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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 25305 ***
+
+
+
+
+Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
+
+by John Cleland
+
+
+_A new and genuine edition from the original text (London, 1749)._
+
+PARIS—ISIDORE LISEUX
+
+ Of this Edition, privately printed, there are
+350 numbered copies, of which this is number 111.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+ LETTER THE FIRST
+ LETTER THE SECOND
+
+
+LETTER THE FIRST
+
+Madam,
+
+I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your
+desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I
+shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I
+emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of
+love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth,
+and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and
+affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable
+one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been
+tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of
+the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who,
+looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at
+as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.
+
+Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give
+you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare
+you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty
+that I led it.
+
+Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take
+the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint
+situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of
+violating those laws of decency that were never made for such
+unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much
+knowledge of the originals, to sniff prudishly and out of character at
+the pictures of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most
+leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets with
+nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not
+think them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.
+
+This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My
+maiden name was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near
+Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely poor, and, I piously
+believe, extremely honest.
+
+My father, who had received a maim on his limbs, that disabled him from
+following the more laborious branches of country drudgery, got, by
+making nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarged by my
+mother’s keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighborhood.
+They had had several children; but none lived to any age except myself,
+who had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy.
+
+My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar:
+reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary
+plain work, composed the whole system of it; and then all my foundation
+in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy
+timidity general to our sex, in the tender age of life, when objects
+alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else. But then,
+this is a fear too often cured at the expense of innocence, when Miss,
+by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a creature of prey
+that will eat her.
+
+My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars
+and her little domestic cares, that she had spared very little to my
+instruction, having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or
+thought of guarding me against any.
+
+I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell
+me in the loss of my fond, tender parents, who were both carried off by
+the small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first,
+and thereby by hastening the death of my mother: so that I was now left
+an unhappy friendless orphan (for my father’s coming to settle there,
+was accidental, he being originally a Kentisrman). That cruel distemper
+which had proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such
+mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and
+what then I did not know the value of, was entirely unmarked I skip
+over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt
+on this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that
+age, dissipated too soon my reflections on that irreparable loss; but
+nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that
+were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out
+for a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from
+one Esther Davis, a young woman that had beer down to see her friends,
+and who, after the stay of a few days, was returned to her place.
+
+As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had concern enough
+about what should become of me, to start any objections to this scheme,
+and the woman who took care of me after my parents’ death, rather
+encouraged me to pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this
+launch into the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my
+fortune, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of
+both sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.
+
+Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with
+her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to
+be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family,
+the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell
+within her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which perfectly
+turned the little head of me.
+
+Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not
+without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going
+clothes did not rise above dowlas shifts and stuff gowns, beplaced with
+silver: all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great
+deal into my determination of trying to come in for my share of them.
+
+The idea however of having the company of a towns-woman with her, was
+the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of
+me during my journey to town, where she told me, after the manner and
+style, “as how several maids out of the country had made themselves and
+all their kind for ever: that by preserving their virtue, some had
+taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them
+coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some, may-hap, came to
+be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?”; with
+other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin this
+promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one,
+contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown
+insupportable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold
+air of charity, with which I was entertained, even at the only friend’s
+house that I had the least expectation of care and protection from. She
+was, however, so just to me, as to manage the turning into money the
+little matters that remained to me after the debts and burial charges
+were allowed for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune into my
+hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe, packed up in a very
+portable box, and eight guineas, with seventeen shillings in silver,
+stowed in a spring-pouch, which was a greater treasure than I ever had
+seen together, and which I could not conceive there was a possibility
+of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of
+seeing myself mistress of such an immence sum, that I gave very little
+attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.
+
+Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the Chester waggon, I
+pass over a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at which I droped a
+few tears betwixt grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of
+insignificance, skip over all that happened to me on the road, such as
+the waggoner’s looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some
+of the passengers, which were defeated by the valiance of my guardian
+Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same
+time that she taxed me for the protection by making me bear all
+travelling charges, which I defrayed with the unmost cheerfulness, and
+thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain.
+
+She took indeed great care that we were not overrated, or imposed on,
+as well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not
+her vice.
+
+It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached the town, in our
+slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through
+the greatest streets that led to our inn, the noise, of the coaches,
+the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of
+the shops and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.
