Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle Toby's courtship of widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love and love-making, that ever was addressed to the world--are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a description of what love is? whether part God and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it----Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be as ten--to determine with Ficinus, 'How many parts of it--the one,--and how many the other;'--or whether it is all of it one great Devil, from head to tail, as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion:--but my opinion of Plato is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of 'em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a herse and six--rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing Cantharidis.--I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out (that is, polemically) to Philagrius--'(Greek)!' O rare! 'tis fine reasoning, Sir indeed!--'(Greek)' and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about it in your moods and passions.
Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire, whether love is a disease,--or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver;--because this would lead me on, to an examination of the two very opposite manners, in which patients have been treated--the one, of Aoetius, who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and bruised cucumbers;--and followed on with thin potations of water-lilies and purslane--to which he added a pinch of snuff, of the herb Hanea;--and where Aoetius durst venture it,--his topaz-ring.
--The other, that of Gordonius, who (in his cap. 15. de Amore) directs they should be thrashed, 'ad putorem usque,'--till they stink again.
These are disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great stock of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my uncle Toby's affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby's mind, almost as much as his amours themselves,)--he took a single step into practice;--and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he produced Gordonius's effect upon my uncle Toby without the disgrace.
What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this--That whatever effect it had upon my uncle Toby,--it had a vile effect upon the house;--and if my uncle Toby had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too.
