Chapter C: H a P. LXXIII

AS I never had any intention of beginning the Digression, I am making all this preparation for, till I come to the 74th chapter——I have this chapter to put to whatever use I think proper——I have twenty this moment ready for it——I could write my chapter of Button-holes in it——

Or my chapter of _Pishes_, which should follow them——

Or my chapter of _Knots_, in case their reverences have done with them——they might lead me into mischief: the safest way is to follow the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been writing, tho’ I declare before-hand, I know no more than my heels how to answer them.

And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of _thersitical_ satire, as black as the very ink ’tis wrote with——(and by the bye, whoever says so, is indebted to the muster-master general of the _Grecian_ army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouth’d a man as _Thersites_ to continue upon his roll——for it has furnish’d him with an epithet)——in these productions he will urge, all the personal washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of good——but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is, the better generally he succeeds in it.

To this, I have no other answer——at least ready——but that the Archbishop of _Benevento_ wrote his _nasty_ Romance of the _Galatea_, as all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the book of the _Revelations_, as severe as it was look’d upon by one part of the world, was far from being deem’d so, by the other, upon the single account of that _Investment._

Another objection, to all this remedy, is its want of universality; forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid, by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species entirely from its use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether of _England_, or of _France_, must e’en go without it——

As for the _Spanish_ ladies——I am in no sort of distress——

C H A P. LXXIV

THE seventy-fourth chapter is come at last; and brings nothing with it but a sad signature of “How our pleasures slip from under us in this world!”

For in talking of my digression——I declare before heaven I have made it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.

’Tis very true, said I——but ’twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle _Toby._