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The History of Tom Jones, a foundling

H >> Henry Fielding >> The History of Tom Jones, a foundling




Sophia stood trembling all this while. Her face was whiter than snow,
and her heart was throbbing through her stays. But, at the mention of
Upton, a blush arose in her cheeks, and her eyes, which before she had
scarce lifted up, were turned upon Jones with a glance of disdain. He
understood this silent reproach, and replied to it thus: "O my Sophia!
my only love! you cannot hate or despise me more for what happened
there than I do myself; but yet do me the justice to think that my
heart was never unfaithful to you. That had no share in the folly I
was guilty of; it was even then unalterably yours. Though I despaired
of possessing you, nay, almost of ever seeing you more, I doated still
on your charming idea, and could seriously love no other woman. But if
my heart had not been engaged, she, into whose company I accidently
fell at that cursed place, was not an object of serious love. Believe
me, my angel, I never have seen her from that day to this; and never
intend or desire to see her again." Sophia, in her heart, was very
glad to hear this; but forcing into her face an air of more coldness
than she had yet assumed, "Why," said she, "Mr Jones, do you take the
trouble to make a defence where you are not accused? If I thought it
worth while to accuse you, I have a charge of unpardonable nature
indeed."--"What is it, for heaven's sake?" answered Jones, trembling
and pale, expecting to hear of his amour with Lady Bellaston. "Oh,"
said she, "how is it possible! can everything noble and everything
base be lodged together in the same bosom?" Lady Bellaston, and the
ignominious circumstance of having been kept, rose again in his mind,
and stopt his mouth from any reply. "Could I have expected," proceeded
Sophia, "such treatment from you? Nay, from any gentleman, from any
man of honour? To have my name traduced in public; in inns, among the
meanest vulgar! to have any little favours that my unguarded heart may
have too lightly betrayed me to grant, boasted of there! nay, even to
hear that you had been forced to fly from my love!"

Nothing could equal Jones's surprize at these words of Sophia; but
yet, not being guilty, he was much less embarrassed how to defend
himself than if she had touched that tender string at which his
conscience had been alarmed. By some examination he presently found,
that her supposing him guilty of so shocking an outrage against his
love, and her reputation, was entirely owing to Partridge's talk at
the inns before landlords and servants; for Sophia confessed to him it
was from them that she received her intelligence. He had no very great
difficulty to make her believe that he was entirely innocent of an
offence so foreign to his character; but she had a great deal to
hinder him from going instantly home, and putting Partridge to death,
which he more than once swore he would do. This point being cleared
up, they soon found themselves so well pleased with each other, that
Jones quite forgot he had begun the conversation with conjuring her to
give up all thoughts of him; and she was in a temper to have given ear
to a petition of a very different nature; for before they were aware
they had both gone so far, that he let fall some words that sounded
like a proposal of marriage. To which she replied, "That, did not her
duty to her father forbid her to follow her own inclinations, ruin
with him would be more welcome to her than the most affluent fortune
with another man." At the mention of the word ruin, he started, let
drop her hand, which he had held for some time, and striking his
breast with his own, cried out, "Oh, Sophia! can I then ruin thee? No;
by heavens, no! I never will act so base a part. Dearest Sophia,
whatever it costs me, I will renounce you; I will give you up; I will
tear all such hopes from my heart as are inconsistent with your real
good. My love I will ever retain, but it shall be in silence; it shall
be at a distance from you; it shall be in some foreign land; from
whence no voice, no sigh of my despair, shall ever reach and disturb
your ears. And when I am dead"--He would have gone on, but was stopt
by a flood of tears which Sophia let fall in his bosom, upon which she
leaned, without being able to speak one word. He kissed them off,
which, for some moments, she allowed him to do without any resistance;
but then recollecting herself, gently withdrew out of his arms; and,
to turn the discourse from a subject too tender, and which she found
she could not support, bethought herself to ask him a question she
never had time to put to him before, "How he came into that room?" He
began to stammer, and would, in all probability, have raised her
suspicions by the answer he was going to give, when, at once, the door
opened, and in came Lady Bellaston.

