Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 8).pdf/20

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In swims Curiosity, beckoning to her damsels to follow—they dive into the centre of the current——

Fancy sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bowsprits—And Desire, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her, with the other——

O ye water-drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn'd this world about like a mill-wheel—grinding the faces of the impotent—be-powdering their ribs—be-peppering their noses, and changing sometimes êven the very frame and face of nature——

—If