 CHAPTER XI. The narrow escape of Mollie Seagram, with some observations for which we have been forced to dive pretty deep into nature. Tom Jones had ridden one of Mr. Western's horses that morning in the chase, so that having no horse of his own in the squire's stable, he was obliged to go home on foot. This he did so expeditiously that he ran upwards of three miles within the half-hour. Just as he arrived at Mr. Allworthy's outward gate, he met the constable and company with Mollie in their possession, whom they were conducting to that house where the inferior sort of people may learn one good lesson, vis, respect, and deference to their superiors, since it must show them the wide distinction fortune intends between those persons who are to be corrected for their faults and those who are not. Which lesson, if they do not learn, I am afraid they very rarely learn any other good lesson, or improve their morals at the house of correction. A lawyer may perhaps think Mr. Allworthy exceeded his authority a little in this instance, and, to say the truth, I question, as here was no regular information before him whether his conduct was strictly regular. However, as his intention was truly upright, he ought to be excused in foro conscientiae, since so many arbitrary acts are daily committed by magistrates who have not this excuse to plead for themselves. Tom was no sooner informed by the constable whether they were proceeding, indeed he pretty well guessed it of himself, than he caught Mollie in his arms, and embracing her tenderly before them all, swore he would murder the first man who offered to lay hold of her. He bid her dry her eyes and be comforted, for wherever she went he would accompany her. Then turning to the constable, who stood trembling with his hat off, he desired him in a very mild voice to return with him for a moment only to his father, for so he now called Allworthy, for he durst he said be assured that when he had alleged what he had to say in her favour the girl would be discharged. The constable, who I make no doubt, would have surrendered his prisoner had Tom demanded her, very readily consented to this request. So back they all went into Mr Allworthy's hall, where Tom desired them to stay till his return, and then went himself in pursuit of the good man. As soon as he was found, Tom threw himself at his feet, and having begged a patient hearing, confessed himself to be the father of the child of which Mollie was then big. He entreated him to have compassion on the poor girl, and to consider, if there was any guilt in the case, it lay principally at his door. If there was any guilt in the case, answered Allworthy warmly, are you then so profligate and abandoned and libertine to doubt whether the breaking the laws of God and man, the corrupting and ruining a poor girl be guilt? I own indeed it doth lie principally upon you, and so heavy it is that you ought to expect it should crush you. Whatever may be my fate, says Tom, let me succeed in my intercessions for the poor girl. I confess I have corrupted her, but whether she should be ruined depends on you. For heaven sakes her, revoke your warrant, and do not send her to a place which must unavoidably prove her destruction. Allworthy bid him immediately call a servant. Tom answered there was no occasion, for he had luckily met them at the gate, and relying upon his goodness had brought them all back into his hall, where they now waited his final resolution, which upon his knees he besought him might be in favour of the girl, that she might be permitted to go home to her parents and not be exposed to a greater degree of shame and scorn than must necessarily fall upon her. I know, said he, that is too much. I know I am the wicked occasion of it. I will endeavour to make amends, if possible, and if you shall have hereafter the goodness to forgive me, I hope I shall deserve it. Allworthy hesitated some time, and at last said, Well, I will discharge my mitimus. You may send the constable to me. He was instantly called, discharged, and so was the girl. It will be believed that Mr. Allworthy failed not to read Tom a very severe lecture on this occasion, but it is unnecessary to insert it here, as we have faithfully transcribed what he said to Jenny Jones in the first book, most of which may be applied to the men, equally with the women. So sensible in effect had these reproofs on the young man, who was no hardened sinner, that he retired to his own broom, where he passed the evening alone in much melancholy contemplation. Allworthy was sufficiently offended by this transgression of Jones, for not withstanding the assertions of Mr. Weston, it is certain this worthy man had never indulged himself in any loose pleasures with women, and greatly condemned the vice of incontinence in others. Indeed, there is much reason to imagine that there was not the least truth in what Mr. Weston affirmed, especially as he laid the scene of those impurities at the university where Mr. Allworthy had never been. In fact, the Good Squire was a little too apt to indulge that kind of pleasantry which is generally called Rottermontard, but which may, with as much propriety, be expressed by much shorter word, and perhaps we too often supply the use of this little monosyllable by others, since very much of what frequently passes in the world for wit and humour, showed in the strictest purity of language, received that short appellation, which, in conformity to the well-bred laws of custom, I here suppress. But whatever detestation Mr. Allworthy had to this or to any other vice, he was not so blinded by it that he could discern any virtue in the guilty person, as clearly indeed as if there had been no mixture of vice in the same character. While he was angry, therefore, with the incontinence of Jones, he was no less pleased with the honour and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind the same opinion of this young fellow which, we hope, our reader may have conceived, and in balancing his faults with his perfections, the latter seemed rather to preponder it. It was to no purpose, therefore, that Swackham, who was immediately charged by Mr. Bliffle with the story, unbended all his rancour against poor Tom. Allworthy gave a patient hearing to the invectives, and then answered coldly, that young men of Tom's complexion were too generally addicted to this vice, but he believed that youth was sincerely affected with what he had said to him on the occasion, and he hoped he would not transgress again. So that as the days of whipping were at the end, the Tudor had no other vent but his own mouth for his gall, the usual poor resource of impotent revenge. It's Square, who was a less violent, was a much more artful man, and as he hated Jones perhaps more than Swackham himself did, so he contrived to do him more mischief in the mind of Mr. Allworthy. The reader must remember the several little incidents of the partridge, the horse, and the Bible, which were recounted in the second book, by all which Jones had rather improved than injured the affection which Mr. Allworthy was inclined to entertain for him. The same, I believe, must have happened to him with every other person who hath any idea of friendship, generosity, and greatness of spirit, that is to say, who hath any traces of goodness in his mind. Square himself was not unacquainted with the true impression which those several instances of goodness had made on the excellent heart of Allworthy, for the philosopher