Having advanced a few steps, and seeing Jones and Sophia together, she
suddenly stopt; when, after a pause of a few moments, recollecting
herself with admirable presence of mind, she said--though with
sufficient indications of surprize both in voice and countenance--"I
thought, Miss Western, you had been at the play?"

Though Sophia had no opportunity of learning of Jones by what means he
had discovered her, yet, as she had not the least suspicion of the
real truth, or that Jones and Lady Bellaston were acquainted, so she
was very little confounded; and the less, as the lady had, in all
their conversations on the subject, entirely taken her side against
her father. With very little hesitation, therefore, she went through
the whole story of what had happened at the play-house, and the cause
of her hasty return.

The length of this narrative gave Lady Bellaston an opportunity of
rallying her spirits, and of considering in what manner to act. And as
the behaviour of Sophia gave her hopes that Jones had not betrayed
her, she put on an air of good humour, and said, "I should not have
broke in so abruptly upon you, Miss Western, if I had known you had
company."

Lady Bellaston fixed her eyes on Sophia whilst she spoke these words.
To which that poor young lady, having her face overspread with blushes
and confusion, answered, in a stammering voice, "I am sure, madam, I
shall always think the honour of your ladyship's company----" "I hope,
at least," cries Lady Bellaston, "I interrupt no business."--"No,
madam," answered Sophia, "our business was at an end. Your ladyship
may be pleased to remember I have often mentioned the loss of my
pocket-book, which this gentleman, having very luckily found, was so
kind to return it to me with the bill in it."

Jones, ever since the arrival of Lady Bellaston, had been ready to
sink with fear. He sat kicking his heels, playing with his fingers,
and looking more like a fool, if it be possible, than a young booby
squire, when he is first introduced into a polite assembly. He began,
however, now to recover himself; and taking a hint from the behaviour
of Lady Bellaston, who he saw did not intend to claim any acquaintance
with him, he resolved as entirely to affect the stranger on his part.
He said, "Ever since he had the pocket-book in his possession, he had
used great diligence in enquiring out the lady whose name was writ in
it; but never till that day could be so fortunate to discover her."

Sophia had indeed mentioned the loss of her pocket-book to Lady
Bellaston; but as Jones, for some reason or other, had never once
hinted to her that it was in his possession, she believed not one
syllable of what Sophia now said, and wonderfully admired the extreme
quickness of the young lady in inventing such an excuse. The reason of
Sophia's leaving the playhouse met with no better credit; and though
she could not account for the meeting between these two lovers, she
was firmly persuaded it was not accidental.

With an affected smile, therefore, she said, "Indeed, Miss Western,
you have had very good luck in recovering your money. Not only as it
fell into the hands of a gentleman of honour, but as he happened to
discover to whom it belonged. I think you would not consent to have it
advertised.--It was great good fortune, sir, that you found out to
whom the note belonged."

"Oh, madam," cries Jones, "it was enclosed in a pocket-book, in which
the young lady's name was written."

"That was very fortunate, indeed," cries the lady:--"And it was no
less so, that you heard Miss Western was at my house; for she is very
little known."

Jones had at length perfectly recovered his spirits; and as he
conceived he had now an opportunity of satisfying Sophia as to the
question she had asked him just before Lady Bellaston came in, he
proceeded thus: "Why, madam," answered he, "it was by the luckiest
chance imaginable I made this discovery. I was mentioning what I had
found, and the name of the owner, the other night to a lady at the
masquerade, who told me she believed she knew where I might see Miss
Western; and if I would come to her house the next morning she would
inform me, I went according to her appointment, but she was not at
home; nor could I ever meet with her till this morning, when she
directed me to your ladyship's house. I came accordingly, and did
myself the honour to ask for your ladyship; and upon my saying that I
had very particular business, a servant showed me into this room;
where I had not been long before the young lady returned from the
play."

