Miss Fielding

“ And this brings me to a final question as to Fielding’s sisters. Richardson speaks in August 1749 of being “well acquainted” with four Miss Fieldings; and Murphy and Lawrence both refer to a Catherine and an Ursula of whom Mr. Keightley could learn nothing. With Colonel Prideaux’s help, and the kind offices of Mr. Samuel Martin of the Hammersmith Free Library, the matter has now been set at rest. In 1887 the late Sir Leslie Stephen had suggested to me that Catherine and Ursula were probably born at Sharpham Park. ”

“ And then the cameras clicked and the much-rehearsed scene was recorded on the strips of film.
At the end Ruth felt a light touch on her arm and found Edith Lang beside her. Tears were streaming down the face of the temperamental actress, but her face was wreathed in smiles.
“Fine! Excellent!” she cried. “It takes a clever actress to make me weep. But you, my dear Miss Fielding, you bring out the best that is in us. You stir the imagination, the emotions, like skilled fingers on the sensitive strings of a harp. You are wonderful, wonderful, my dear Ruth Fielding. ”

“ Ruth Fielding began to understand better than ever before this particular work that she was now called upon to perform, and that she was so well fitted to perform.
She was cheerful as well as sympathetic; she was sane beyond most young girls in her management of men—many men.
“Bless you, Mademoiselle!” declared the matron, “of course they will make love to you. Let them. It will do them good—the poor blessés—and do you no harm. And you have a way with you!” ”

“ Of his second wife, as may be gathered from the opening words of the Journal, Fielding always speaks with the warmest affection and gratitude. Elsewhere, recording a storm off the Isle of Wight, he says, “My dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself, I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them: in truth, I have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man.” ”

“ I do not for one moment believe that it was the blithe and brutal coarseness of Fielding's novels that exiled them from the female heart, that inconsistent heart which never fluttered over the more repellent indecency of "Pamela." Insidious influences were at work within the dovecotes. The eighteenth-century woman, while less given to self-analysis and self-assertion than her successor to-day, was just as conscious of her own nature, its resistless force, its inalienable laws, its permanent limitations ”

“ Then, just for a joke, he proposed that he should represent himself as a very wealthy man. Miss Fielding was caught by the glittering bait, and accepted him when he proposed marriage. In a few weeks they were solemnly united in wedlock, the young lover thinking that she would forgive his deception when she found it out, for the sake of their mutual love. How much he deceived himself may be understood by the fact that his girl bride left him forever within an hour after their [Pg 154] marriage, vowing vengeance on him for the trick by which he had won her hand. ”

“ Helen and Jennie ran to her, and such a hullabaloo as there was for a few minutes!
Jim Hooley came striding down to the three Eastern girls, flushed and with scowling brow.
"I want to know who did that?" he shouted. "No thanks to anybody but my camera men that the whole scene wasn't a fizzle. And what would Mr. Hammond have said? Who were those men, Miss Fielding?"
"What men?" asked Ruth in wonder.
"Up there on the other bank? Those that knocked the chocks out from under that heap of logs? You don't suppose that avalanche of timber started all by itself?" ”

“ Young Mrs. Fielding opened her dark, heavy-lidded eyes and gazed thoughtfully about the large, luxurious chamber, from which every ray of sunshine had been carefully excluded. As her eyes became accustomed to the subdued light she saw a fat old negro woman, in a white cap and apron, dozing placidly in a large rocking-chair.
"Nurse! nurse!" she cried.
"Hi, honey!" and the sleeper wakened with a start, and waddled up to the bed, with a broad smile on her dark visage. ”

“ When himself but a lad of twenty, and in the prologue of his first comedy, Fielding had entered his protest against certain popular vices of the time, and had made merry over its follies. The desire to make the world he knew too well a better place than he found it is just as keen in the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. Surely not the least amazing feature of Fielding's genius is this dual capacity for exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. ”