+
+But guess at my mortification and surprise when we came to the inn, and
+our things were landed and delivered to us, when my fellow traveller
+and protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost
+tenderness during the journey, and prepared me by no preceedings signs
+for the stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only dependence
+and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange
+and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming a burden to her.
+
+Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and
+good offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought
+herself, it seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by
+having brought me safe to my journey’s end, and seeing nothing in her
+procedure towards me but what natural and in order, began to embrace me
+by the way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that
+I had not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention my hopes or
+expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place she had
+brought me to.
+
+Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to
+nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a
+slight alleviation of it, in the following harangue: “That now we were
+got safe to London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she
+advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible; that I
+need not fear getting one; there were more places than parish-churches;
+that she advised me to go to an intelligence office; that if she heard
+of any thing stirring, she would find me out and let me know; that in
+the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where
+to send to me; that she wished me good luck, and hoped I should always
+have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bringing a disgrace on my
+parentage.” With this; she took her leave of me, and left me, as it
+were, on my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.
+
+Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to
+feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which
+had passed in a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back
+turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances,
+burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the
+oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupified, and most
+perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself.
+
+One of the drawers coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty, by
+asking me, in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied
+innocently: “No.” But I wished him to tell me where I might get a
+lodging for that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress,
+who accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in the least
+into the distress she saw me in, that I might have a bed for a
+shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (there I
+fetched a deep sigh in vain!), I might provide for myself in the
+morning.
+
+It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize
+in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed
+to lie on that night, calmed my agonies; and being ashamed to acquaint
+the mistress of the inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I
+proposed to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an
+intelligence office, to which I was furnished with written directions
+on the back of a ballad, Esther had given me. There I counted on
+getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be
+fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little
+stock should be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often
+repeated to me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor,
+however affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to
+rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure
+was all in course, and that is was only my ignorance of life that had
+made me take it in the light I at first did.
+
+Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as neat as
+my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with
+special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself,
+and without any more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country
+girl, barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap,
+I got to the wished for intelligence office.
+
+It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with
+a book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls made
+out, of directions for places.
+
+I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes
+or observing any of the people round me, who were attending there on
+the same errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine deep, just
+made a shift to stammer out my business to her.
+
+Madam heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister
+of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me
+no answer, but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which
+she told me places for women too slight built for hard work: but that
+she would look over her book, and see what was to be done for me,
+desiring me to stay a little, till she had dispatched some other
+customers.
+
+On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration
+which carried with it a killing uncertainly, that my circumstances
+could not well endure.
+
+Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion from my
+uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little, and sent my
+eyes on a course round the room, where they met full tilt with those of
+a lady (for such my extreme innocence pronounced her) sitting in a
+corner of the room, dressed in a velvet mantle (in the midst of
+summer), with her bonnet off; squat, fat, red-faced, and at least
+fifty.
+
+She looked as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from
+head to foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her
+eyeing me so fixedly put me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the
+strongest recommendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose.
+After a little time, in which my air, person and whole figure had
+undergone a strict examination, which I had, on my part, tried to
+render favourable to me, by primming, drawing up my neck, and setting
+my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the greatest
+demureness:
+
+“Sweet-heart, do you want a place?
+
+“Yes, and please you,” (with a curtsey down to the ground).
+
+Upon this she acquainted me she was actually come to the office
+herself, to look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with
+a little of her instruction; that she could take my very looks for a
+sufficient character; that London was a very wicked, vile, place; that
+she hoped I would be tractable, and keep out of bad company; in short,
+she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in town could
+think of, and which was much more than was necessary to take in an
+artless inexperienced country maid, who was even afraid of becoming a
+wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jumped at the first
+offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady,
+for such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was,
+I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the
+office, whose shrewed smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and
+innocently interpreted them as marks of being pleased at my getting
+into place so soon: but, as I afterwards came to know, these Beldams
+understood one another very well, and this was a market where Mrs.
+Brown, my mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh
+goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers, and her own
+profit.
+
+Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain that fearing I
+presume, lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping
+through her fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my
+inn, where, calling herself for my box, it was, I being present,
+delivered without the least scruple or explanation as to where I was
+going.
+
+This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul’s
+Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me, and
+thence renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in
+——— street, who accordingly landed us at the door, after I had been
+cheered up and entertained by the way with the most plausible flams,
+without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I
+was, by the greatest luck, fallen into the hands of kindest mistress,
+not to say friend, that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I
+entered her doors with most complete confidence and exultation,
+promising, myself that, as soon as I could be a little settled, I would
+acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.
