I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud, which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often to succeed, and by the success of which no advantage could have been obtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; and of claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with the breath that paid them. But, Mr Adventurer, let not those who laugh at me and my companions, think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journey of life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears those {76} praises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him for accepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceiving others; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shall cease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and all must be shown to all in their real estate. I am, Sir, Your humble servant, VIATOR. (_The Adventurer_.) LAURENCE STERNE 1713-1768 HOW UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM FOLLOWED MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle Toby's kitchen-garden, and which was the scene of so many of his delicious hours,--the fault is not in me,--but in his imagination;--for I am sure I gave him so minute a description, I was almost ashamed of it. When _Fate_ was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great transactions of future times,--and recollected for what purposes this little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined,--she gave a nod to _Nature_:--'twas enough,--Nature threw half a spadeful of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so _much_ clay in {77} it as to retain the forms of angles and indenting,--and so _little_ of it too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works of so much glory, nasty in foul weather. My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans along with him, of almost every fortified town in Italy and Flanders; so let the Duke of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before what town they pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared for them.