁠⸺(so here my philosophy is shipwreck’d again).

⸺⁠No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor)⁠⸺⁠

Crust and Crumb

Inside and out

Top and bottom⁠⸺⁠I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it⁠⸺⁠I’m sick at the sight of it⁠⸺⁠

’Tis all pepper,

garlick,

staragen,

salt, and

devil’s dung⁠⸺⁠by the great arch-cook of cooks, who does nothing, I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fireside and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny.

O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the twelfth chapter.