Chapter vi.

An apology for the insensibility of Mr Jones to all the charms of the

lovely Sophia; in which possibly we may, in a considerable degree,

lower his character in the estimation of those men of wit and

gallantry who approve the heroes in most of our modern comedies.

There are two sorts of people, who, I am afraid, have already

conceived some contempt for my heroe, on account of his behaviour to

Sophia. The former of these will blame his prudence in neglecting an

opportunity to possess himself of Mr Western's fortune; and the latter

will no less despise him for his backwardness to so fine a girl, who

seemed ready to fly into his arms, if he would open them to receive

her.

Now, though I shall not perhaps be able absolutely to acquit him of

either of these charges (for want of prudence admits of no excuse; and

what I shall produce against the latter charge will, I apprehend, be

scarce satisfactory); yet, as evidence may sometimes be offered in

mitigation, I shall set forth the plain matter of fact, and leave the

whole to the reader's determination.

Mr Jones had somewhat about him, which, though I think writers are not

thoroughly agreed in its name, doth certainly inhabit some human

breasts; whose use is not so properly to distinguish right from wrong,

as to prompt and incite them to the former, and to restrain and

withhold them from the latter.

This somewhat may be indeed resembled to the famous trunk-maker in the

playhouse; for, whenever the person who is possessed of it doth what

is right, no ravished or friendly spectator is so eager or so loud in

his applause: on the contrary, when he doth wrong, no critic is so apt

to hiss and explode him.

To give a higher idea of the principle I mean, as well as one more

familiar to the present age; it may be considered as sitting on its

throne in the mind, like the Lord High Chancellor of this kingdom in

his court; where it presides, governs, directs, judges, acquits, and

condemns according to merit and justice, with a knowledge which

nothing escapes, a penetration which nothing can deceive, and an

integrity which nothing can corrupt.

This active principle may perhaps be said to constitute the most

essential barrier between us and our neighbours the brutes; for if

there be some in the human shape who are not under any such dominion,

I choose rather to consider them as deserters from us to our

neighbours; among whom they will have the fate of deserters, and not

be placed in the first rank.

Our heroe, whether he derived it from Thwackum or Square I will not

determine, was very strongly under the guidance of this principle; for

though he did not always act rightly, yet he never did otherwise

without feeling and suffering for it. It was this which taught him,

that to repay the civilities and little friendships of hospitality by

robbing the house where you have received them, is to be the basest

and meanest of thieves. He did not think the baseness of this offence

lessened by the height of the injury committed; on the contrary, if to

steal another's plate deserved death and infamy, it seemed to him

difficult to assign a punishment adequate to the robbing a man of his

whole fortune, and of his child into the bargain.

This principle, therefore, prevented him from any thought of making

his fortune by such means (for this, as I have said, is an active

principle, and doth not content itself with knowledge or belief only).

Had he been greatly enamoured of Sophia, he possibly might have

thought otherwise; but give me leave to say, there is great difference

between running away with a man's daughter from the motive of love,

and doing the same thing from the motive of theft.

Now, though this young gentleman was not insensible of the charms of

Sophia; though he greatly liked her beauty, and esteemed all her other

qualifications, she had made, however, no deep impression on his

heart; for which, as it renders him liable to the charge of stupidity,

or at least of want of taste, we shall now proceed to account.

The truth then is, his heart was in the possession of another woman.

Here I question not but the reader will be surprized at our long

taciturnity as to this matter; and quite at a loss to divine who this

woman was, since we have hitherto not dropt a hint of any one likely

to be a rival to Sophia; for as to Mrs Blifil, though we have been

obliged to mention some suspicions of her affection for Tom, we have

not hitherto given the least latitude for imagining that he had any

for her; and, indeed, I am sorry to say it, but the youth of both

sexes are too apt to be deficient in their gratitude for that regard

with which persons more advanced in years are sometimes so kind to

honour them.

