Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 2).pdf/54

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[48]

One Word which would have improved it.

If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period's end,—then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis.—Just Heaven! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists;—the insensible more or less, determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-stick, et cætera,—give the true swell, which gives the true pleasure!—O my countrymen!—be nice;—be cautious of your language;—and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon whatsmall