+
+You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessened by the
+appearance of a very handsome back parlor, into which I was led and
+which seemed to me magnificently furnished, who had never seen better
+rooms than the ordinary ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt
+pier-glasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plate, set out to
+the most shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me that I must be got
+into a very reputable family.
+
+Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I must have
+good spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me
+to be a common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of
+companion to her; and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more
+than twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the
+profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such
+as “’yes! no! to be sure!”
+
+Presently my mistress touched the bell, and in came a strapping
+maid-servant, who had let us in. “Here, Martha,” said Mrs. Brown, “I
+have just hired this young woman to look after my linen; so step up and
+show her her chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect
+as you would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I
+do not know what I shall do for her.”
+
+Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her
+cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up
+with her; and accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs
+backwards, in which there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I
+was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress, who she
+was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such
+affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how
+happy I was to light upon her! and that I could not have bespoke a
+better; with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have
+started suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was
+perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said in the very
+sense she laid out for me to take it; but she readily saw what a
+penetration she had to deal with, and measured me very rightly in her
+manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage, and
+blind to the wires.
+
+In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future
+service, we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the
+same parlour, where there was a table laid with three covers; and my
+mistress had now got with her one of her favourite girls, a notable
+manager of her house, and whose business it was to prepare and break
+such young fillies as I was to the mounting block; and she was
+accordingly, in that view, alloted me for a bed-fellow, and, to give
+her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferred on her by
+the venerable president of this college.
+
+Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation
+of Mrs. Phœbe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and
+instruction I was affectionately recommended.
+
+Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a
+companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon
+over-ruled my most humble and most confused protestations against
+sitting down with her Ladyship, which my very short breeding just
+suggested to me could not be right, or in the order of things.
+
+At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams and
+carried on in double meaning expressions, interrupted every now and
+then by kind assurances to me, all tending to confirm and fix my
+satisfaction with my present condition: augment it they could not, so
+very a novice was I then.
+
+It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a
+few days, till such clothes could be procured for me as were fit for
+the character I was to appear in, of my mistress’s companion, observing
+withal, that on the first impressions of my figure much might depend;
+and, as they rightly judged, the prospect of exchanging my country
+clothes for London finery, made the clause of confinement digest
+perfectly well with me. But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that
+I should be seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her
+Does (as they called the girls provided for them), till she secured a
+good market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the appearances
+of having brought into her Ladyship’s service.
+
+To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass
+the interval to bed time, in which I was more and more pleased with the
+views that opened to me, of an easy service under these good people;
+and after supper being shewed up to bed, Miss Phœbe, who observed a
+kind of reluctance in me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before
+her, now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with
+unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go on with
+undressing myself; and, blushing at now seeing myself naked to my
+shift, I hurried to get under the bed-clothes out of sight.
+
+Phœbe laughed and was not long before she placed herself by my side.
+She was about five and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in
+which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten
+good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long
+course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her
+constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that
+stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of
+showing company, instead of seeing it.
+
+No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress laid down,
+but she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness
+presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kissed me with great
+eagerness. This was new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but
+pure kindness, which, for ought I knew, it might be the London way to
+express in that manner, I was determined not to be behind-hand with
+her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the fervour that
+perfect innocence knew.
+
+Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wandered over
+my whole body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warmed
+and surprised me with their novelty, than they either shocked or
+alarmed me.
+
+The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions,
+contributed also not a little to bribe my passiveness; and, knowing no
+ill, I feared none, especially from one who had prevented all doubts of
+her womanhood, by conducting my hands to a pair of breasts that hung
+loosely down, in a size and volume that full sufficiently distinguished
+her sex, to me at least, who had never made any other comparison.
+
+I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom
+raised no other emotion but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt
+pleasure. Every part of me was open and exposed to the licentious
+courses of her hands, which, like a lambent fire, ran over my whole
+body, and thawed all coldness as they went.
+
+My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm,
+rising hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify
+anything to the touch, employed and amused her hands awhile, till,
+slipping down lower, over a smooth track, she could just feel the soft
+silky down that had but a few months before put forth and garnished the
+mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful
+shelter over the sweet seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which
+had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence.
