Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be showing the relics of learning, as monks do the relics of … - Laurence Sterne

I was at peace with the world before, and this finish’d the treaty with myself.

A white bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to have seen one?
Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one?

Would I have seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)

If I should see a white bear, what should I say?
If I should never see a white bear, what then?

If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever seen the skin of one?
Did I ever see one painted? -Described?

Have I never dreamed of one?

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear?
What would they give?
How would they behave?
How would the white bear have behaved?

Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?

- Is the white bear worth seeing? -

- Is there no sin in it? -

Is it better than a Black One?

Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk — so little to the stock?

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever in the same track — for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning, as monks do the relicks of their saints — without working one — one single miracle with them?