It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one....

We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them

—for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her,—or (as circumstances directed), he would shake her by the hand,—or ask her lovingly how she did,—or would give her a ribban,—and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a—

Let love therefore be what it will, my Uncle Toby fell into it—And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than widow Wadman.