+Her fingers played and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that
+moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.
+
+But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts the main
+spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an
+introduction of a finger into the quick itself, in such a manner, that
+had she not proceeded by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond
+the power of modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I
+should have jumped out of bed and cried for help against such strange
+assaults.
+
+Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that
+wantoned through all my veins, but fixed with violence in that center
+appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied
+in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again,
+with a finger between, till an “Oh!” expressed her hurting me, where
+the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any
+depth.
+
+In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretching, sighs,
+short heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I
+was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned
+with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as “Oh! what a charming
+creature thou art! What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman
+of you! Oh! that I were a man for your sake!” with the like broken
+expressions, interrupted by kisses as fierce and salacious as ever I
+received from the other sex.
+
+For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings
+so new were too much for me. My heated and alarmed senses were in a
+tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure
+gushed from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged the fire that raged all over
+me.
+
+Phœbe, herself, the hackneyed, thorough-bred Phœbe, to whom all modes
+and devices of pleasure were known and familiar, found, it seems, in
+this exercise her those arbitrary tastes, for which there is no
+accounting. Not that she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her
+own sex; but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety of
+enjoyments in the common road, perhaps, too a great secret bias,
+inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever she could find it,
+without distinction of sexes. In this view, now well assured that she
+had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she
+rolled down the bed clothes gently, and I saw myself stretched naked,
+my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or sense to
+oppose it. Even my growing blushes expressed more desire than modesty,
+whilst the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a
+full light on my whole body.
+
+“No!” says Phœbe, “you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these
+treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as my touch. I must devour
+with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer me to kiss it. I have not
+seen it enough. Let me kiss it once more. What firm, smooth, white
+flesh is here! How delicately shaped! Then this delicious down! Oh! let
+me view the small, dear, tender cleft! This is too much, I cannot bear
+it! I must! I must!” Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried
+it where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of
+the same thing! A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full
+grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand
+easily received it; and as soon as she felt it within her, she moved
+herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction, that I presently withdrew
+it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phœbe grew more composed, after two
+or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh’s! and giving me a kiss that
+seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the
+bed-clothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but
+this I know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas
+of pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance
+and communication with the bad of our sex, is often as fatal to
+innocence as all the seductions of the other. But to go on. When Phœbe
+was restored to that calm, which I was far from the enjoyment of
+myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern
+the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn
+from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself
+all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness
+and warmth of constitution.
+
+After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest,
+and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I
+had been led into, when nature which had been too warmly stirred and
+fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other relieved
+me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce
+inferior to those of waking real action.
+
+In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phœbe
+was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I
+had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast? carefully, at the same
+time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking
+her in the face, by any hint of the night’s bed scene. I told her if
+she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to
+set me about. She smiled; presently the maid brought in the tea
+equipage, and I just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my
+mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my
+late rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her compliments
+on my pure and fresh looks. I was “a bud of beauty” (this was her
+style), “and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!” to all which
+my answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as
+simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them
+infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a
+knowledge of the world.
+
+We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were
+brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the
+necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.
+
+Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with
+joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured
+indeed, but passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap,
+braited shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and
+procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of
+the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house,
+before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in
+course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on
+immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me;
+concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the
+hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in, as a
+maidenhead.
+
+The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was then left
+to Phœbe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the
+satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dressed.
+When it was over, and I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt, too
+natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change,
+in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better
+become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward,
+untoward, tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.
+
+Phœbe’s compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was
+not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever
+entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was
+then tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be
+out of place here to sketch you an unflattered picture.
+
+I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remarked,
+was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin
+waisted, and light and free without owing anything to stays; my hair
+was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in
+natural curls, and did not a little to set off the whiteness of a
+smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its features were
+delicate, and the shape was a roundish oval, except where a pit on my
+chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can
+be imagined, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain
+occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my
+teeth, which I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and white; my
+bosom was finely raised, and one might then discern rather the promise
+than the actual growth of the round, firm breast, that in a little time
+made that promise good. In short, all the points of beauty that are
+most universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity forbid me to
+appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges the men, who all, that
+I ever knew at last, gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with,
+even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice,
+whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to
+detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously
+excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should be
+ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular
+blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress, through an
+affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts.
