📔 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

At these words he started up, and beheld—not his Sophia—no, nor a Circassian maid richly and elegantly attired for the grand Signior's seraglio.

This fellow, I say, stiled himself a lawyer, but was indeed a most vile petty-fogger, without sense or knowledge of any kind; one of those who may be termed train-bearers to the law […]

Indeed, there is much Reason to imagine, that there was not the least Truth in what Mr. Western affirmed, especially as he laid the Scene of those Impurities at the University, where Mr. Allworthy had never been. In fact, the good Squire was a little too apt to indulge that Kind of Pleasantry which is generally called Rodomontade; but which may, with as much Propriety, be expressed by a much shorter Word; […]

[…] were certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was ever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actually intended so to be, in order to contrast the comic part of the entertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better advantage.

But though she could neither sleep nor rest in her bed, yet, having no avocation from it, she was found there by her father at his return from Allworthy's, which was not till past ten o'clock in the morning.

The sturdy hind now attends the levee of his fellow-labourer the ox […]

To say the truth, Sophia, when very young, discerned that Tom, though an idle, thoughtless, rattling rascal, was nobody's enemy but his own […]

This she spoke with so commanding an air, standing with her back to the fire, with one hand behind her, and a pinch of snuff in the other, that I question whether Thalestris, at the head of her Amazons, ever made a more tremendous figure.

[...] But he was at the same Time an excellent Scholar, and most indefatigable in teaching the two Lads.