very well knew what virtue was, though he was not always perhaps steady in its pursuit. But as for Swackham, from what reason I will not determine, no such thoughts ever entered into his head. He saw Jones in a bad light, and he imagined Allworthy saw him in the same, but that he was resolved from pride and stubbornness of spirit not to give up the boy whom he had once cherished, since by so doing he must tacitly acknowledge that his former opinion of him had been wrong. Square therefore embraced this opportunity of injuring Jones in the tenderest part, by giving a very bad turn to all these before-mentioned occurrences. I am sorry, sir, said he, to own I have been deceived as well as yourself. I could not, I confess, help being pleased with what I ascribed to the motive of friendship, though it was carried to an excess, and all excess is faulty and vicious. But in this I made allowance for youth. Little did I suspect that the sacrifice of truth which we both imagined to have been made to friendship was, in reality, a prostitution of it to a depraved and debauched appetite. You will now plainly see whence all the seeming generosity of this young man to the family of the gamekeeper proceeded. He supported the father in order to corrupt the daughter, and preserved the family from starving to bring one of them to shame and ruin. This is friendship, this is generosity. As Sir Richard Steele says, gluttons who give high prices for delicacies are very worthy to be called generous. In short, I am resolved, from this instance, never to give way to the weakness of human nature more, nor to think anything virtue would not exactly co-drate with an airing rule of right. The goodness of all worthy had prevented these considerations from occurring to himself. Yet were they too plausible to be absolutely and hastily rejected when laid before his eyes by another. Indeed, what Square had said sunk very deeply into his mind, and the uneasiness which it created was very visible to the other, though the good man would not acknowledge this, but made a very slight answer, and forcibly drove off the discourse to some other subject. It was well perhaps for poor Tom that no such suggestions had been made before he was pardoned, for they certainly stamped in the mind of all worthy the first bad impression concerning Jones. Chapter 12. Concerning much clearer matters but which flowed from the same fountain with those in the preceding chapter. The reader will be pleased, I believe, to return with me to Sophia. She passed the night after we saw her last in no very agreeable manner. Sleep befriended her but little, and dreams less. In the morning when Mrs. Honour her maid attended her at the usual hour, she was found already up and dressed. Menace who live two or three miles distance in the country are considered as next-all neighbours, and transactions at the one house fly with incredible celerity to the other. Mrs. Honour, therefore, had heard the whole story of Molly's shame, which she, being of a very communicative temper, had no sooner entered the apartment of her mistress, than she began to relate in the following manner. La mam, what doth your layship think? The girl at your layship saw at church on Sunday whom you thought so handsome, though you would not have thought her so handsome either, if you had seen her from nearer, but to be sure she hath been carried before the justice for being big with child. She seemed to me to look a confident slut, and to be sure she hath laid the child to young Mr. Jones. And all the parish says, Mr. Alweather, he's so angry with young Jones, that you won't see him. To be sure one can't help pitying the poor young man, and yet he doth not deserve much pity neither for demeaning himself with such kind of trumpery. Yes, he is so pretty a gentleman. I should be sorry to haven't turned out I dares to swear the wench was as willing as he, for she was always a forward kind of body. And when wenches are so coming, young men are not to be blamed neither. For to be sure they knew no more than what is natural. Indeed, it is beneath them to meddle with such dirty dragletales, and whatever happens to them is good enough for them. And yet, to be sure, the vile baggages are most in fault. I wishes, with all my art, they were well to be whipped at the cart's tail, for it is a pity they should be the ruin of a pretty young gentleman, and nobody can deny but that Mr. Jones is one of the answer-missed young men that ever. She was running on thus when Sophia, with a more peevish voice than she had ever spoken to her in before, cried, Prithee, why dost thou trouble me with all this stuff? What concern have I in what Mr. Jones doth? I suppose you are all alike, and you seem to me to be angry it was not your own case. Aye, ma'am! answered Mrs. Honour, I am sorry your ladyship should have such an opinion of me. I am sure nobody can say any such thing of me. All the young fellows in the world may go at the devil for me, because I said he was a handsome man. Everyone says it as well as I. To be sure, I never thought it was any harm to see a young man was handsome, but to be sure I shall never think him so any more now, for handsome is that handsome does a beggar wench. Stop thy torrent of impertinence, cries Sophia, and see whether my father wants to meet breakfast. Mrs. Honour then flung out of the room, muttering much to herself, of which Mary come up by assure you was all that could plainly be distinguished. Wither Mrs. Honour really deserved that suspicion of which her mistress gave her a hint, is a matter which we cannot indulge our readers' curiosity by resolving. We will, however, make him a man's in disclosing what passed in the mind of Sophia. The reader will be pleased to recollect that a secret affection for Mr. Jones had insensibly stolen as the bosom of this young lady, that it had there grown to a pretty great height before she herself had discovered it. When she first began to perceive its symptoms, the sensations were so sweet and pleasing that she had not resolution sufficient to check or repel them, and thus she went on cherishing a passion of which she never once considered the consequences. This incident relating to Molly first opened her eyes. She now first perceived the weakness of which she had been guilty, and though it caused the utmost perturbation in her mind, yet it had the effect of other nauseous physics, and to the time expelled her distemper. Its operation, indeed, was most wonderfully quick, and in the short interval, while her maid was absent, so entirely removed all her symptoms, that when Mrs. Honour returned with a summons from her father, she was become perfectly easy, and had brought herself to a thorough indifference for Mr. Jones. The diseases of the mind do in almost every particular imitate those of the body, for which reason we hope that learned faculty, for whom we have so profound a respect, will pardon us the violent hands we have been necessitated to lay on several words and phrases, which of right belong to them, and without which our descriptions must have been often unintelligible. Now there is no one circumstance in which the distempers of the mind bear a more exact analogy to those which are called bodily than that aptness which both have to a relapse. This is plain in the violent diseases of ambition and avarice. I have known ambition, when cured at court by frequent disappointments, which are the only physics for it, to break out again in a contest for