+
+Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my head
+that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for
+sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere friendship and
+kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to
+mention, had, under pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me,
+without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which
+remained to me after the expenses of my journey.
+
+After some little time most agreebly spent before the glass, in scarce
+self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in
+it, I was sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me,
+and wished me joy of my new clothes, which she was not ashamed to say,
+fitted me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time; but
+what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow? At the same
+time, she presented me to another cousin of her own creation, an
+elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room, and on my
+dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted
+that I had only presented my cheek to him: a mistake, which, if one, he
+immediately corrected, by gluing his lips to mine, with an ardour which
+his figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for: his figure, I
+say, than which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly
+and disagreeable were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.
+
+Imagine to yourself, a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made,
+with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggle eyes, that stared as if he
+was strangled; an out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth,
+livid lips, and breath like a Jake’s: then he had a peculiar
+ghastliness in his grin, that made him perfectly frightful, if not
+dangerous to women with child; yet, made as he was thus in mock of man,
+he was so blind to his own staring deformities, as to think himself
+born to please, and that no woman could see him with impunity: in
+consequence of which idea, he had lavished great sums on such wretches
+as could gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to
+those who had not art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspired,
+he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek
+in variety, the provocative that was wanting to raise him to the pitch
+of enjoyment, which he too often saw himself baulked of, by the failure
+of his powers: and this always threw him into a fit of rage, which he
+wreaked, as far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of
+momentary desire.
+
+This then was the master to which my conscientious benefactress, who
+had long been his purveyor in this way, had doomed me, and sent for me
+down purposely for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up
+before him, turned me round, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him
+the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to
+fill; then made me walk, and took even a handle from the rusticity of
+my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship; to which he
+only answered by gracious nods of approbation, whilst he looked goats
+and monkeys at me: for I sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and
+encountering his fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure
+horror and affright, which he, characteristically, attributed to
+nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it.
+
+However, I was soon dismissed, and reconducted to my room by Phœbe, who
+stuck close to me, not leaving me alone, and at leisure to make such
+reflections as might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a
+scene as I had just gone through; but to my shame be it confessed, that
+just was my invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that
+I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown’s designs, and saw nothing in
+this titular cousin of hers but a shockingly hideous person, which did
+not at all concern me, unless that my gratitude for my benefactress
+made me extend my respect to all her cousinhood.
+
+Phœbe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart toward
+this monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentelman
+for a husband. (Fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his
+being daubed with lace.) I answered her very naturally, that I had no
+thoughts of a husband, but that if I was to choose one, it should be
+among my own degree, sure! so much had my aversion to that wretch’s
+hideous figure indisposed me to all “fine gentlemen,” and confounded my
+ideas, as if those of that rank had been necessarily cast in the same
+mould that he was. But Phœbe was not to be put off so, but went on with
+her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception
+into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in
+general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than
+one reason showed her would be easily enough obtained of me; but then
+she had too much experience not to discover that my particular fixed
+aversion to that frightful cousin would be a block not so readily to be
+removed, as suited the consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.
+
+Mother Brown had in the meantime agreed the terms with this loquorice
+old goat, which I afterwards understood were to be fifty guineas
+peremptory, for the liberty of attempting me, and a hundred more at the
+complete gratification of his desires, in the triumph over my
+virginity: and as for me, I was to be left entirely at the discretion
+of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous contract being thus
+settled, he was so eager to be put in possession, that he insisted on
+being introduced to drink tea with me that afternoon, when we were to
+be left alone; nor would he hearken to the procuress’s remonstrances,
+that I was not sufficiently prepared, and ripened for such an attack;
+that I was too green and untamed, having been scarce twenty-four hours
+in the house: it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his
+vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the common
+resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him reject all proposals
+of a delay, and my dreadful trial was thus fixed, unknown to me, for
+that very evening.
+
+At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phœbe did nothing but run riot in praise of
+this wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman would be that he would
+favour with his addresses; in short my two gossips exhausted all their
+rhetoric to persuade me to accept them: “that the gentleman was
+violently smitten with me at first sight; that he would make my fortune
+if I would be a good girl and not stand in my own light; that I should
+trust his honour; that I should be made for ever, and have a chariot to
+go abroad in,” with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of such
+a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here my aversion had
+taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so strongly defended
+from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask my sentiments, I
+gave them no hopes of their employer succeeding, at least very easily,
+with me. The glass too marched pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to
+make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the
+imminent attack.