Upon his mentioning the masquerade, he looked very slily at Lady
Bellaston, without any fear of being remarked by Sophia; for she was
visibly too much confounded to make any observations. This hint a
little alarmed the lady, and she was silent; when Jones, who saw the
agitation of Sophia's mind, resolved to take the only method of
relieving her, which was by retiring; but, before he did this, he
said, "I believe, madam, it is customary to give some reward on these
occasions;--I must insist on a very high one for my honesty;--it is,
madam, no less than the honour of being permitted to pay another visit
here."

"Sir," replied the lady, "I make no doubt that you are a gentleman,
and my doors are never shut to people of fashion."

Jones then, after proper ceremonials, departed, highly to his own
satisfaction, and no less to that of Sophia; who was terribly alarmed
lest Lady Bellaston should discover what she knew already but too
well.

Upon the stairs Jones met his old acquaintance, Mrs Honour, who,
notwithstanding all she had said against him, was now so well bred to
behave with great civility. This meeting proved indeed a lucky
circumstance, as he communicated to her the house where he lodged,
with which Sophia was unacquainted.



Chapter xii.

In which the thirteenth book is concluded.


The elegant Lord Shaftesbury somewhere objects to telling too much
truth: by which it may be fairly inferred, that, in some cases, to lie
is not only excusable but commendable.

And surely there are no persons who may so properly challenge a right
to this commendable deviation from truth, as young women in the affair
of love; for which they may plead precept, education, and above all,
the sanction, nay, I may say the necessity of custom, by which they
are restrained, not from submitting to the honest impulses of nature
(for that would be a foolish prohibition), but from owning them.

We are not, therefore, ashamed to say, that our heroine now pursued
the dictates of the above-mentioned right honourable philosopher. As
she was perfectly satisfied then, that Lady Bellaston was ignorant of
the person of Jones, so she determined to keep her in that ignorance,
though at the expense of a little fibbing.

Jones had not been long gone, before Lady Bellaston cryed, "Upon my
word, a good pretty young fellow; I wonder who he is; for I don't
remember ever to have seen his face before."

"Nor I neither, madam," cries Sophia. "I must say he behaved very
handsomely in relation to my note."

"Yes; and he is a very handsome fellow," said the lady: "don't you
think so?"

"I did not take much notice of him," answered Sophia, "but I thought
he seemed rather awkward, and ungenteel than otherwise."

"You are extremely right," cries Lady Bellaston: "you may see, by his
manner, that he hath not kept good company. Nay, notwithstanding his
returning your note, and refusing the reward, I almost question
whether he is a gentleman.----I have always observed there is a
something in persons well born, which others can never acquire.----I
think I will give orders not to be at home to him."

"Nay, sure, madam," answered Sophia, "one can't suspect after what he
hath done;--besides, if your ladyship observed him, there was an
elegance in his discourse, a delicacy, a prettiness of expression
that, that----"

"I confess," said Lady Bellaston, "the fellow hath words----And
indeed, Sophia, you must forgive me, indeed you must."

"I forgive your ladyship!" said Sophia.

"Yes, indeed you must," answered she, laughing; "for I had a horrible
suspicion when I first came into the room----I vow you must forgive
it; but I suspected it was Mr Jones himself."

"Did your ladyship, indeed?" cries Sophia, blushing, and affecting a
laugh.

"Yes, I vow I did," answered she. "I can't imagine what put it into my
head: for, give the fellow his due, he was genteely drest; which, I
think, dear Sophy, is not commonly the case with your friend."

"This raillery," cries Sophia, "is a little cruel, Lady Bellaston,
after my promise to your ladyship."

"Not at all, child," said the lady;----"It would have been cruel
before; but after you have promised me never to marry without your
father's consent, in which you know is implied your giving up Jones,
sure you can bear a little raillery on a passion which was pardonable
enough in a young girl in the country, and of which you tell me you
have so entirely got the better. What must I think, my dear Sophy, if
you cannot bear a little ridicule even on his dress? I shall begin to
fear you are very far gone indeed; and almost question whether you
have dealt ingenuously with me."

"Indeed, madam," cries Sophia, "your ladyship mistakes me, if you
imagine I had any concern on his account."

