The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (top young adult novels TXT) 📕

sir, in that case, to entreat you, to conjure you, as you value the happiness of your son, not to be averse to his match with a woman who hath not only all the good qualities I have mentioned, but many more.”⁠—“If that was your business, sir,” said the old gentleman, “we are both obliged to you; and you may be perfectly easy; for I give you my word I was very well satisfied with her fortune.”⁠—“Sir,” answered Jones, “I honour you every moment more and more. To be so easily satisfied, so very moderate on that account, is a proof of the soundness of your understanding, as well as the nobleness of your mind.”⁠—“Not so very moderate, young gentleman, not so very moderate,” answered the father.⁠—“Still more and more noble,” replied Jones; “and give me leave to add, sensible: for sure it is little less than madness to consider money as the sole foundation of happiness. Such a woman as this with her little, her nothing of a fortune”⁠—“I find,” cries the old gentleman, “you have a pretty just opinion of money, my friend, or else you are better acquainted with the person of the lady than with her circumstances. Why, pray, what fortune do you imagine this lady to have?”⁠—“What fortune?” cries Jones; “why, too contemptible a one to be named for your son.”⁠—“Well, well, well,” said the other, “perhaps he might have done better.”⁠—“That I deny,” said Jones, “for she is one of the best of women.”⁠—“Ay, ay, but in point of fortune I mean,” answered the other. “And yet, as to that now, how much do you imagine your friend is to have?”⁠—“How much?” cries Jones, “how much? Why, at the utmost, perhaps £200.”⁠—“Do you mean to banter me, young gentleman?” said the father, a little angry.⁠—“No, upon my soul,” answered Jones, “I am in earnest: nay, I believe I have gone to the utmost farthing. If I do the lady an injury, I ask her pardon.”⁠—“Indeed you do,” cries the father; “I am certain she hath fifty times that sum, and she shall produce fifty to that before I consent that she shall marry my son.”⁠—“Nay,” said Jones, “it is too late to talk of consent now; if she had not fifty farthings your son is married.”⁠—“My son married!” answered the old gentleman, with surprise.⁠—“Nay,” said Jones, “I thought you was unacquainted with it.”⁠—“My son married to Miss Harris!” answered he again.⁠—“To Miss Harris!” said Jones; “no, sir; to Miss Nancy Miller, the daughter of Mrs. Miller, at whose house he lodged; a young lady, who, though her mother is reduced to let lodgings⁠—”⁠—“Are you bantering, or are you in earnest?” cries the father, with a most solemn voice.⁠—“Indeed, sir,” answered Jones, “I scorn the character of a banterer. I came to you in most serious earnest, imagining, as I find true, that your son had never dared acquaint you with a match so much inferior to him in point of fortune, though the reputation of the lady will suffer it no longer to remain a secret.”

While the father stood like one struck suddenly dumb at this news, a gentleman came into the room, and saluted him by the name of brother.

But though these two were in consanguinity so nearly related, they were in their dispositions almost the opposites to each other. The brother who now arrived had likewise been bred to trade, in which he no sooner saw himself worth £6,000 than he purchased a small estate with the greatest part of it, and retired into the country; where he married the daughter of an unbeneficed clergyman; a young lady, who, though she had neither beauty nor fortune, had recommended herself to his choice entirely by her good humour, of which she possessed a very large share.

With this woman he had, during twenty-five years, lived a life more resembling the model which certain poets ascribe to the golden age, than any of those patterns which are furnished by the present times. By her he had four children, but none of them arrived at maturity, except only one daughter, whom, in vulgar language, he and his wife had spoiled; that is, had educated with the utmost tenderness and fondness, which she returned to such a degree, that she had actually refused a very extraordinary match with a gentleman a little turned of forty, because she could not bring herself to part with her parents.

The young lady whom Mr. Nightingale had intended for his son was a near neighbour of his brother, and an acquaintance of his niece; and in reality it was upon the account of his projected match that he was now come to town; not, indeed, to forward, but to dissuade his brother from a purpose which he conceived would inevitably ruin his nephew; for he foresaw no other event from a union with Miss Harris, notwithstanding the largeness of her fortune, as neither her person nor mind seemed to him to promise any kind of matrimonial felicity: for she was very tall, very thin, very ugly, very affected, very silly, and very ill-natured.

His brother, therefore, no sooner mentioned the marriage of his nephew with Miss Miller, than he expressed the utmost satisfaction; and when the father had very bitterly reviled his son, and pronounced sentence of beggary upon him, the uncle began in the following manner:⁠—

“If you was a little cooler, brother, I would ask you whether you love your son for his sake or for your own. You would answer, I suppose, and so I suppose you think, for his sake; and doubtless it is his happiness which you intended in the marriage you proposed for him.

“Now, brother, to prescribe rules of happiness to others hath always appeared to me very absurd, and to insist on doing this, very tyrannical. It is a vulgar error, I know; but it is, nevertheless, an error. And if this be absurd in other things, it is mostly so in the affair of marriage, the happiness of