“ Fielding. "How would you like to feel that everyone is against you?"
"I don't know. I expect I should find a way out somehow. I shouldn't quarrel," said Juliet. "Not with such odds as that!"
"How—discreet!" said Mrs. Fielding, with a sneer.
"Discretion is my watchword," smiled Juliet.
"And very wise too," said Green's voice in the doorway. "How do you do, Mrs. Fielding? As I can't dress, I've been sent down to try and make my peace with you for showing my face here at all. I hope you'll be lenient for once, for really I've had a thorough bullying for my sins." ”

“ We see somebody waiting here whom we do not wish to speak with."
"All right, ma'am," agreed the taxicab driver,
In two minutes they were whisked around to the other door, and entered the hotel thereby. As they passed through the lobby to the elevators one of the clerks came to Ruth.
"A man has been asking for you, Miss Fielding" he said. "He—he seems a peculiar individual—"
Ruth described Dakota Joe Fenbrook and the clerk admitted that he was the man. "A rather rude person," he said. ”

“ Go, my dear husband,’ cried she, falling upon her knees: ‘may every angel of heaven guard and preserve you!’—I cannot repeat her words without being affected,” said he, wiping his eyes, “the excellence of that woman no words can paint: Miss Matthews, she hath every perfection in human nature.
“I will not tire you with the repetition of any more that past on that occasion, nor with the quarrel that ensued between Mrs. Harris and the doctor; for the old lady could not submit to my leaving her daughter in her present condition. ”

“ I feared for the influence over you of certain minds among the older scholars; but I believed you, Ruth Fielding, and you, Helen Cameron, to be too independent in character to be so easily led by girls of really much weaker wills. For one may will to do evil, or to do good, if one chooses. One need not drift. ”

“ Mayo what billets there were open in the supply unit; but the chief did not know. The State had supplied few workers as yet who had been sent abroad; Robinsburg, up to this time, none at all.
“Why, Miss Fielding, you must not think of going over there!” he cried. “We need you here. If all our dependable women go to France, how shall we manage here?”
“You would manage very well,” Ruth told him. “This should be a training school for the work over there. I know that I can give any 71 intelligent girl such an idea of my work in three weeks that you would never miss me.” ”

“ I immediately run up into my Room, and stript, and washed, and drest my self as well as I could, and put on my prettiest round-ear'd Cap, and pulled down my Stays, to shew as much as I could of my Bosom, (for Parson Williams says [Pg 29] that is the most beautiful part of a Woman) and then I practised over all my Airs before the Glass, and then I sat down and read a Chapter in the Whole Duty of Man.
Then Mrs. Jewkes came to me and told me, my Master wanted me below, and says she, Don't behave like a Fool; No, thinks I to my self, I believe I shall find Wit enough for my Master and you too. ”

“ Jewkes began to catechize me, about my Familiarity with him. I see she wants him herself. [Pg 25] Then she proceeded to tell me what an Honour my Master did me in liking me, and that it was both an inexcusable Folly and Pride in me, to pretend to refuse him any Favour. Pray, Madam, says I, consider I am a poor Girl, and have nothing but my Modesty to trust to. If I part with that, what will become of me. Methinks, says she, you are not so mighty modest when you are with Parson Williams; I have observed you gloat at one another, in a Manner that hath made me blush. ”

“ A few weeks before the production of Lillo's tragedy, and while Pasquin was still in the full tide of political success, an event occurred of closer import to Fielding's affectionate nature than all the applause of the Opposition and the town. This was the birth, in April, 1736, of his daughter Charlotte. No English writer has left more charming pictures of mother and child than those we owe to the tenderness and simplicity of Fielding's pen. ”

“ Here and there, along the water’s edge, a tall tree seemed floating in the air, its bole and roots cut off by the drifting mist.
“Oh, it is very, very beautiful here!” sighed Ruth Fielding, kneeling at the open window and looking out upon the awakening world—as she had done many and many another early morning since first she was given this little gable-windowed room for her very own. ”

“ What, even now, would be the life of a young man of Fielding's age, fond of pleasure, careless of the future, very liberally equipped with high spirits, and straightway exposed to the perilous seductions of the stage? Fielding had the defects of his qualities, and was no better than the rest of those about him. He was manly, and frank, and generous; but these characteristics could scarcely protect him from the terrors of the tip-staff, and the sequels of "t'other bottle." ”

