Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 2).pdf/107

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[101]

and the laws of gravity ordered it,—but with the palm of it open and turned towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment, in case it stood in need.

Corporal Trim's eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony with the other parts of him;—he looked frank,—unconstrained,—something assured,—but not bordering upon assurance.

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 modell'd from it;—nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the He-