Chapter 11.00: Chapter xi. — Containing many rules, and some examples, concerning falling in love: descriptions of beauty, and other more prudential inducements to matrimony.

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Chapter xi. — Containing many rules, and some examples, concerning
falling in love: descriptions of beauty, and other more prudential
inducements to matrimony.
**

It hath been observed, by wise men or women, I forget which, that all
persons are doomed to be in love once in their lives. No particular season
is, as I remember, assigned for this; but the age at which Miss Bridget
was arrived, seems to me as proper a period as any to be fixed on for this
purpose: it often, indeed, happens much earlier; but when it doth not, I
have observed it seldom or never fails about this time. Moreover, we may
remark that at this season love is of a more serious and steady nature
than what sometimes shows itself in the younger parts of life. The love of
girls is uncertain, capricious, and so foolish that we cannot always
discover what the young lady would be at; nay, it may almost be doubted
whether she always knows this herself.

Now we are never at a loss to discern this in women about forty; for as
such grave, serious, and experienced ladies well know their own meaning,
so it is always very easy for a man of the least sagacity to discover it
with the utmost certainty.

Miss Bridget is an example of all these observations. She had not been
many times in the captain's company before she was seized with this
passion. Nor did she go pining and moping about the house, like a puny,
foolish girl, ignorant of her distemper: she felt, she knew, and she
enjoyed, the pleasing sensation, of which, as she was certain it was not
only innocent but laudable, she was neither afraid nor ashamed.

And to say the truth, there is, in all points, great difference between
the reasonable passion which women at this age conceive towards men, and
the idle and childish liking of a girl to a boy, which is often fixed on
the outside only, and on things of little value and no duration; as on
cherry-cheeks, small, lily-white hands, sloe-black eyes, flowing locks,
downy chins, dapper shapes; nay, sometimes on charms more worthless than
these, and less the party's own; such are the outward ornaments of the
person, for which men are beholden to the taylor, the laceman, the
periwig-maker, the hatter, and the milliner, and not to nature. Such a
passion girls may well be ashamed, as they generally are, to own either to
themselves or others.

The love of Miss Bridget was of another kind. The captain owed nothing to
any of these fop-makers in his dress, nor was his person much more
beholden to nature. Both his dress and person were such as, had they
appeared in an assembly or a drawing-room, would have been the contempt
and ridicule of all the fine ladies there. The former of these was indeed
neat, but plain, coarse, ill-fancied, and out of fashion. As for the
latter, we have expressly described it above. So far was the skin on his
cheeks from being cherry-coloured, that you could not discern what the
natural colour of his cheeks was, they being totally overgrown by a black
beard, which ascended to his eyes. His shape and limbs were indeed exactly
proportioned, but so large that they denoted the strength rather of a
ploughman than any other. His shoulders were broad beyond all size, and
the calves of his legs larger than those of a common chairman. In short,
his whole person wanted all that elegance and beauty which is the very
reverse of clumsy strength, and which so agreeably sets off most of our
fine gentlemen; being partly owing to the high blood of their ancestors,
viz., blood made of rich sauces and generous wines, and partly to an early
town education.

Though Miss Bridget was a woman of the greatest delicacy of taste, yet
such were the charms of the captain's conversation, that she totally
overlooked the defects of his person. She imagined, and perhaps very
wisely, that she should enjoy more agreeable minutes with the captain than
with a much prettier fellow; and forewent the consideration of pleasing
her eyes, in order to procure herself much more solid satisfaction.

The captain no sooner perceived the passion of Miss Bridget, in which
discovery he was very quick-sighted, than he faithfully returned it. The
lady, no more than her lover, was remarkable for beauty. I would attempt
to draw her picture, but that is done already by a more able master, Mr
Hogarth himself, to whom she sat many years ago, and hath been lately
exhibited by that gentleman in his print of a winter's morning, of which
she was no improper emblem, and may be seen walking (for walk she doth in
the print) to Covent Garden church, with a starved foot-boy behind
carrying her prayer-book.

