Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Excerpt

. . . to understand how my Uncle Toby could mistake the bridge - I fear I must give you an exact
account of the road which led to it; - or to drop my metaphor, (for there is nothing more dishonest in
an historian than the use of one,) - in order to conceive the probability of this error in my Uncle Toby
aright, I must give you some account of an adventure of Trim’s, though much against my will. I say
much against my will, only because the story, in one sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by
right it should come in, either among the anecdotes of my uncle Toby’s amours with widow
Wadman, in which Corporal Trim was no mean actor, - or else in the middle of his and my uncle
Toby’s campaigns on the bowling-green, - for it will do very well in either place; but then if I reserve
it for either of those parts of my story, - I ruin the story I’m upon; - and if I tell it here - I anticipate
matters, and ruin it there. - What would your worships have me to do in this case? - Tell it, Mr.
Shandy, by all means. - You are a fool, Tristram, if you do.

O ye POWERS! (for powers ye are, and great ones too) - which enable mortal man to tell a story
worth hearing - that kindly shew him, where he is to begin it - what he is to put into it - and what he
is to leave out - how much of it he is to cast into the shade, - and whereabouts he is to throw his
light! - Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes
and plunges your subjects hourly fall into; - will you do one thing?

I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that wherever in any part of your
dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here -
that at least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity to direct an uncertain
devil which of the three he is to take.