Those Members of Society who are born to furnish the Blessings of Life now began to light their Candles, in order to pursue their daily Labours for the Use of those who are born to enjoy these Blessings. The sturdy Hind now attends the Levee of his Fellow Labourer the Ox; the cunning Artificer, the diligent Mechanic, spring from their hard Mattress; and now the bonny House-Maid begins to repair the disordered Drum-Room, while the riotous Authors of that Disorder, in broken interrupted Slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the Hardness of Down disquieted their Repose.
Fielding calls this chapter, “The Morning introduced in some pretty Writing. A Stage Coach. The Civility of Chambermaids. The heroic Temper of Sophia. Her Generosity. The Return to it. The Departure of the Company, and their Arrival at London; with some Remarks for the Use of Travellers.” The utter lack of humility aside, he’s not usually given to such, shall we say, thorough, chapter titles but that does a good job of summarizing things. Sophia and her cousin take off for London after giving the Landlord a gift (Fielding leave it up to our imagination), but fails to give one to his wife (she discovers that she lost a hundred pounds somewhere). They arrive in London, and Sophia makes a hasty (but polite) departure from her cousin to head off to the house she hoped to stay in.
Sophia’s not so sure that Mrs. Fitzgerald is really as virtuous as she claims and even doubts some of the story we got in the last few chapters. Fielding gives a little morality lesson to go with this about suspicion. It’s an odd little digression at this point in the narrative, but setting aside the awkwardness, it was a nice little bit of writing.
That’s the end of Book XI, so XII starts off with the typical Chapter 1 discourse. This time, it’s an apology for his use of classical quotations, allusions, and references, and how often he doesn’t attribute them well. It’s not my favorite Chapter 1, but I appreciated his defense, ancient authors are fair game, but he wouldn’t do that to a contemporary and rob them of their due.*
* Okay, it sounds dumb when I summarize it. But Fielding pulls it off with aplomb and style.
We get back to the story, and see what Squire Western’s up to on his pursuit of Sophia. The Squire is all out of sorts, bemoaning his state, and carrying on (as he’s pretty want to do). Parson Supple’s traveling with him, and tries to console him about missing his daughter. Western clarifies things for him, he’s lamenting missing hunting season. They come across a hunting party and ends up spending the day and dining with a fellow squire. He has such a good time that he totally abandons the chase for his daughter and goes home.
Such a devoted father…really, he’s an example to us all.
Back to Tom next week, so we can see how he does on his journey (probably not as well as Sophia, but better than her father, is my guess).
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