That the reader may be no longer in suspense, he will be pleased to

remember, that we have often mentioned the family of George Seagrim

(commonly called Black George, the gamekeeper), which consisted at

present of a wife and five children.

The second of these children was a daughter, whose name was Molly, and

who was esteemed one of the handsomest girls in the whole country.

Congreve well says there is in true beauty something which vulgar

souls cannot admire; so can no dirt or rags hide this something from

those souls which are not of the vulgar stamp.

The beauty of this girl made, however, no impression on Tom, till she

grew towards the age of sixteen, when Tom, who was near three years

older, began first to cast the eyes of affection upon her. And this

affection he had fixed on the girl long before he could bring himself

to attempt the possession of her person: for though his constitution

urged him greatly to this, his principles no less forcibly restrained

him. To debauch a young woman, however low her condition was, appeared

to him a very heinous crime; and the good-will he bore the father,

with the compassion he had for his family, very strongly corroborated

all such sober reflections; so that he once resolved to get the better

of his inclinations, and he actually abstained three whole months

without ever going to Seagrim's house, or seeing his daughter.

Now, though Molly was, as we have said, generally thought a very fine

girl, and in reality she was so, yet her beauty was not of the most

amiable kind. It had, indeed, very little of feminine in it, and would

have become a man at least as well as a woman; for, to say the truth,

youth and florid health had a very considerable share in the

composition.

Nor was her mind more effeminate than her person. As this was tall and

robust, so was that bold and forward. So little had she of modesty,

that Jones had more regard for her virtue than she herself. And as

most probably she liked Tom as well as he liked her, so when she

perceived his backwardness she herself grew proportionably forward;

and when she saw he had entirely deserted the house, she found means

of throwing herself in his way, and behaved in such a manner that the

youth must have had very much or very little of the heroe if her

endeavours had proved unsuccessful. In a word, she soon triumphed over

all the virtuous resolutions of Jones; for though she behaved at last

with all decent reluctance, yet I rather chuse to attribute the

triumph to her, since, in fact, it was her design which succeeded.

In the conduct of this matter, I say, Molly so well played her part,

that Jones attributed the conquest entirely to himself, and considered

the young woman as one who had yielded to the violent attacks of his

passion. He likewise imputed her yielding to the ungovernable force of

her love towards him; and this the reader will allow to have been a

very natural and probable supposition, as we have more than once

mentioned the uncommon comeliness of his person: and, indeed, he was

one of the handsomest young fellows in the world.

As there are some minds whose affections, like Master Blifil's, are

solely placed on one single person, whose interest and indulgence

alone they consider on every occasion; regarding the good and ill of

all others as merely indifferent, any farther than as they contribute

to the pleasure or advantage of that person: so there is a different

temper of mind which borrows a degree of virtue even from self-love.

Such can never receive any kind of satisfaction from another, without

loving the creature to whom that satisfaction is owing, and without

making its well-being in some sort necessary to their own ease.

Of this latter species was our heroe. He considered this poor girl as

one whose happiness or misery he had caused to be dependent on

himself. Her beauty was still the object of desire, though greater

beauty, or a fresher object, might have been more so; but the little

abatement which fruition had occasioned to this was highly

overbalanced by the considerations of the affection which she visibly

bore him, and of the situation into which he had brought her. The

former of these created gratitude, the latter compassion; and both,

together with his desire for her person, raised in him a passion which

might, without any great violence to the word, be called love; though,

perhaps, it was at first not very judiciously placed.

This, then, was the true reason of that insensibility which he had

shown to the charms of Sophia, and that behaviour in her which might

have been reasonably enough interpreted as an encouragement to his

addresses; for as he could not think of abandoning his Molly, poor and

destitute as she was, so no more could he entertain a notion of

betraying such a creature as Sophia. And surely, had he given the

least encouragement to any passion for that young lady, he must have

been absolutely guilty of one or other of those crimes; either of

which would, in my opinion, have very justly subjected him to that

fate, which, at his first introduction into this history, I mentioned

to have been generally predicted as his certain destiny.