Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a foundling

BOOK XVIII. CONTAINING ABOUT SIX DAYS. 12. Chapter xii. Approaching still nearer to the end. (continued)

He replied, "Don't believe me upon my word; I have a better security, a pledge for my constancy, which it is impossible to see and to doubt." "What is that?" said Sophia, a little surprized. "I will show you, my charming angel," cried Jones, seizing her hand and carrying her to the glass. "There, behold it there in that lovely figure, in that face, that shape, those eyes, that mind which shines through these eyes; can the man who shall be in possession of these be inconstant? Impossible! my Sophia; they would fix a Dorimant, a Lord Rochester. You could not doubt it, if you could see yourself with any eyes but your own." Sophia blushed and half smiled; but, forcing again her brow into a frown--"If I am to judge," said she, "of the future by the past, my image will no more remain in your heart when I am out of your sight, than it will in this glass when I am out of the room." "By heaven, by all that is sacred!" said Jones, "it never was out of my heart. The delicacy of your sex cannot conceive the grossness of ours, nor how little one sort of amour has to do with the heart." "I will never marry a man," replied Sophia, very gravely, "who shall not learn refinement enough to be as incapable as I am myself of making such a distinction." "I will learn it," said Jones. "I have learnt it already. The first moment of hope that my Sophia might be my wife taught it me at once; and all the rest of her sex from that moment became as little the objects of desire to my sense as of passion to my heart." "Well," says Sophia, "the proof of this must be from time. Your situation, Mr Jones, is now altered, and I assure you I have great satisfaction in the alteration. You will now want no opportunity of being near me, and convincing me that your mind is altered too." "O! my angel," cries Jones, "how shall I thank thy goodness! And are you so good to own that you have a satisfaction in my prosperity?----Believe me, believe me, madam, it is you alone have given a relish to that prosperity, since I owe to it the dear hope----O! my Sophia, let it not be a distant one.--I will be all obedience to your commands. I will not dare to press anything further than you permit me. Yet let me intreat you to appoint a short trial. O! tell me when I may expect you will be convinced of what is most solemnly true." "When I have gone voluntarily thus far, Mr Jones," said she, "I expect not to be pressed. Nay, I will not."--"O! don't look unkindly thus, my Sophia," cries he. "I do not, I dare not press you.--Yet permit me at least once more to beg you would fix the period. O! consider the impatience of love."--"A twelvemonth, perhaps," said she. "O! my Sophia," cries he, "you have named an eternity."--"Perhaps it may be something sooner," says she; "I will not be teazed. If your passion for me be what I would have it, I think you may now be easy."--"Easy! Sophia, call not such an exulting happiness as mine by so cold a name.----O! transporting thought! am I not assured that the blessed day will come, when I shall call you mine; when fears shall be no more; when I shall have that dear, that vast, that exquisite, ecstatic delight of making my Sophia happy?"--"Indeed, sir," said she, "that day is in your own power."--"O! my dear, my divine angel," cried he, "these words have made me mad with joy.----But I must, I will thank those dear lips which have so sweetly pronounced my bliss." He then caught her in his arms, and kissed her with an ardour he had never ventured before.