foreman of the grand jury at an ascises, and have heard of a man who had so far conquered avarice as to give away many a sixpence that comforted himself at last on his deathbed by making a crafty and advantageous bargain concerning his ensuing funeral with an undertaker who had married his only child. To the affair of love which out of strict conformity with the stoic philosophy we shall hear treat as a disease, this proneness to relapse is no less conspicuous. Thus it happened to poor Sophia, upon whom the very next time she saw young Jones, all the former symptoms returned, and from that time cold and hot fits ultimately seized her heart. The situation of this young lady was now very different from what it had ever been before. That passion which had formerly been so exquisitely delicious became now a scorpion in her bosom. She resisted it, therefore, with her utmost force, and summoned every argument her reason, which was surprisingly strong for her age, could suggest to subdue and expel it. In this she so far succeeded that she began to hope from time in absence a perfect cure. She resolved, therefore, to avoid Tom Jones as much as possible, for which purpose she began to conceive a design of visiting her aunt, to which she made no doubt of obtaining her father's consent. But Fortune, who had other designs in her head, put an immediate stop to any such proceeding by introducing an accident which will be related in the next chapter. Chapter 13 A dreadful accident which befell Sophia, the gallant behaviour of Jones, and the more dreadful consequence of that behaviour to the young lady, with a short digression in favour of the female sex. Mr. Weston grew every day fonder and fonder of Sophia, in so much that his beloved dogs themselves almost gave place to her in his affections. But as he could not prevail on himself to abandon these, he contrived very cunningly to enjoy their company, together with that of his daughter, by insisting on her riding a hunting with him. Sophia, to whom her father's word was a law, readily complied with his desires, though she had not the least delight in a sport which was of too rough and masculine nature to suit with her disposition. She had, however, another motive beside her obedience to accompany of the old gentleman in the chase. For by her presence she hoped in some measure to restrain his impetuosity and to prevent him from so frequently exposing his neck to the utmost hazard. The strongest objection was that which would have formally been an inducement to her, namely the frequent meeting with young Jones, whom she had determined to avoid. But as the end of the hunting season now approached, she hoped by short absence with her aunt to reason herself entirely out of her unfortunate passion, and had not any doubt of being able to meet him in the field the subsequent season without the least danger. On the second day of her hunting, as she was returning from the chase, and was arrived within a little distance from Mr. Weston's house, her horse, whose metalsome spirit required a better rider, fell suddenly to prancing and capering in such a manner that she was in the most imminent peril of falling. Tom Jones, who was at a little distance behind, saw this, and immediately galloped up to her assistance. As soon as he came up, he leapt from his own horse, and caught hold of hers by the bridle. The unruly beast presently reared himself an end of his hind legs, and threw his lovely boathen from his back, and Tom Jones caught her in his arms. She was so affected with the fright that she was not immediately able to satisfy Jones, who was very solicitous to know whether she had received any hurt. She soon after, however, recovered her spirits, assured him she was safe, and thanked him for the care he had taken of her. Jones answered, If I have reserved you, madam, I am sufficiently repaid, for I promise you I would have secured you from the least harm at the expense of a much greater misfortune to myself than I have suffered on this occasion. What misfortune? replied Sophia eagerly. I hope you have come to no mischief. Be not concerned, madam, answered Jones. Heaven be praised, you have escaped so well, considering the danger you was in. If I have broke my arm, I consider it as a trifle in comparison of what I feared upon your account. Sophia then screamed out, Broke your arm, heaven forbid! I am afraid I have, madam, says Jones, but I beg you will suffer me first to take care of you. I have a right hand yet at your service to help you into the next field, whence we have but a very little walk to your father's house. Sophia, seeing his left arm dangling by his side, while he was using the other to lead her, no longer doubted of the truth. She now grew much paler than her fears for herself had made her before. All her limbs were seized with a trembling, in so much that Jones could scare support her, and as her thoughts were in no less agitation, she could not refrain from giving Jones a look so full of tenderness that it almost argued a stronger sensation in her mind than even gratitude and pity united can raise in the gentlest female bosom without the assistance of a third, more powerful passion. Mr Weston, who was advanced at some distance when this accident happened, was now returned, as were the rest of the horsemen. Sophia immediately acquainted them with what had befallen Jones, and begged them to take care of him. Upon which Weston, who had been much alarmed by meeting his daughter's horse without its rider, was now overjoyed to find her unhurt, cried out, I am glad it is no worse. If Talmouth broken his arm, we will get a joiner to mend it again. The squire alighted from his horse, and proceeded to his house on foot with his daughter and Jones. An impartial spectator who had met them on the way, word on viewing their several countenances, have concluded Sophia alone to have been the object of compassion. For as to Jones, he exalted in having probably saved the life of the young lady, at the price only of a broken bone, and Mr Weston, though he was not unconcerned at the accident which had befallen Jones, was, however, delighted in a much higher degree give the fortunate escape of his daughter. The generosity of Sophia's temper constrewed this behaviour of Jones into great bravery, and had made a deep impression on her heart, for certain it is that there is no one quality which so generally recommends men to woman as this. Proceeding, if we believe the common opinion from that natural timidity of the sex, which is, says Mr Osborne, so great, that a woman is the most cowardly of all the creatures God ever made, a sentiment more remarkable for its bluntness than for its truth. Aristotle and his politics, doth them, I believe, more justice when he says, The modesty and fortitude of men differ from those virtues in women, for the fortitude which becomes a woman would be cowardice in a man, and the modesty which becomes a man would be pertness in a woman. Nor is there perhaps more of truth in the opinion of those who derive the partiality which women are inclined to show to the brave from this excess of their fear. Mr Bale, I think in his article of Helen, imputes this, and with greater probability to their violent love of glory, for the truth of which we have the authority of him, who of all others so farthest into human nature, and who introduces the heron of his odyssey, the great pattern of matrimonial love and constancy, assigning the glory of her husband as the only