The captain likewise very wisely preferred the more solid enjoyments he
expected with this lady, to the fleeting charms of person. He was one of
those wise men who regard beauty in the other sex as a very worthless and
superficial qualification; or, to speak more truly, who rather chuse to
possess every convenience of life with an ugly woman, than a handsome one
without any of those conveniences. And having a very good appetite, and
but little nicety, he fancied he should play his part very well at the
matrimonial banquet, without the sauce of beauty.

To deal plainly with the reader, the captain, ever since his arrival, at
least from the moment his brother had proposed the match to him, long
before he had discovered any flattering symptoms in Miss Bridget, had been
greatly enamoured; that is to say, of Mr Allworthy's house and gardens,
and of his lands, tenements, and hereditaments; of all which the captain
was so passionately fond, that he would most probably have contracted
marriage with them, had he been obliged to have taken the witch of Endor
into the bargain.

As Mr Allworthy, therefore, had declared to the doctor that he never
intended to take a second wife, as his sister was his nearest relation,
and as the doctor had fished out that his intentions were to make any
child of hers his heir, which indeed the law, without his interposition,
would have done for him; the doctor and his brother thought it an act of
benevolence to give being to a human creature, who would be so plentifully
provided with the most essential means of happiness. The whole thoughts,
therefore, of both the brothers were how to engage the affections of this
amiable lady.

But fortune, who is a tender parent, and often doth more for her favourite
offspring than either they deserve or wish, had been so industrious for
the captain, that whilst he was laying schemes to execute his purpose, the
lady conceived the same desires with himself, and was on her side
contriving how to give the captain proper encouragement, without appearing
too forward; for she was a strict observer of all rules of decorum. In
this, however, she easily succeeded; for as the captain was always on the
look-out, no glance, gesture, or word escaped him.

The satisfaction which the captain received from the kind behaviour of
Miss Bridget, was not a little abated by his apprehensions of Mr
Allworthy; for, notwithstanding his disinterested professions, the captain
imagined he would, when he came to act, follow the example of the rest of
the world, and refuse his consent to a match so disadvantageous, in point
of interest, to his sister. From what oracle he received this opinion, I
shall leave the reader to determine: but however he came by it, it
strangely perplexed him how to regulate his conduct so as at once to
convey his affection to the lady, and to conceal it from her brother. He
at length resolved to take all private opportunities of making his
addresses; but in the presence of Mr Allworthy to be as reserved and as
much upon his guard as was possible; and this conduct was highly approved
by the brother.

He soon found means to make his addresses, in express terms, to his
mistress, from whom he received an answer in the proper form, viz.: the
answer which was first made some thousands of years ago, and which hath
been handed down by tradition from mother to daughter ever since. If I was
to translate this into Latin, I should render it by these two words, _Nolo
Episcopari_: a phrase likewise of immemorial use on another occasion.

The captain, however he came by his knowledge, perfectly well understood
the lady, and very soon after repeated his application with more warmth
and earnestness than before, and was again, according to due form,
rejected; but as he had increased in the eagerness of his desires, so the
lady, with the same propriety, decreased in the violence of her refusal.

Not to tire the reader, by leading him through every scene of this
courtship (which, though in the opinion of a certain great author, it is
the pleasantest scene of life to the actor, is, perhaps, as dull and
tiresome as any whatever to the audience), the captain made his advances
in form, the citadel was defended in form, and at length, in proper form,
surrendered at discretion.

During this whole time, which filled the space of near a month, the
captain preserved great distance of behaviour to his lady in the presence
of the brother; and the more he succeeded with her in private, the more
reserved was he in public. And as for the lady, she had no sooner secured
her lover than she behaved to him before company with the highest degree
of indifference; so that Mr Allworthy must have had the insight of the
devil (or perhaps some of his worse qualities) to have entertained the
least suspicion of what was going forward.