I apologize for my absence. It’s been a fortnight since I last visited with you, and I know such a lengthy and unplanned departure distresses you beyond measure. I truly appreciate your dependence upon my wisdom and your acknowledgment that a joyful and bountiful existence is beyond reach without the erudite enlightenment I bring you every week.
And for you dark-hearted savages who rejoice at my absence, try to repent and remember that refusing the light of truth leads to an eternity of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the fiery dungeons of a most inhospitable place.
It seems that many have needed my professional services over the past couple of weeks. Oh, I’ve picked up my pen on a couple of occasions, but before I could finish my thoughts, duty called me in other directions. Fidelity to truth commands me to report that I’ve had other demands on my time besides dispensing my Learned Hand legal skills and financial profundity to those wretched clients of mine who would be selling apples on the street corner were it not for my sage advice.
A portion of my time has been allocated to completely voluntary efforts to enhance my own pleasure. But when one is captive to a great book, are those hours really voluntary? Does not a learned man have a duty to swallow up and engulf a great work of English literature?
Why is it that no matter how polymathic or how large my library becomes, there’s always a tinge of shame for not having read a great classic?
I’ve been frolicking through the English countryside with Tom Jones.
Not the “What’s New Pussycat” Tom Jones. Besides, that pelvic-thrusting entertainer is a Welshman, whereas my Tom Jones is an Englishman living 300 years ago. I must say, aside from their surnames, both Joneses were amorous creatures of a sensuous nature. Notice I did not mislabel my adjective by using “sensual,” and being the honest writer who deplores plagiarism, I must give credit to Mrs. Wormer, as I was with Otter at the Kroger when she explained the difference between the two forms of expression.
I will digress from Tom for a moment only to inform you that I am an Anglophile. Call me a colonizer! Go ahead. Boo hoo. You won’t hurt my feelings, because the world was a much better place when the Brits had their Empire. So were the places they colonized.
Being a parent is a learning endeavor; a young father might try a technique that an older one would discard. When my boy Coleman was a wee tadpole, I actually contacted Eton, inquiring about his future admission. Coleman lives in San Diego and surfs every day. I’m not sure if he even owns a friggin’ sports coat. Now, the thought of him walking around Eton in a morning suit and top hat seems a bit ridiculous.
But we Smith boys are supposed to be rulers, not lowly serfs, and when I first read the Wellington quote that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,” well, hell, what was I supposed to do? I don’t want any of my issue to lose a battle to some future Corsican tyrant!
Back to Tom Jones, written by Henry Fielding in 1749. Here is my book review:
It is a good book.
That’s all I want to say. I knew almost nothing of the story before it was recommended to me as one of the great heavyweights of English and British literature. It made it more enjoyable not knowing what I was getting into.
Sure, I could blather on about plot, character development, satire, and Fielding’s moral commentary. I could do this so eloquently, you would think I’m some Cambridge fellow at King’s College. But me waxing poetically in my mellifluous Tidewater, Virginia accent—throwing out metaphors, discussing similes and syntactic manipulations—will not err to your benefit, Dear Reader, as my lecture will only curtail your enjoyment.
This is a book that needs to be opened and read with no expectations. Don’t let the 900-page tome scare you. I very much appreciate Fielding for breaking his masterpiece up into 18 books and a slew of small 3- to 4-page chapters per book. It made the reading much less daunting.
So, while I won’t be a gossipy little girl and tell you about the story, I will give you some snippets, thoughts, and observations that might pique your interest, but not satiate your appetite:
Clever. Funny. Pastoral. Surprises. Shock. Deceit. Warm. Noble. Historical. Insightful. Bitches. Beauty. Selfishness. Disloyalty. Loyalty. Sex. Christian. Bookish. Wise. Boorishness. Scholarly. Cruel.
I’m not a terribly sentimental bloke, but I am magnetically attracted to an Anna Karenina-type love story. And I hate to sound like a big wuss, but I get what it’s like to be gripped in the passion Count Vronsky felt for Anna.
I once was Tom Jones’s age—a sprightly, eager fella at the University of Virginia. I liked the ladies then, and I like them now. I like them a lot. They are as mysterious to me now as they were when I was twenty. And they haven’t changed since 1749.
When Fielding delves into their personalities, he examines many different varieties of womanhood. The insight is extraordinary and perfectly applicable—even true—in 2025. His many ventures into love and lust, avarice, altruism, drunkenness, pride, good breeding, sloth, industry, and religion ring as true now as when Bonnie Prince Charlie stumbled at Culloden. Then as now, the manifestations of our sins conflict with our noble attributes. Fielding is both funny and damned insightful in exposing the multi-faceted elements of our human nature.
Perhaps I wasn’t the complete and gallant gentleman at twenty that I am now. But I remember so clearly, in a time of selfish and drunken skirt-chasing, being absolutely mesmerized by a couple of very pretty, virtuous young women—so much so that I wanted to do nothing more than protect them, put them on a pedestal, and practice my good manners and the elegant art of gentlemanly behavior.
Virtuous and ladylike women civilize men and make us into better people.
My brother Fat Wally took what amounted to six years of Latin at his prep school, Woodberry Forest.
Hint: I wish I had done the same.
I’ve never been one to judge a man for the ill that he does when the good so outweighs such trifling offenses. An older gentleman, who was so good to me when I was young, went to jail for 14 months due to a dishonest financial act. I still loved the guy—not just because I knew his heart, but also because I know that life bestows certain circumstances that cloud one’s judgment. We are all subject to the fickle spears that Zeus throws in our sides from time to time.
As Mr. Allworthy told Tom, there’s a difference between imprudence and villainy. While imprudence can be excused, villainy cannot. It’s always agreeable to stop and think, and not act out of rash emotion—for imprudence has consequences.
“Prudence is indeed the duty which we owe to ourselves; and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others will, I am afraid, be too apt to build upon it.”
“...it is this alone which often betrays [virtue and innocence] into the snares that deceit and villainy spread for them.”
Hint: Odysseus had to overcome obstacles on his journey to reach Penelope.
And with these reflective scribblings, Dear Reader, I will take my leave…