source of affection towards him. The English reader will not find this in the poem, for the sentiment is entirely left out in the translation. However this be, certain it is that the accident operated very strongly on Sophia, and indeed, after much inquiry into the matter, I am inclined to believe that, at this very time, the charming Sophia made no less impression on the heart of Jones, to say truth he had for some time become sensible of the irresistible power of her charms. Chapter 14 The arrival of a surgeon, his operations and a long dialogue between Sophia and her maid When they arrived at Mr Weston's hall, Sophia, who had tottered along with much difficulty, sunk down in her chair, but by the assistance of heart shorn and water she was prevented from fainting away, and had pretty well recovered her spirits, when the surgeon who was sent for to Jones appeared. Mr Weston, who imputed these symptoms in his daughter to her fall, advised her to be presently blooded by way of prevention. In this opinion he was seconded by the surgeon, who gave so many reasons for bleeding, and quoted so many cases where persons had miscarried for want of it, that the squire became very important, and indeed insisted preemptorily that his daughter should be blooded. Sophia soon yielded to the commands of her father, though entirely contrary to her own inclinations, for she suspected, I believe, less danger from the fright than either the squire or the surgeon. She then stretched out her beautiful arm, and the operator began to prepare for his work. While the servants were busy in providing materials, the surgeon, who imputed the backwardness which had appeared in Sophia to her fears, began to comfort her with assurances that there was not the least danger, for no accident, he said, could ever happen in bleeding, but from the monstrous ignorance of pretenders to surgery, which, he pretty plainly insinuated, he was not at the present to be apprehended. Sophia declared she was not under the least apprehension, adding, If you open an artery, I promise you I'll forgive you. Will you? cries Weston. Damn me, if I will! If he does leave the least mischief, damn me if I don't have the heart to blooden out! The surgeon assented to bleed her upon these conditions, which then proceeded to his operation, which he performed with as much dexterity as he had promised, and with as much quickness, for he took but little blood from her, saying it was much safer to bleed again and again than to take away too much at once. Sophia, when her arm was bound up, retired, for she was not willing, nor was it perhaps strictly decent, to be present at the operation on Jones. Indeed, one objection which she had to bleeding, though she did not make it, was the delay which it would occasion to setting the broken bone. For Weston, when Sophia was concerned, had no consideration but for her, and as for Jones himself, he sat like patients on a monument smiling at grief. To say the truth, when he saw the blood springing from the lovely arm of Sophia, he scarce thought of what had happened to himself. The surgeon now ordered his patient to be stripped to his shirt, and then entirely bearing the arm, he began to stretch and examine it, in such a manner that the tortures he put upon him to cause Jones to make several rye faces, which the surgeon observing greatly wondered at, crying, What is the matter, sir? I am sure it is impossible I should hurt you? And then holding forth the broken arm, he began a long and very learned lecture of anatomy, in which simple and double fractures were most accurately considered, and the several ways in which Jones might have broken his arm were discussed, with proper annotations, showing how many of these would have been better and how many worse than the present case. Having at length finished his labored harangue, with which the audience, though it had greatly raised their attention and admiration, were not much edified, as they really understood not a single syllable of all he had said, he proceeded to business, which was more expeditious and finishing than he had been in beginning. Jones was then ordered into a bed, which Mr Weston compelled him to accept at his own house, and sentence of water-gruel was passed upon him. Among the good company which had attended in the hall during bone-setting, Mrs. Honour was one, who being summoned to her mistress as soon as it was over, and asked by her how the young gentleman did, presently launched into extravagant praises on the magnanimity, as she called it, of his behaviour, which she said, was so charming and so pretty a creature, she then burst forth into much warmer ecomiums on the beauty of his person, enumerating many particulars, and ending with the whiteness of his skin. This discourse had an effect on Sophia's countenance, which would not, perhaps, have escaped the observance of the sagacious waiting woman, had she once looked her mistress in the face, all the time she was speaking, but as a looking-glass, which was most commodiously placed opposite to her, gave her an opportunity of surveying those features in which, of all others, she took most delight, so she had not once removed her eyes from that amyll object during her whole speech. Mrs. Honour was so entirely wrapped up in the subject, on which she exercised her tongue and the object before her eyes, that she gave her mistress time to conquer her confusion, which having done, she smiled on her maid and told her, she was certainly in love with this young fellow. I in love, madam, answers she, upon my bird-mom, I assure you, mom, upon my soul-mom, I am not. Why, if you was, cried her mistress, I see no reason that you should be ashamed of it, for he is certainly a pretty fellow. Yes, ma'am, answered the other, that he is, the most ansomest man I ever saw in my life. He has to be sure that he is, and as your ladyship says, I don't know why I should be ashamed of loving him, though he is my betters, to be sure gentle folks are, but flesh and blood no more than the servants. Besides, as for Mr. Jones, thus squire all whether he had made him a gentleman of him, he was not so good as myself by birth. For thus I am a poor body, I am an honest person's child, and my father and mother were married, which is more than some people can say, as I as they old their ads. Marry, come up, I assure you my dirty cousin, office skimby so white, and to be sure is the most whitest that ever was seen, I am a Christian as well as he, and nobody can say that I am baseborn. My grandfather was a clergyman. This is the second person of low condition whom we have recorded in this history to have sprung from the clergy. It is to be hoped such instance as well in future ages, when some provision is made for the families of the inferior clergy, appear stranger than they can be thought at present. And would have been very angry, I believe, to have thought any of his family should have taken up with Molly Seagram's dirty leavings. Perhaps Sophia might have suffered her maid to run on in this manner, from wanting sufficient spirits to stop her tongue, which the reader may probably conjecture was no very easy task, for certainly there were some passages in her speech which were far from being agreeable to the lady. However she now checked the torrent, as there seemed no end of its flowing. I wonder, says she, at your assurance daring to talk thus of one of my father's friends. As to the wench, I order you never to mention her name to me, and with