Narrating his father’s reactions to the news of his brother’s death, the redoubtable Tristram Shandy records some episodes remarkable revealing of human frailty.
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, v.5, Ch.III
When Tully was bereft of his dear daugher Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart,�he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it.�O my Tullia!�my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.�But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion�no body upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.
[A little later, having been diverted from the steady course of his narrative]
Now let us go back to my brother’s death.
[And the moving and immortal close of the chapter, introduced in his father’s words:]
�Vespasian died in a jest upon his close stool�Galba with a sentence�Septimius Severus in a dispatch�Tiberius in dissimulation, and C�sar Augustus in a compliment.�I hope, ’twas a sincere one�quoth my uncle Toby.
�‘Twas to his wife,�said my father.
But really there is no substitute: the whole admirable chapter must be read.