+
+Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the evening,
+after I had retired to my apartment, and the tea board was set, enters
+my venerable mistress, followed close by that satyr, who came in
+grinning in a way peculiar to him, and by his odious presence,
+confirmed me in all the sentiments of detestation which his first
+appearance had given birth to.
+
+He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner
+that gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the mark of which he
+still explained to be my bashfulness, and not being used to see
+company.
+
+Tea over, the commoding old lady pleady urgent business (which indeed
+was true) to go out, and earnestly desired me to entertain her cousin
+kindly till she came back, both for my own sake and her; and then, with
+a “Pray, sir, be very good, be very tender to the sweet child,” she
+went out of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and
+unprepared by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.
+
+We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seized
+me. I was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to
+fear, that I sat on the settee, by the fire side, motionless and
+petrified, without life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to
+stir.
+
+But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction:
+the monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther
+ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me
+pretty forcibly towards him, obliged me to receive, in spite of my
+struggles to disengage from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite
+overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he
+tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there, to his eyes
+and hands: still I endured all without flinching, till emboldened by my
+sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he
+attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the
+lower part of my naked thighs, which were crossed, and which he
+endeavoured to unlock. Oh then! I was roused out of my passive
+endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was not prepared
+for, threw myself at his feet, and begged him, in the most moving tone,
+not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me. “Hurt you, my dear?”
+says the brute, “I intend you no harm. Has not the old lady told you
+that I love you? that I shall do handsomely by you?”
+
+“She has indeed, sir,” said I, “but I cannot love you, indeed I cannot!
+pray let me alone! yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me alone
+and go away.” But I was talking to the wind, for whether my tears, my
+attitude, or the disorder of my dress proved fresh incentives, or
+whether he was now under the dominion of desires he could not bridle,
+but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack,
+seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me on the settee: in
+which he succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss my
+petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately
+kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force
+them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main
+avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt
+the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with
+indignation, and dying with terrors; but he stopped all of a sudden,
+and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating “old and ugly!”
+for so I had very naturally called him in the heat of my defence.
+
+The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his
+eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust,
+which his power was too short-lived to carry him through the full
+execution of; of which my thighs and linen received the effusion.
+
+When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up: “that
+he would not do me the honour to think of me any more; that the old
+b——h might look out for another cully; that he would not be fooled so
+by ever a country mock modesty in England; that he supposed I had left
+my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose
+of my skim-milk in town” with a volley of the like abuse; which I
+listened to with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to
+protestations of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was
+of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him, I
+looked on this railing, as my security against his renewing his most
+odious caress.
+
+Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown’s views were now come out, I had not the
+heart, or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with
+my dependence on that beldam, so much did I think myself hers, soul and
+body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my
+good opinion of her, and choose to wait the worst at her hands, sooner
+than be turned out to starve in the streets, without a penny of money
+or a friend to apply to these fears were my folly.
+
+While this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat
+pensively by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still
+bare, and my cap fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the
+disorder you may guess, the villain’s lust began, I suppose, to be
+again in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented
+itself to his view, a bloom yet unenjoyed, and of course not yet
+indifferent to him.
+
+After some pause, he asked me with a tone of voice mightily softer,
+whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned, and
+all should be well; he would restore me to his affections, at the same
+time offering to kiss me and feel my breasts. But now my extreme
+aversion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a
+spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the
+bell and rang it, with such violence and effect as to bring up the maid
+to know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted anything;
+and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounced into
+the room, and seeing me stretched on the floor, my hair all
+dishevelled, my nose gushing out blood, which did not a little
+tragedize the scene, and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing
+his brutal point, unmoved by all my cries and distress, she was herself
+confounded and did not know what to do.
+
+As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and hardened to
+transactions of this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her
+heart could she have seen this unmoved. Besides that, on the face of
+things, she imagined that matters had gone greater lengths than they
+really had, and that the courtesy of the house had been actually
+consummated on me, and flung: me into the condition I was in: in this
+notion she instantly took my part, and advised the gentleman to go down
+and leave me to recover myself, and “that all would be soon over with
+me; that when Mrs. Brown and Phœbe, who were gone out, were returned,
+they would take order for everything to his satisfaction; that nothing
+would be lost by a little patience with the poor tender thing; that for
+her part she was frightened; she could not tell what to say to such
+doings; but that she would stay by me till my mistress came home.” As
+the wench said all this in a resolute tone, and the monster himself
+began to perceive that things would not mend by his staying, he took
+his hat and went out of the room murmuring and pitting his brows like
+an old ape, so that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable
+presence.
