Chapter 12.00: Chapter xii. — Containing what the reader may, perhaps, expect to find in it.

**
Chapter xii. — Containing what the reader may, perhaps, expect to
find in it.
**

In all bargains, whether to fight or to marry, or concerning any other
such business, little previous ceremony is required to bring the matter to
an issue when both parties are really in earnest. This was the case at
present, and in less than a month the captain and his lady were man and
wife.

The great concern now was to break the matter to Mr Allworthy; and this
was undertaken by the doctor.

One day, then, as Allworthy was walking in his garden, the doctor came to
him, and, with great gravity of aspect, and all the concern which he could
possibly affect in his countenance, said, “I am come, sir, to impart
an affair to you of the utmost consequence; but how shall I mention to you
what it almost distracts me to think of!” He then launched forth
into the most bitter invectives both against men and women; accusing the
former of having no attachment but to their interest, and the latter of
being so addicted to vicious inclinations that they could never be safely
trusted with one of the other sex. “Could I,” said he, “sir,
have suspected that a lady of such prudence, such judgment, such learning,
should indulge so indiscreet a passion! Or could I have imagined that my
brother—why do I call him so? He is no longer a brother of mine——”

“Indeed but he is,” said Allworthy, “and a brother of
mine too.”

“Bless me, sir!” said the doctor, “do you know the
shocking affair?”

“Look'ee, Mr Blifil,” answered the good man, “it hath
been my constant maxim in life to make the best of all matters which
happen. My sister, though many years younger than I, is at least old
enough to be at the age of discretion. Had he imposed on a child, I should
have been more averse to have forgiven him; but a woman upwards of thirty
must certainly be supposed to know what will make her most happy. She hath
married a gentleman, though perhaps not quite her equal in fortune; and if
he hath any perfections in her eye which can make up that deficiency, I
see no reason why I should object to her choice of her own happiness;
which I, no more than herself, imagine to consist only in immense wealth.
I might, perhaps, from the many declarations I have made of complying with
almost any proposal, have expected to have been consulted on this
occasion; but these matters are of a very delicate nature, and the
scruples of modesty, perhaps, are not to be overcome. As to your brother,
I have really no anger against him at all. He hath no obligations to me,
nor do I think he was under any necessity of asking my consent, since the
woman is, as I have said, _sui juris_, and of a proper age to be
entirely answerable only, to herself for her conduct.”

The doctor accused Mr Allworthy of too great lenity, repeated his
accusations against his brother, and declared that he should never more be
brought either to see, or to own him for his relation. He then launched
forth into a panegyric on Allworthy's goodness; into the highest encomiums
on his friendship; and concluded by saying, he should never forgive his
brother for having put the place which he bore in that friendship to a
hazard.

Allworthy thus answered: “Had I conceived any displeasure against
your brother, I should never have carried that resentment to the innocent:
but I assure you I have no such displeasure. Your brother appears to me to
be a man of sense and honour. I do not disapprove the taste of my sister;
nor will I doubt but that she is equally the object of his inclinations. I
have always thought love the only foundation of happiness in a married
state, as it can only produce that high and tender friendship which should
always be the cement of this union; and, in my opinion, all those
marriages which are contracted from other motives are greatly criminal;
they are a profanation of a most holy ceremony, and generally end in
disquiet and misery: for surely we may call it a profanation to convert
this most sacred institution into a wicked sacrifice to lust or avarice:
and what better can be said of those matches to which men are induced
merely by the consideration of a beautiful person, or a great fortune?

“To deny that beauty is an agreeable object to the eye, and even
worthy some admiration, would be false and foolish. Beautiful is an
epithet often used in Scripture, and always mentioned with honour. It was
my own fortune to marry a woman whom the world thought handsome, and I can
truly say I liked her the better on that account. But to make this the
sole consideration of marriage, to lust after it so violently as to
overlook all imperfections for its sake, or to require it so absolutely as
to reject and disdain religion, virtue, and sense, which are qualities in
their nature of much higher perfection, only because an elegance of person
is wanting: this is surely inconsistent, either with a wise man or a good
Christian. And it is, perhaps, being too charitable to conclude that such
persons mean anything more by their marriage than to please their carnal
appetites; for the satisfaction of which, we are taught, it was not
ordained.

“In the next place, with respect to fortune. Worldly prudence,
perhaps, exacts some consideration on this head; nor will I absolutely and
altogether condemn it. As the world is constituted, the demands of a
married state, and the care of posterity, require some little regard to
what we call circumstances. Yet this provision is greatly increased,
beyond what is really necessary, by folly and vanity, which create
abundantly more wants than nature. Equipage for the wife, and large
fortunes for the children, are by custom enrolled in the list of
necessaries; and to procure these, everything truly solid and sweet, and
virtuous and religious, are neglected and overlooked.

“And this in many degrees; the last and greatest of which seems
scarce distinguishable from madness;—I mean where persons of immense
fortunes contract themselves to those who are, and must be, disagreeable
to them—to fools and knaves—in order to increase an estate
already larger even than the demands of their pleasures. Surely such
persons, if they will not be thought mad, must own, either that they are
incapable of tasting the sweets of the tenderest friendship, or that they
sacrifice the greatest happiness of which they are capable to the vain,
uncertain, and senseless laws of vulgar opinion, which owe as well their
force as their foundation to folly.”

Here Allworthy concluded his sermon, to which Blifil had listened with the
profoundest attention, though it cost him some pains to prevent now and
then a small discomposure of his muscles. He now praised every period of
what he had heard with the warmth of a young divine, who hath the honour
to dine with a bishop the same day in which his lordship hath mounted the
pulpit.