“ No; nothing but a Bull will suffice. She leaves the Alderman's House, and flies away to the Groves and Mountains. To say the truth, I believe she used to drink away her Senses; and that is the best Excuse for her. Ah! how often hath she cast a jealous Eye on some Heifer! and cried out, Why should that vixen please my Love? Behold, says she, how the Slut dances a Minuet on the Grass before him: Let me die, but she is silly enough to think her Airs become her in my Love's Eyes. At length she resolved to punish her Rivals. One Heifer she ordered barbarously to be yoked to the Plough ”

“ And nevertheless, did not I, like an obedient wife, comply with your desires? did I make any objection to the party you proposed for the masquerade, though I knew very well your motive? what can the best of wives do more? to procure you success is not in my power; and, if I may give you my opinion, I believe you will never succeed with her."
"Is her virtue so very impregnable?" said he, with a sneer.
"Her virtue," answered Mrs. James, "hath the best guard in the world, which is a most violent love for her husband."
"All pretence and affectation," cries the colonel. ”

“ Come, sir, as you have a part in my play, you shall drink a dish with us.
I Play. Sir, I dare not go into the green-room; my salary is not high enough: I shall be forfeited if I go in there.
Trap. Pshaw! come along; your sister has merit enough for herself and you too: if they forfeit you, I'll warrant she'll take it off again.
ACT II. SCENE I.—Enter TRAPWIT, FUSTIAN, Prompter, Lord PLACE, Mrs and Miss Mayoress. Trap. I am afraid, Mr Fustian, you have hitherto suspected that I was a dabbler in low comedy; now, sir, you shall see some scenes of politeness and fine conversation among the ladies. ”

“ Fielding!" cried May, weeping on Mr. Fielding's shoulder; "I hope Heavenly Father will bless you for your kind intentions to a friendless orphan; but, indeed, sir, I cannot say—I don't think it would suit me to be dependent."
"Who wants you to be dependent?" roared out Mr. Fielding; "I'll hire you, if that will suit you better, to keep house, mend my stockings, and make tea for me; that will board you, and your splendid annuity will clothe you." ”

“ I had not strength or spirits to make her any answer, and she proceeded thus:—‘Indeed I did not think the captain would have used me so. My husband was an officer of the army as well as himself; and if a body is a little low in the world, I am sure that is no reason for folks to trample on a body. I defy the world to say as I ever was guilty of an ill thing.’ For heaven’s sake, madam, says I, what do you mean? ‘Mean?’ cries she; ‘I am sure, if I had not thought you had been Captain Hebbers’ lady, his lawful lady too, you should never have set footing in my house. ”

“ Can I walk among our beds of flowers without viewing your favourites, nay, those which you have planted with your own hands? can I see one beauty from our beloved mount which you have not pointed out to me?'—Thus she went on, the woman, madam, you see, still prevailing."—"Since you mention it," says Miss Matthews, with a smile, "I own the same observation occurred to me. It is too natural to us to consider ourselves only, Mr. Booth."—"You shall hear," he cried. ”

“ He'd certainly be more entertaining and far more polished. It isn't Mr. Fielding's dulness that is so unpardonable, but his horrible cocksureness and insufferable assurance. He doesn't eat with his knife, but only from obvious restraint, and in an unguarded moment he'll do it yet. He could never be convinced that if a woman had fine clothes and carriages and bejewelled fingers and throat that she could wish for something else. To him a woman is property." She drew in her breath. "After a visit from him I need prayers and want incense. And I've asked him to eat John's supper to-night!" ”

“ Pamela, says he, what Book is that, I warrant you Rochester's Poems.—No, forsooth, says I, as pertly as I could; why how now Saucy Chops, Boldface, says he—Mighty pretty Words, says I, pert again.—Yes (says he) you are a d—d, impudent, stinking, cursed, confounded Jade, and I have a great Mind to kick your A——. You, kiss —— says I. A-gad, says he, and so I will; with that he caught me in his Arms, and kissed me till he made my Face all over Fire. Now this served purely you know, to put upon the Fool for Anger. O! What precious Fools Men are! ”