How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Those who sat in the world's upper gallery treated that incident [of Black George stealing Tom's money], I am well convinced, with their usual vociferation; and every term of scurrilous reproach was most probably vented on that occasion. […]
The pit, as usual, was no doubt divided; those who delight in heroic virtue and perfect character objected to the producing such instances of villany, without punishing them very severely for the sake of example. Some of the author's friends cryed, "Look'e, gentlemen, the man is a villain, but it is nature for all that." And all the young critics of the age, the clerks, apprentices, &c., called it low, and fell a groaning.
As for the boxes, they behaved with their accustomed politeness. Most of them were attending to something else. Some of those few who regarded the scene at all, declared he was a bad kind of man; while others refused to give their opinion, till they had heard that of the best judges. (7.1.9-12)
In this metaphor of theater seats, the narrator talks about the ways that people of different classes respond to art. The poorest people have totally emotional reactions, commenting with "their usual vociferation." Artists and critics mostly think about artistic form and morality, without feeling anything in particular about what they are looking at. And the richest people (those who can afford "the boxes" in the theater) are very polite and quiet, but they are also barely paying attention. What are some of the shortcomings of each of these three different modes of interacting with art? How does the narrator's descriptions of these three artistic modes (emotional, mechanical, politely uninterested) fit in with common class stereotypes of the poor or the very wealthy?
Quote #5
"A servant of Squire Allworthy!" says the barber; "what's his name?"—"Why he told me his name was Jones," says she: "perhaps he goes by a wrong name. Nay, and he told me, too, that the squire had maintained him as his own son, thof he had quarrelled with him now."—"And if his name be Jones, he told you the truth," said the barber; "for I have relations who live in that country; nay, and some people say he is his son."—"Why doth he not go by the name of his father?"—"I can't tell that," said the barber; "many people's sons don't go by the name of their father."—"Nay," said the landlady, "if I thought he was a gentleman's son, thof he was a bye-blow, I should behave to him in another guess manner; for many of these bye-blows come to be great men, and, as my poor first husband used to say, never affront any customer that's a gentleman." (8.4.11)
(A "bye-blow" or by-blow is a slang term for a bastard, by the way.) What's interesting about the landlady's is-he-or-isn't-he anxieties is that her worries expose two or three very different meanings of the word "gentleman." On the one hand, it means someone born into a gentry family, so, someone "well-bred," to use the language of the time. On the other hand, it means someone with money. When the lieutenant uses the term, he means that Tom has a good, polite manner. But all the landlady hears from the word "gentleman" is the clinking of coins in her pocket.
Quote #6
"Here," said [Watson], taking some dice out of his pocket, "here's the stuff. Here are the implements; here are the little doctors which cure the distempers of the purse. Follow but my counsel, and I will show you a way to empty the pocket of a queer cull without any danger of the nubbing cheat." (8.12.9)
One thing we find striking about the Man of the Hill's story of crime and redemption is that he has to be taught by other people to be evil. It's through bad influences that the Man of the Hill learns real wrongdoing, first from Sir George Gresham and then by Watson, here. Similarly, Mr. Blifil may be proud and cold by birth, but he is encouraged in his evil by his (mis)education with Misters Thwackum and Square. It seems like Fielding believes that people are born (more or less) good but then are made bad by their social influences. On the other hand, the narrator specifies that Tom has natural instincts towards doing good (4.6.3) that protect him (at least somewhat) from bad influences.