The Widow Wadman is one of the most famous ladies in English literature. Sterne's strange style reveals her to us in flashes, interspersed with endless digressions. But we gather that for eleven years she thought about Uncle Toby before he thought about her.

' Now as Widow Wadman did love my Uncle Toby, and my Uncle Toby did not love Widow Wadman, there was nothing for Widow Wadman to do but to go on and love my Uncle Toby - or let it alone.

' Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

"She stood, however, ready harnessed and caparisoned at all points, to watch accidents.

The Fates, who certainly all foreknew of these amours of Widow Wadman and my Uncle Toby, had, from the first creation of matter and motion (and with more courtesy than they usually do things of this kind), established such a chain of causes and effects hanging so fast to one another that it was scarce possible for my Uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other garden in Christendom, but the very house and garden which joined and laid parallel to Mrs. Wadman's ; this, with the advantage of a thickset arbour in Mrs.wadman's garden, but planted in the hedgerow of my Uncle Toby's, put all the occasions into her hands which love-militancy wanted; she could observe my Uncle Toby's motions, and was mistress likewise of his councils of war ; and as his unsuspecting heart had given leave to the corporal, through the mediation of Bridget, to make her a wicket-gate of communication to enlarge her walks, it enabled her to carry on her approaches to the very door of the sentry-box ; and sometimes out of gratitude, to make an attack, and endeavour to blow up my Uncle Toby in the very sentry-box itself."

The Widow Wadman And Uncle Toby

Now of all the eyes which ever were created - from your own, madam, up to those of Venus herself .... there never was an eye .... so fitted to rob my Uncle Toby of repose as the very eye at which he was looking " From the painting by R. Leslie Copyright Hanfstaengl

So she plans her campaign, which is to be much interested in his campaigns, which Uncle Toby is for ever remembering with the aid of big military maps. She leans over him as he sits, and ". . . . The world will naturally enter into the reasons of Mrs.wadman's next stroke of generalship - which was to take my Uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe out of his hand as soon as she possibly could ; which, under one pretence or other, but generally that of pointing more distinctly at some redoubt or breastwork in the map, she would effect before my Uncle Toby (poor soul) had well march'd above half a dozen toises with it.

" It obliged my Uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.

The difference it made in the attack was this : that in going upon it, as in the first case, with the end of her forefinger against the end of my Uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, along the lines, from Dan to Beersheba, had my Uncle Toby's lines reached so far, without any effect; for as. there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment - it could neither give fire by pulsation, or receive it by sympathy - 'twas nothing but smoke.

' Whereas, in following my Uncle Toby's forefinger with hers, close through all the little turns and indentings of his works-pressing sometimes against the side of it - then treading upon its nail - then tripping it up - then touching it here - then there," and so on - it set something at least in motion.

" This, though slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest ; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it close to the side of the sentry-box, my Uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation ; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place hers close beside it; this at once opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or repass, which a person skill'd in the elementary and practical part of love-making has occasion for."

• • • •

' ' I am half distracted, Captain Shandy,' said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approach'd the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry-box - ' a mote - or sand - or something - I know not what, has got into this eye of mine - do look into it - it is not in the white.'

" In saying which, Mrs. Wadman wedged herself close beside my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up. ' Do look into it,' said she.

" Honest soul ! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart as ever child look'd into a raree-show-box ; and 'twere as much a sin to have hurt thee.

" .... If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature - l've nothing to say to it.

• " My Uncle Toby never did : and I will answer for him that he would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January .... with an eye as fine as the Thracian Rodope's beside him, without being able to tell whether it was a black or blue one.

" The difficulty was to get my Uncle Toby to look at one at all.

" 'tis surmounted. And " I see him yonder with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes falling out of it - looking - and looking - then rubbing his eyes - and looking again, with twice the good nature that ever Galileo look'd for a spot in the sun.

" In vain ! for by all the powers which animate the organ, Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right - there is neither mote, or sand, or dust, or chaff, or speck, or particle of opake matter floating in it. There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! but one lambent, delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all directions, into thine.

" If thou lookest, Uncle Toby, in search of this mote one moment longer - thou art undone.

" An eye is for all the world exactly like a cannon, in this respect : That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye, and the carriage of the cannon, by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution. I don't think the comparison a bad one. However, as 'tis made, all I desire in return is, that whenever I speak of Mrs. Wadman's eyes (except once in the next period), that you keep it in your fancy.

" ' I protest, madam,' said my Uncle Toby, ' I can see nothing whatever in your eye.'

" ' It is not in the white,' said Mrs. Wadman ; my Uncle Toby look'd with might and main into the pupil.

" Now of all the eyes which ever were created - from your own, madam, up to those of Venus herself. . . . there never was an eye of them all so fitted to rob my Uncle Toby of his repose as the very eye at which he was looking. It was not, madam, a rolling eye - a romping or a wanton one - nor was it an eye sparkling - petulant or imperious - of high claims and terrifying exactions, which would have curdled at once that milk of human nature, of which my ' Uncle Toby was made up - but 'twas an eye full of gentle salutations - and soft responses - speaking - not like the trumpet stop of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to, holds coarse converse - but whispering soft - like the last low accent of an expiring saint - How can you live comfortless, Captain Shandy, and alone, without a bosom to lean your head on - or trust your cares to ?

"It was an eye " But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it.

"It did my Uncle Toby's business."