regard to the young gentleman's birth, those who can say nothing more to his disadvantage may as well be silent on that head, as I desire you will be for the future. I am sorry I have offended your ladyship, answered Mrs. Honour. I am sure I ate Molly Seagram as much as your ladyship can, and as for abusing Squire Jones I can call all the servants in the house to witness that whenever any talk has been about bastards I would always take in his part. For which of you, says I to the footman, would not be a bastard if he could, to be made a gentleman of. And says I, I am sure he is a very fine gentleman, and he hath one of the whitest hands in the world, for to be sure so he hath, and says I, one of the sweetest temperists, best naturedest man in the world he is, and says I, all the servants and neighbours all around the country loves him, and to be sure I could tell your ladyship something that I am afraid it would offend you. What could you tell me, honour? says Sophia. Nay, ma'am, to be sure he meant nothing by it, therefore I would not of your ladyship be offended. Prithee, tell me, says Sophia. I will know it to this instant. Why, ma'am? answered Mrs. Honour. He came into the room one day last week when I was at work, and there lay your ladyship's muff on a chair, and to be sure he put his hands on it, that very muff your ladyship gave me but yesterday. La, says I, Mr. Jones, you will stretch my ladys' muff and spoil it, but he still kept his hands on it, and then he kissed it, to be sure I hardly saw such a kiss in my life as he gave it. I suppose he did not know it was mine, replied Sophia. Your ladyship shall hear, ma'am. He kissed it again and again, and said it was the prettiest muff in the world. La, says I, you can have seen it a hundred times. Yes, Mrs. Honour, cry thee, but who can see anything beautiful in the presence of your lady but herself? Nay, that's not all, neither. I hope your ladyship won't be offended, for to be sure he meant nothing. One day, as your ladyship was playing on the arpsicord to my master, Mr. Jones was sitting in the next room, and we thought he looked melancholy. La, says I, Mr. Jones, what's the matter? A penny for your thoughts, says I. Why, I see, he says, starting up from a dream, what can I be thinking of, when that angel your mistress is playing, and then squeezing me by the hand, oh, Mrs. Honour, says he, how happy will that man be? And then he sighed, upon my truth his breath is as sweet as a nose-gay. But to be sure he meant no harm by it, so I hope your ladyship will not mention a word, for he gave me a crown never to mention it, and made me swear upon a book, I believe. Indeed, it was not the Bible. Till something of a more beautiful red than vermilion can be found, I shall say nothing of Sophia's colour on this occasion. Honour, says she, if you will not mention this any more to me, nor to anybody else, I will not betray you. I mean, I will not be angry, but I am afraid of your tongue. Why, my girl, will you give it such liberties? Nay, ma'am, answered she. To be sure, I would soon have cut out my tongue and offended your ladyship. To be sure, I shall never mention a word that your ladyship will not have me. Why, I will not have you mention this any more, said Sophia. For it may come to my father's ears, and he would be angry with Mr. Jones. Though I really believe, as you say, he meant nothing. I should be very angry myself, if I imagined. Nay, ma'am, says Honour. I protest I believe he meant nothing. I thought he talked as if he was out of his senses. Nay, he said he believed he was beside himself when he has spoken the words. I, sir, says I. I believe so too. Yes, says he, Honour. By ask your ladyship's pardon. I could tear my tongue out for offending you. Go on, says Sophia. You may mention anything you have not told me before. Yes, Honour, says he. This was some time afterwards when he gave me the crown. I am neither such a cockscomb or such a villain as to think of her in any other delight but as my goddess. As such I will always worship and adore while I have breath. This was all, ma'am. I will be sworn to the best of my remembrance. I was in a passion within myself till I found he meant no arm. Indeed, Honour, says Sophia. I believe you have a real affection for me. I was provoked the other day when I gave you warning. But if you have a desire to stay with me, you shall. To be sure, ma'am, answered Mrs Honour, I shall never desire to part with your ladyship. To be sure, I almost cried my eyes out when you gave me warning. It will be very ungrateful in me to desire to leave your ladyship, because is why I should never get so good a place again. I am sure I would live and die with your ladyship. For as poor Mr Jones said, Happy is the man. Here the dinner-bell interrupted a conversation which had wrought such an effect on Sophia that she was perhaps more obliged to her bleeding in the morning than she at the time had apprehended she should be. As to the present situation of her mind, I shall adhere to a rule of horrors by not attempting to describe it from despair of success. Most of my readers will suggest it easily to themselves, and the few who cannot would not understand the picture, or at least would deny it to be natural if ever so well drawn. End of book 4 and section 14 of Tom Jones. Section 15 of Tom Jones. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dennis Sayers. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. Book 5. Chapters 1 through 3. Book 5. Containing a portion of time somewhat longer than half a year. Chapter 1. Of the serious in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced. For adventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which will give the reader less pleasure in the perusing than those which have given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these probably may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed to the historical matter contained in every book, and which we have determined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing of which we have set ourselves at the head. For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound to a sign any reason. It being abundantly sufficient that we have laid it down as a rule necessary to be observed in all prosaic comic epic writing. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice unity of time or place which is now established to be so essential to dramatic poetry. What critic hath been ever asked why a play may not contain two days as well as one, or why the audience provided they travel like electors without any expense may not be wafted fifty miles as well as five. Hath any commentator well accounted for the limitation which an ancient critic hath set to the drama which he will have contained neither more nor less than five acts. Or hath any one living attempted to explain what the modern judges of our theaters mean by that word low. By which they have happily succeeded in banishing all humor from the stage and have made the theater as dull as a drawing room. Upon all these occasions the world seems to have embraced a maxim of our law. Viz, qui conch in arte sua perdito credentum est. For it seems perhaps difficult to conceive that anyone should have had enough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules and any art or science without the least foundation. In such cases therefore we are apt to conclude there are sound and good reasons at the bottom, though we are unfortunately not able to