Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 5).pdf/39

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evolutions, they fall back."—Brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, laying down his pipe at the word evolutions—Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father,—by heaven! I meant revolutions, brother Toby—evolutions is nonsense.—'Tis not nonsense—said my uncle Toby.—But is it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse, upon such an occasion? cried my father—do not—dear Toby, continued he, taking him by the hand, do not—do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.—My uncle Toby put his pipe into his mouth.

"Where is Troy and Mycenæ, and Thebes and Delos, and Persepolis, and Agrigentum"—continued my father, taking up his book of post-roads, which he had laid down.—"What is become, brother Toby, of Nineveh and Babylon, of Cizicum and Mitylenæ? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more: the names only are left,"and