The
uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the
floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his
pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white
liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and
his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having
in its passage shed its honors on his head, and begun to trickle
down the wrinkles, or rather furrows, of his cheeks; when one of
the servants snatching a mop out of a pail of water, which had
already done its duty in washing the house, pushed it in the
parson's face; yet could he not bear him down; for the parson
wresting the mop from the fellow with one hand, with the other
brought his enemy as low as the earth."[173]
To obtain any adequate idea of the range of Fielding's pictures of
human nature, the reader must consult the novels themselves. Propriety
forbids the insertion here of quotations which could convey an
impression of the happy dissoluteness of Tom Jones, the brutal
coarseness of Squire Western, or the scenes of unblushing license which
pervade the novels of Henry Fielding. But a sample of the witty, jovial
tone which has made these novels so popular may be of interest to
readers who are not inclined to open "Tom Jones" itself.
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