"My uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.  'Go,' says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner time . . . . 'Go,' says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape.  'Go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?  This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.'" 

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1765)

I am not a fractious man.  I say this not to boast, or even because I think it benign, but only as a matter of fact.  What I mean is that I am not, in the ordinary rubs of social life, overly keen to apprise people of my peculiar views and my out of the way opinions.  You could meet me at a dinner party, or talk to me for years over the back fence, and never discover that we do not see exactly eye to eye.Continue reading "Uncle Toby and the Fly"