see so far. Now in reality the world hath paid too great a compliment to critics and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are. From this complacence the critics have been emboldened to assume a dictatorial power and have so far succeeded that they are now become the masters and have the assurance to give laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received them. The critic rightly considered is no more than the clerk whose office it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great judges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light of legislators in the several sciences over which they presided. This office was all which the critics of old aspire to, nor did they ever dare to advance a sentence without supporting it by the authority of the judge from whence it was borrowed. But in process of time and in ages of ignorance the clerk began to invade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws of writing were no longer founded on the practice of the author but on the dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator and those very preemptually gave laws whose business it was at first only to transcribe them. Hence arose an obvious and perhaps an unavoidable error for these critics being men of shallow capacities very easily mistook mere form for substance. They acted as a judge would who should adhere to the lifeless letter of law and reject the spirit. Little circumstances which were perhaps accidental in a great author were by these critics considered to constitute his chief merit and transmitted as essentials to be observed by all his successors. To these encroachments time and ignorance the two great supporters of imposture gave authority and thus many rules for good writing have been established which have not the least foundation in truth or nature and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain genius in the same manner as it would have restrained the dancing master had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains to avoid therefore all imputation of laying down a rule for posterity founded only on the authority of ipsa dixit for which to save the truth we have not the profoundest veneration we shall here waive the privilege above contended for and proceed to lay before the reader the reasons which have induced us to interspersed these several digressive essays in the course of this work and here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of knowledge which if it hath been discovered hath not to our remembrance been wrought on by any ancient or modern writer this vein is no other than that of contrast which runs through all the works of the creation and may probably have a large share in constituting in us the idea of all beauty as well natural as artificial for what demonstrates the beauty and excellent of anything but its reverse thus the beauty of day and that of summer is set off by the horrors of night and winter and I believe if it was possible for a man to have seen only the two former he would have a very imperfect idea of their beauty but to avoid too serious an error can it be doubted but that the finest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her charms in the eye of a man who had never seen one of another cast the ladies themselves seem so sensible of this that they are all industrious to procure foils nay they will become foils to themselves for I have observed at Beth particularly that they endeavor to appear as ugly as possible in the morning in order to set off that beauty which they intend to show you in the evening most artists have this secret in practice though some perhaps have not much studied the theory the jeweler knows that the finest brilliant requires a foil and the painter by the contrast of his figures often acquires great applause a great genius among us will illustrate this matter fully I cannot indeed range him under any general head of common artists as he had a title to be placed among those invent us kivitan excolere per artist who by invented arts have life improved I mean here the inventor of that most exquisite entertainment called the English pantomime this entertainment consisted of two parts which the inventor distinguished by the names of the Sirius and the comic the Sirius exhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes who were certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was ever introduced and which was a secret known to few were actually intended so to be in order to contrast the comic part of the entertainment and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better advantage this was perhaps no very civil use of such personages but the contrivance was nevertheless ingenious enough and had its effect and this will now plainly appear if instead of Sirius and comic we supply the words duller and dullest for the comic was certainly duller than anything before shown on the stage and could be set off only by that superlative degree of dullness which composed the Sirius so intolerably Sirius indeed were these gods and heroes that harlequin though the English gentleman of that name is not at all related to the french family for he is of a much more Sirius disposition was always welcome on the stage as he relieved the audience from worse company judicious writers have always practiced this art of contrast with great success I have been surprised that Horace should cavill at this art in Homer but indeed he contradicts himself in the very next line indignor quando che bonus dormitat Homerus verum opere in longo fa sest obrepere somnum I grieve if ever great Homer chance to sleep yet slumbers on long works have right to creep for we are not here to understand as perhaps some have that an author actually falls asleep while he is writing it is true that readers are too apt to be so overtaken but if the work was as long as any of old mixon the author himself is too well entertained to be subject to the least drowsiness he is as Mr. Pope observes sleepless himself to give his readers sleep to say the truth these soporific parts are so many scenes of Sirius artfully interwoven in order to contrast and set off the rest and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer who told the public that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was a design in it in this light then or rather in this darkness I would have the reader to consider these initial essays and after this warning if he shall be of opinion that he can find enough of Sirius in other parts of this history he may pass over these in which we profess to be laboriously dull and begin the following books at the second chapter chapter two in which Mr. Jones receives many friendly visits during his confinement with some fine touches of the passion of love scarce visible to the naked eye Tom Jones had many visitors during his confinement though some perhaps were not very agreeable to him Mr. Allworthy saw him almost every day but though he pitied Tom's sufferings and greatly approved the gallant behavior which had occasioned them yet he thought this was a favorable opportunity to bring him to a sober sense of his indiscreet conduct and that wholesome advice for that purpose could never be applied at a more proper season than at the present when the mind was softened by pain and sickness and alarmed by danger and when its attention was unembarrassed with those turbulent passions which engage us in the pursuit of pleasure at all seasons therefore when the