"On his account!" answered the lady: "You must have mistaken me; I
went no farther than his dress;----for I would not injure your taste
by any other comparison--I don't imagine, my dear Sophy, if your Mr
Jones had been such a fellow as this--"

"I thought," says Sophia, "your ladyship had allowed him to be
handsome"----

"Whom, pray?" cried the lady hastily.

"Mr Jones," answered Sophia;--and immediately recollecting herself,
"Mr Jones!--no, no; I ask your pardon;--I mean the gentleman who was
just now here."

"O Sophy! Sophy!" cries the lady; "this Mr Jones, I am afraid, still
runs in your head."

"Then, upon my honour, madam," said Sophia, "Mr Jones is as entirely
indifferent to me, as the gentleman who just now left us."

"Upon my honour," said Lady Bellaston, "I believe it. Forgive me,
therefore, a little innocent raillery; but I promise you I will never
mention his name any more."

And now the two ladies separated, infinitely more to the delight of
Sophia than of Lady Bellaston, who would willingly have tormented her
rival a little longer, had not business of more importance called her
away. As for Sophia, her mind was not perfectly easy under this first
practice of deceit; upon which, when she retired to her chamber, she
reflected with the highest uneasiness and conscious shame. Nor could
the peculiar hardship of her situation, and the necessity of the case,
at all reconcile her mind to her conduct; for the frame of her mind
was too delicate to bear the thought of having been guilty of a
falsehood, however qualified by circumstances. Nor did this thought
once suffer her to close her eyes during the whole succeeding night.




BOOK XIV.

CONTAINING TWO DAYS.



Chapter i.

An essay to prove that an author will write the better for having some
knowledge of the subject on which he writes.


As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius
only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, without being
well able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of
letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert,
that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and,
indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness
and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and
prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would
be able to reach.

This doctrine, I am afraid, is at present carried much too far: for
why should writing differ so much from all other arts? The nimbleness
of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move;
nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse by
having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that
Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if instead of being
masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant
as most of the authors of the present age. Nor do I believe that all
the imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt, could have produced those
orations that have made the senate of England, in these our times, a
rival in eloquence to Greece and Rome, if he had not been so well read
in the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, as to have transferred
their whole spirit into his speeches, and, with their spirit, their
knowledge too.

I would not here be understood to insist on the same fund of learning
in any of my brethren, as Cicero persuades us is necessary to the
composition of an orator. On the contrary, very little reading is, I
conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of
all to the politician. For the first, perhaps, Byshe's Art of Poetry,
and a few of our modern poets, may suffice; for the second, a moderate
heap of plays; and, for the last, an indifferent collection of
political journals.

To say the truth, I require no more than that a man should have some
little knowledge of the subject on which he treats, according to the
old maxim of law, _Quam quisque nôrit artem in eâ se exerceat_. With
this alone a writer may sometimes do tolerably well; and, indeed,
without this, all the other learning in the world will stand him in
little stead.

For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and
Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have
clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art
of dancing: I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have
equalled the excellent treatise which Mr Essex hath given us on that
subject, entitled, The Rudiments of Genteel Education. And, indeed,
should the excellent Mr Broughton be prevailed on to set fist to
paper, and to complete the above-said rudiments, by delivering down
the true principles of athletics, I question whether the world will
have any cause to lament, that none of the great writers, either
antient or modern, have ever treated about that noble and useful art.

To avoid a multiplicity of examples in so plain a case, and to come at
once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one reason why many
English writers have totally failed in describing the manners of upper
life, may possibly be, that in reality they know nothing of it.

This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many authors to
arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect idea of it; nor will
the stage a much better: the fine gentleman formed upon reading the
former will almost always turn out a pedant, and he who forms himself
upon the latter, a coxcomb.

Nor are the characters drawn from these models better supported.
Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature; but they who copy them draw as
unlike the present age as Hogarth would do if he was to paint a rout
or a drum in the dresses of Titian and of Vandyke. In short, imitation
here will not do the business. The picture must be after Nature
herself. A true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation,
and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known.

Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be seen,
like all the rest of the human species, for nothing, in the streets,
shops, and coffee-houses; nor are they shown, like the upper rank of
animals, for so much a-piece. In short, this is a sight to which no
persons are admitted without one or other of these qualifications,
viz., either birth or fortune, or, what is equivalent to both, the
honourable profession of a gamester. And, very unluckily for the
world, persons so qualified very seldom care to take upon themselves
the bad trade of writing; which is generally entered upon by the lower
and poorer sort, as it is a trade which many think requires no kind of
stock to set up with.

Hence those strange monsters in lace and embroidery, in silks and
brocades, with vast wigs and hoops; which, under the name of lords and
ladies, strut the stage, to the great delight of attorneys and their
clerks in the pit, and of the citizens and their apprentices in the
galleries; and which are no more to be found in real life than the
centaur, the chimera, or any other creature of mere fiction. But to
let my reader into a secret, this knowledge of upper life, though very
necessary for preventing mistakes, is no very great resource to a
writer whose province is comedy, or that kind of novels which, like
this I am writing, is of the comic class.

What Mr Pope says of women is very applicable to most in this station,
who are, indeed, so entirely made up of form and affectation, that
they have no character at all, at least none which appears. I will
venture to say the highest life is much the dullest, and affords very
little humour or entertainment. The various callings in lower spheres
produce the great variety of humorous characters; whereas here, except
among the few who are engaged in the pursuit of ambition, and the
fewer still who have a relish for pleasure, all is vanity and servile
imitation. Dressing and cards, eating and drinking, bowing and
courtesying, make up the business of their lives.

Some there are, however, of this rank upon whom passion exercises its
tyranny, and hurries them far beyond the bounds which decorum
prescribes; of these the ladies are as much distinguished by their
noble intrepidity, and a certain superior contempt of reputation, from
the frail ones of meaner degree, as a virtuous woman of quality is by
the elegance and delicacy of her sentiments from the honest wife of a
yeoman and shopkeeper. Lady Bellaston was of this intrepid character;
but let not my country readers conclude from her, that this is the
general conduct of women of fashion, or that we mean to represent them
as such. They might as well suppose that every clergyman was
represented by Thwackum, or every soldier by ensign Northerton.

There is not, indeed, a greater error than that which universally
prevails among the vulgar, who, borrowing their opinion from some
ignorant satirists, have affixed the character of lewdness to these
times. On the contrary, I am convinced there never was less of love
intrigue carried on among persons of condition than now. Our present
women have been taught by their mothers to fix their thoughts only on
ambition and vanity, and to despise the pleasures of love as unworthy
their regard; and being afterwards, by the care of such mothers,
married without having husbands, they seem pretty well confirmed in
the justness of those sentiments; whence they content themselves, for
the dull remainder of life, with the pursuit of more innocent, but I
am afraid more childish amusements, the bare mention of which would
ill suit with the dignity of this history. In my humble opinion, the
true characteristic of the present beau monde is rather folly than
vice, and the only epithet which it deserves is that of frivolous.



Chapter ii.

Containing letters and other matters which attend amours.


Jones had not been long at home before he received the following
letter:--

"I was never more surprized than when I found you was gone. When you
left the room I little imagined you intended to have left the house
without seeing me again. Your behaviour is all of a piece, and
convinces me how much I ought to despise a heart which can doat upon
an idiot; though I know not whether I should not admire her cunning
more than her simplicity: wonderful both! For though she understood
not a word of what passed between us, yet she had the skill, the
assurance, the----what shall I call it? to deny to my face that she
knows you, or ever saw you before.----Was this a scheme laid between
you, and have you been base enough to betray me?----O how I despise
her, you, and all the world, but chiefly myself! for----I dare not
write what I should afterwards run mad to read; but remember, I can
detest as violently as I have loved."

Jones had but little time given him to reflect on this letter, before
a second was brought him from the same hand; and this, likewise, we
shall set down in the precise words.

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