The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

for it is written in a bye corner of the kingdom, and in a retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth;

being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.