Now, My Uncle Toby is as much the archetype of guileless good
nature, of affectionate simplicity, as Hamlet is of irresolution,
or Iago of cunning, or Shylock of race-hatred; and he contrives to
preserve all the characteristics of an ideal type amid surroundings of
intensely prosaic realism, with which he himself, moreover, considered
as an individual character in a specific story, is in complete,
accord. If any one be disposed to underrate the creative and dramatic
power to which this testifies, let him consider how it has commonly
fared with those writers of prose fiction who have attempted to
personify a virtue in a man. Take the work of another famous English
humourist and sentimentalist, and compare Uncle Toby's manly and
dignified gentleness of heart with the unreal "gush" of the Brothers
Cheeryble, or the fatuous benevolence of Mr. Pickwick. We do not
believe in the former, and we cannot but despise the latter. But
Captain Shandy is reality itself, within and without; and though
we smile at his naivete, and may even laugh outright at his boyish
enthusiasm for his military hobby, we never cease to respect him for a
moment.
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