I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once, for without much reading, by which your reverence knows, I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unraval the many opinions, transactions and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.
Sterne’s printers made sure that every edition of the book used a different pattern for the Marbled Page, allowing the “motly emblem” to change over time. (Unfortunately, modern editions of the book usually reprint the same marbling in black and white.)
(Source: Boston.com)