good man was alone with the youth especially when the latter was totally at ease he took occasion to remind him of his former miscarriages but in the mildest and tenderest manner and only in order to introduce the caution which he prescribed for his future behavior on which alone he assured him would depend his own felicity and the kindness which he might yet promise himself to receive at the hands of his father by adoption unless he should hereafter forfeit his good opinion for as to what had passed he said it should be all forgiven and forgotten he therefore advised him to make a good use of this accident that so in the end it might prove a visitation for his own good Thwackam was likewise pretty assiduous in his visits and he too considered a sick bed to be a convenient scene for lectures his style however was more severe than mr allworthies he told his pupil that he ought to look on his broken limb as a judgment from heaven on his sins that it would become him to be daily on his knees pouring forth thanksgivings that he had broken his arm only and not his neck which latter he said was very probably reserved for some further occasion and that perhaps not very remote for his part he said he had often wondered some judgment had not overtaken him before but it might be perceived by this that divine punishments though slow are always sure hence likewise he advised him to foresee with equal certainty the greater evils which were yet behind and which were as sure as this of overtaking him in his state of reprobacy these are said he to be averted only by such a thorough and sincere repentance as is not to be expected or hoped for from one so abandoned in his youth and whose mind I am afraid is totally corrupted it is my duty however to exhort you to this repentance though I too well know all exhortations will be in vain and fruitless but libero avi anima man I can accuse my own conscience of no neglect though it is at the same time with the utmost concern I see you traveling on to certain misery in this world and to a certain damnation in the next square talked in a very different strain he said such accidents as a broken bone were below the consideration of a wise man that it was abundantly sufficient to reconcile the mind to any of these mischances to reflect that they are liable to befall the wisest of mankind and are undoubtedly for the good of the whole he said it was a mere abuse of words to call those things evils in which there was no moral and fitness that pain which was the worst consequence of such accidents was the most contemptible thing in the world with more of the like sentences extracted out of the second book of telly's tusculin questions and from the great lord shaftsbury in pronouncing these he was one day so eager that he unfortunately bit his tongue and in such a manner that it not only put an end to his discourse but created much emotion in him and caused him to mutter an oath or two but what was worst of all this accident gave thwacken who was present and who held all such doctrine to be heathenish and atheistical an opportunity to clap a judgment on his back now this was done with so malicious a sneer that it totally unhinged if I may so say the temper of the philosopher which the bite of his tongue had somewhat ruffled and as he was disabled from venting his wrath at his lips he had possibly found a more violent method of avenging himself had not the surgeon who was then luckily in the room contrary to his own interest interposed and preserved the peace mr. blue fill visited his friend jones but seldom and never alone this worthy young man however professed much regard for him and as great concern at his misfortune but cautiously avoided any intimacy lest as he frequently hinted it might contaminate the sobriety of his own character for which purpose he had constantly in his mouth that proverb in which Solomon speaks against evil communication not that he was so bitter as thwacken for he always expressed some hopes of tom's reformation which he said the unparalleled goodness shown by his uncle on this occasion must certainly affect in one not absolutely abandoned but concluded if mr. jones ever offends her after I shall not be able to say a syllable in his favor as to squire western he was seldom out of the sick room unless when he was engaged either in the field or over his bottle nay he would sometimes retire hither to take his beer and it was not without difficulty that he was prevented from forcing jones to take his beer to for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea than he did this which he said had more virtue in it than was in all the physics in an apothecary shop he was however by much entity prevailed on to forbear the application of this medicine but from serenading his patient every hunting morning with the horn under his window it was impossible to withhold him nor did he ever lay aside that halo with which he entered into all companies when he visited jones without any regard to the sick persons being at that time either awake or asleep this boisterous behavior as it meant no harm so happily it affected none and was abundantly compensated to jones as soon as he was able to set up by the company of sophia whom the squire then brought to visit him nor was it indeed long before jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord where she would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most delicious music unless when the squire thought proper to interrupt her by insisting on old sir simon or some other of his favorite pieces notwithstanding the nicest guard which sophia endeavored to set on her behavior she could not avoid letting some appearances now and then slip forth for love may again be likened to a disease in this that when it is denied event in one part it will certainly break out in another what her lips therefore concealed her eyes her blushes and many little involuntary actions betrayed one day when sophia was playing on the harpsichord and jones was attending the squire came into the room crying there tom i have had a battle for the below stairs with thick parson thwackum he hath been a tellin all worthy before my face that the broken bone was a judgment upon thee damn it says i how can it be did he not come by it in defense of a young woman a judgment indeed pox if he never does anything worse he will go to heaven sooner than all the parson's in the country he has more reason to glory in it than to be ashamed of it indeed sir says jones i have no reason for either but if it preserved miss western i shall always think it the happiest accident of my life and to go said the squire to set all worthy against the for it the for it damn them if the parson hadn't his petticoats on i should have lent on a flick for i love the dearly my boy and damn me if there is anything to my power which i won't do for the chat take thy choice of all the horses in my stable tomorrow morning except only the chivalier and miss slouch jones thanked him but declined accepting the offer nay added the squire chat had the sore all mere that sophie rode she cost me fifty guineas and comes six years old this grass if she had cost me a thousand cries jones passionately i would have given her to the dogs poo poo answered western what because she broke thy arm should forget and forgive i thought had been more a man than to bear malice against a dumb creature here sophia interposed and put an end to the conversation by desiring her father's leave to play to him