The Works of Tobias Smollett: Count Fathom, 1895Gibbings, 1895 |
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abbé accordingly acquainted advantage adventurer affection agreeable Antonia apartment Bar-le-duc Battle of Belgrade began behaviour billet Bristol Spring Celinda CHAPTER character conduct consequence conversation countenance daughter declaration desire disposition Don Diego door duenna Dulcinea endeavours engaged English entertained escritoire exercise expressed eyes fail favour fear Ferdinand Count Fathom forthwith fortune found means French French language friendship gave gentleman German happy hath heart Heaven hero honour hope Humphry Clinker immediately inclination indulge insinuation interest jewels justice knew lady's lover Mademoiselle manner marriage ment misfortune mistress mortification mother nature never night Noble Castilian observed occasion opportunity passion Penthesilea perceived person pleasure portmanteau present pretended proposed quaker Ratchcali received Renaldo resolved seemed sentiments Serafina Sir Stentor Smollett solicitor soon sooner spahis spirit stranger supposed suspicion tender Teresa Thalestris thought tion took transports Tyrolese understrapper Vienna virtue whole wife Wilhelmina young Count young lady
Popular passages
Page 3 - A novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his own importance.
Page 120 - ... and sagacity ; and, moreover, be detained as an evidence against the robbers, to the manifest detriment of his affairs. Perhaps, too, he had motives of conscience, that dissuaded him from bearing witness against a set of people whose principles did not much differ from his own. Influenced by such considerations, he yielded to the first importunity of the beldame, whom he dismissed at a very small distance from the village, after he had earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course of...
Page 3 - The impulses of fear, which is the most violent and interesting of all the passions, remain longer than any other upon the memory...
Page 4 - Let me not therefore be condemned for having chosen my principal character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when I declare my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the benefit of the unexperienced and unwary, who from the perusal of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which they are continually surrounded in the paths of life...
Page 4 - ... amuse the fancy, engage the affection, and form a striking contrast which might heighten the expression, and give a relief to the moral of the whole. ^ If I have not succeeded in my endeavours to unfold the mysteries of fraud, to instruct the ignorant, and entertain the vacant; if I have failed in my attempts to subject folly to ridicule, and vice to indignation; to rouse the spirit of mirth, wake the soul of compassion, and touch the secret springs that move the heart...
Page 8 - Have a little patience, gentle, delicate, sublime critic ; you, I doubt not, are one of those consummate connoisseurs, who, in their purifications, let humour...
Page 118 - ... universal palsy. In short, he remained in a trance that, in all probability, contributed to his safety; for, had he retained the use of his senses, he might have been discovered by the transports of his fear. The first use he made of his retrieved recollection...
Page 4 - That the mind might not be fatigued, nor the imagination disgusted, by a succession of vicious objects, I have endeavoured to refresh the attention with occasional incidents of a different nature ; and raised up a virtuous character, in opposition to the adventurer, with a view to amuse the fancy, engage the affection, and form a striking contrast which might heighten the expression, and give a reliff to the moral of the whole.
Page 52 - He had formerly imagined, but was now fully persuaded, that the sons of men preyed upon one another, and such was the end and condition of their being. Among the principal figures of life, he observed few or no characters that did not bear a strong analogy to the savage tyrants of the wood. One resembled a tiger in fury and rapaciousness; a second prowled about like an hungry wolf, seeking whom he might devour; a third acted the part of a...
Page 113 - In the midst of this communication, which did not at all tend to the elevation of our hero's spirits, the conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while our traveller jogged on in expectation of being joined again by him in a few minutes : he was however disappointed in that hope ; the sound of the other horse's feet by degrees grew more and more faint, and at last altogether died away.