Chapter 23.00: Chapter i. — Containing little or nothing.

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Chapter i. — Containing little or nothing.
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The reader will be pleased to remember, that, at the beginning of the
second book of this history, we gave him a hint of our intention to pass
over several large periods of time, in which nothing happened worthy of
being recorded in a chronicle of this kind.

In so doing, we do not only consult our own dignity and ease, but the good
and advantage of the reader: for besides that by these means we prevent
him from throwing away his time, in reading without either pleasure or
emolument, we give him, at all such seasons, an opportunity of employing
that wonderful sagacity, of which he is master, by filling up these vacant
spaces of time with his own conjectures; for which purpose we have taken
care to qualify him in the preceding pages.

For instance, what reader but knows that Mr Allworthy felt, at first, for
the loss of his friend, those emotions of grief, which on such occasions
enter into all men whose hearts are not composed of flint, or their heads
of as solid materials? Again, what reader doth not know that philosophy
and religion in time moderated, and at last extinguished, this grief? The
former of these teaching the folly and vanity of it, and the latter
correcting it as unlawful, and at the same time assuaging it, by raising
future hopes and assurances, which enable a strong and religious mind to
take leave of a friend, on his deathbed, with little less indifference
than if he was preparing for a long journey; and, indeed, with little less
hope of seeing him again.

Nor can the judicious reader be at a greater loss on account of Mrs
Bridget Blifil, who, he may be assured, conducted herself through the
whole season in which grief is to make its appearance on the outside of
the body, with the strictest regard to all the rules of custom and
decency, suiting the alterations of her countenance to the several
alterations of her habit: for as this changed from weeds to black, from
black to grey, from grey to white, so did her countenance change from
dismal to sorrowful, from sorrowful to sad, and from sad to serious, till
the day came in which she was allowed to return to her former serenity.

We have mentioned these two, as examples only of the task which may be
imposed on readers of the lowest class. Much higher and harder exercises
of judgment and penetration may reasonably be expected from the upper
graduates in criticism. Many notable discoveries will, I doubt not, be
made by such, of the transactions which happened in the family of our
worthy man, during all the years which we have thought proper to pass
over: for though nothing worthy of a place in this history occurred within
that period, yet did several incidents happen of equal importance with
those reported by the daily and weekly historians of the age; in reading
which great numbers of persons consume a considerable part of their time,
very little, I am afraid, to their emolument. Now, in the conjectures here
proposed, some of the most excellent faculties of the mind may be employed
to much advantage, since it is a more useful capacity to be able to
foretel the actions of men, in any circumstance, from their characters,
than to judge of their characters from their actions. The former, I own,
requires the greater penetration; but may be accomplished by true sagacity
with no less certainty than the latter.

As we are sensible that much the greatest part of our readers are very
eminently possessed of this quality, we have left them a space of twelve
years to exert it in; and shall now bring forth our heroe, at about
fourteen years of age, not questioning that many have been long impatient
to be introduced to his acquaintance.