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

you must invent this to raise my indignation against him.”⁠—“I hope, madam,” said Sophia, “you have too good an opinion of me to imagine me capable of telling an untruth. Upon my soul it is true.”⁠—“I should have stabbed him to the heart, had I been present,” returned the aunt. “Yet surely he could have no dishonourable design; it is impossible! he durst not: besides, his proposals show he hath not; for they are not only honourable, but generous. I don’t know; the age allows too great freedoms. A distant salute is all I would have allowed before the ceremony. I have had lovers formerly, not so long ago neither; several lovers, though I never would consent to marriage, and I never encouraged the least freedom. It is a foolish custom, and what I never would agree to. No man kissed more of me than my cheek. It is as much as one can bring oneself to give lips up to a husband; and, indeed, could I ever have been persuaded to marry, I believe I should not have soon been brought to endure so much.”⁠—“You will pardon me, dear madam,” said Sophia, “if I make one observation: you own you have had many lovers, and the world knows it, even if you should deny it. You refused them all, and, I am convinced, one coronet at least among them.”⁠—“You say true, dear Sophy,” answered she; “I had once the offer of a title.”⁠—“Why, then,” said Sophia, “will you not suffer me to refuse this once?”⁠—“It is true, child,” said she, “I have refused the offer of a title; but it was not so good an offer; that is, not so very, very good an offer.”⁠—“Yes, madam,” said Sophia; “but you have had very great proposals from men of vast fortunes. It was not the first, nor the second, nor the third advantageous match that offered itself.”⁠—“I own it was not,” said she.⁠—“Well, madam,” continued Sophia, “and why may not I expect to have a second, perhaps, better than this? You are now but a young woman, and I am convinced would not promise to yield to the first lover of fortune, nay, or of title too. I am a very young woman, and sure I need not despair.”⁠—“Well, my dear, dear Sophy,” cries the aunt, “what would you have me say?”⁠—“Why, I only beg that I may not be left alone, at least this evening; grant me that, and I will submit, if you think, after what is past, I ought to see him in your company.”⁠—“Well, I will grant it,” cries the aunt. “Sophy, you know I love you, and can deny you nothing. You know the easiness of my nature; I have not always been so easy. I have been formerly thought cruel; by the men, I mean. I was called the cruel Parthenissa. I have broke many a window that has had verses to the cruel Parthenissa in it. Sophy, I was never so handsome as you, and yet I had something of you formerly. I am a little altered. Kingdoms and states, as Tully Cicero says in his epistles, undergo alterations, and so must the human form.” Thus run she on for near half an hour upon herself, and her conquests, and her cruelty, till the arrival of my lord, who, after a most tedious visit, during which Mrs. Western never once offered to leave the room, retired, not much more satisfied with the aunt than with the niece; for Sophia had brought her aunt into so excellent a temper, that she consented to almost everything her niece said; and agreed that a little distant behaviour might not be improper to so forward a lover.

Thus Sophia, by a little well-directed flattery, for which surely none will blame her, obtained a little ease for herself, and, at least, put off the evil day. And now we have seen our heroine in a better situation than she hath been for a long time before, we will look a little after Mr. Jones, whom we left in the most deplorable situation that can be well imagined.

V

Mrs. Miller and Mr. Nightingale visit Jones in the prison.

When Mr. Allworthy and his nephew went to meet Mr. Western, Mrs. Miller set forwards to her son-in-law’s lodgings, in order to acquaint him with the accident which had befallen his friend Jones; but he had known it long before from Partridge (for Jones, when he left Mrs. Miller, had been furnished with a room in the same house with Mr. Nightingale). The good woman found her daughter under great affliction on account of Mr. Jones, whom having comforted as well as she could, she set forwards to the Gatehouse, where she heard he was, and where Mr. Nightingale was arrived before her.

The firmness and constancy of a true friend is a circumstance so extremely delightful to persons in any kind of distress, that the distress itself, if it be only temporary, and admits of relief, is more than compensated by bringing this comfort with it. Nor are instances of this kind so rare as some superficial and inaccurate observers have reported. To say the truth, want of compassion is not to be numbered among our general faults. The black ingredient which fouls our disposition is envy. Hence our eye is seldom, I am afraid, turned upward to those who are manifestly greater, better, wiser, or happier than ourselves, without some degree of malignity; while we commonly look downwards on the mean and miserable with sufficient benevolence and pity. In fact, I have remarked, that most of the defects which have discovered themselves in the friendships within my observation have arisen from envy only: a hellish vice; and yet one from which I have known very few absolutely exempt. But enough of a subject which, if pursued, would lead me too far.

Whether it was that Fortune was apprehensive lest Jones should sink under the weight of his adversity, and that she might thus lose any future opportunity of tormenting him,