Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer drives on his mule,--straight forward;-----for instance, from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once turning his head aside either to the right hand or to the left,--he might venture to foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey's end;-----but the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: for if he is a man of the least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways avoid.
from Chapter XIV of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
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