a request which he never refused the countenance of sophia had undergone more than one change during the foregoing speeches and probably she imputed the passionate resentment which jones had expressed against the mayor to a different motive from that from which her father had derived it her spirits were at this time in a visible flutter and she played so intolerably ill that had not western soon fallen asleep he must have remarked it jones however who was sufficiently awake and was not without an ear any more than without eyes made some observations which being joined to all which the reader may remember to have passed formally gave him pretty strong assurances when he came to reflect on the whole that all was not well in the tender bosom of sophia an opinion which many young gentlemen will i doubt not extremely wonder at his not having been well confirmed in long ago to confess the truth he had rather too much diffidence in himself and was not forward enough in seeing the advances of a young lady a misfortune which can be cured only by that early town education which is at present so generally in fashion when these thoughts had fully taken possession of jones they occasioned a perturbation in his mind which in a constitution less pure and firm than his might have been at such a season attended with very dangerous consequences he was truly sensible of the great worth of sophia he extremely liked her person no less admired her accomplishments and tenderly loved her goodness in reality as he had never once entertained any thought of possessing her nor had ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his inclinations he had a much stronger passion for her than he himself was acquainted with his heart now brought forth the full secret at the same time that it assured him the adorable object returned his affection chapter three which all who have no heart will think to contain much ado about nothing the reader will perhaps imagine the sensations which now arose in jones to have been so sweet and delicious that they would rather tend to produce a cheerful serenity in the mind than any of those dangerous effects which we have mentioned but in fact sensations of this kind however delicious are at their first recognition of a very tumultuous nature and have very little of the opiate in them they were moreover in the present case embittered with certain circumstances which being mixed with sweeter ingredients tended all together to compose a draft that might be termed bittersweet than which as nothing can be more disagreeable to the palette so nothing in the metaphorical sense can be so injurious to the mind for first though he had sufficient foundation to flatter himself in what he had observed in sofia he was not yet free from doubt of misconstruing compassion or at best esteem into a warmer regard he was far from a sanguine assurance that sofia had any such affection towards him as might promise his inclinations that harvest which if they were encouraged and nurse they would finally grow up to require besides if he could hope to find no bar to his happiness from the daughter he thought himself certain of meeting an effectual bar in the father who though he was a country squire in his diversions was perfectly a man of the world in whatever regarded his fortune had the most violent affection for his only daughter and had often signified in his cups the pleasure he proposed in seeing her married to one of the richest men in the country jones was not so vain and senseless a kaksum as to expect from any regard which western had professed for him that he would ever be induced to lay aside these views of advancing his daughter he well knew that fortune is generally the principal if not the sole consideration which operates on the best of parents in these matters for friendship makes us warmly a spouse the interest of others but it is very cold to the gratification of their passions indeed to feel the happiness which may result from this it is necessary that we should possess the passion ourselves as he had therefore no hopes of obtaining her father's consent so he thought to endeavor to succeed without it and by such means to frustrate the great point of mr. western's life was to make a very ill use of his hospitality and a very ungrateful return to the many little favors received however roughly at his hands if he saw such a consequence with horror and disdain how much more was he shocked with what regarded mr. all worthy to whom as he had more than filial obligations so had he for him more than filial piety he knew the nature of that good man to be so averse to any baseness or treachery that the least attempt of such a kind would make the sight of the guilty person forever odious to his eyes and his name a detestable sound in his ears the appearance of such insurmountable difficulties was sufficient to have inspired him with despair however ardent his wishes had been but even these were controlled by compassion for another woman the idea of lovely molly now intruded itself before him he had sworn eternal constancy in her arms and she had as often vowed never to outlive his deserting her he now saw her in all the most shocking postures of death nay he considered all the miseries of prostitution to which she would be liable and of which he would be doubly the occasion first by seducing and then by deserting her for he well knew the hatred which all her neighbors and even her own sisters bore her and how ready they would all be to tear her to pieces indeed he had exposed her to more envy than shame or rather to the latter by means of the former for many women abused her for being a whore while they envied her her lover and her finery and would have been themselves glad to have purchased these at the same rate the ruin therefore of the poor girl must he foresaw unavoidably attend his deserting her and this thought stung him to the soul poverty and distress seemed to him to give none a right of aggravating those misfortunes the meanness of her condition did not represent her misery as of little consequence in his eyes nor did it appear to justify or even to palliate his guilt in bringing that misery upon her but why do i mentioned justification his own heart would not suffer him to destroy a human creature who he thought loved him and had to that love sacrificed her innocence his own good heart pleaded her cause not as a cold venal advocate but as one interested in the event and which must itself deeply share in all the agonies its owner brought on another when this powerful advocate had sufficiently raised the pity of jones by painting poor molly in all the circumstances of wretchedness it artfully called in the assistance of another passion and represented the girl in all the amiable colors of youth health and beauty as one greatly the object of desire and much more so at least to a good mind from being at the same time the object of compassion amidst these thoughts poor jones passed a long sleepless night and in the morning the result of the whole was to abide by molly and to think no more of sophia in this virtuous resolution he continued all the next day till the evening cherishing the idea of molly and driving sophia from his thoughts but in the fatal evening a very trifling accident set all his passions again on float and worked so total a change in his mind that we think it decent to communicate it in a fresh chapter end of section 15 read by denis airs in modesto california for libra box june 2008