+
+As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her assistance
+in anything, and would have got me some hartshorn drops and put me to
+bed; which last I, at first, positively refused, in the fear that the
+monster might return and take me at that disadvantage. However, with
+much persuasion and assurances that I should not be molested that night
+she prevailed on me to lie down; and indeed I was so weakened by my
+struggles, so dejected by my fearful apprehension, so terror-struck,
+that I had not power to sit up, or hardly to give answers to the
+questions with which the curious Martha plied and perplexed me.
+
+Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of Mrs.
+Brown, as if I had been the criminal, and she the person injured; a
+mistake which you will not think so strange, on distinguishing that
+neither virtue nor principles had the least share in the defence I had
+made, but only the particular aversion I had conceived against this
+first brutal and frightful invader of my tender innocence.
+
+I passed then the time till Mrs. Brown came home, under all the
+agitations of fear and despair that may easily be guessed.
+
+About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and having received
+rather a favourable account from Martha, who had run down to let them
+in, for Mr. Crofts (that was the name of my brute) was gone out of the
+house, after waiting till he had tired his patience for Mrs. Brown’s
+return, they came thundering up stairs, and seeing me pale, my face
+bloody, and all the marks of the most thorough dejection, they employed
+themselves more to comfort and re-inspirit me than in making me the
+reproaches I was weak enough to fear, I who had so many juster and
+stronger to retort upon them.
+
+Mrs. Brown withdrawn, Phœbe came presently to bed to me, and what with
+the answers she drew from me, what with her own method of palpably
+satisfying herself, she soon discovered that I had been more frightened
+than hurt; upon which I suppose, being herself seized with sleep, and
+reserving her lectures and instructions till the next morning, she left
+me, properly speaking, to my unrest; for, later tossing and turning the
+greatest part of the night, and tormenting myself with the falsest
+notions and apprehensions of things, I fell, through mere fatigue into
+a kind of delirious doze, out of which I waked late in the morning, in
+a violent fever: a circumstance which was extremely critical to
+reprieve me, at least for a time, from the attacks of a wretch,
+infinitely more terrible to me than death itself.
+
+The interested care that was taken of me during my illness, in order to
+restore me to a condition of making good the bawd’s engagements, or of
+enduring further trials, had, however, such an effect on my grateful
+disposition that I even thought myself obliged to my un-doers for their
+attention to promote my recovery; and, above all, for the keeping out
+of my sight of that brutal ravisher, the author of my disorder, on
+their finding I was too strongly moved at the bare mention of his name.
+
+Youth is soon raised, and a few days were sufficient to conquer the
+fury of my fever: but, what contributed most to my perfect recovery and
+to my reconciliation with life, was the timely news that Mr. Crofts,
+who was a merchant of considerable dealings, was arrested at the King’s
+suit, for nearly forty thousand pounds, on account of his driving a
+certain contraband trade, and that his affairs were so desperate, that
+even were it in his inclination, it would not be in his power to renew
+his designs upon me: for he was instantly thrown into a prison, which
+it was not likely he would get out of in haste.
+
+Mrs. Brown, who had touched his fifty guineas, advanced to so little
+purpose, and lost all hopes of the remaining hundred, began to look
+upon my treatment of him with a more favourable eye; and as they had
+observed my temper to be perfectly tractable and conformable to their
+views, all the girls that composed her flock were suffered to visit me,
+and had their cue to dispose me, by their conversation, to a perfect
+resignation of myself to Mrs. Brown’s direction.
+
+Accordingly they were let in upon me, and all that frolic and
+thoughtless gaiety in which those giddy creatures consume either
+leisure, made me envy a condition of which I only saw the fair side;
+insomuch, that the being one of them became even my ambition: a
+disposition which they all carefully cultivated; and I wanted now
+nothing but to restore my health, that I might be able to undergo the
+ceremony of the initiation.
+
+Conversation, example, in short all, contributed, in that house, to
+corrupt my native parity, which had taken no root in education; whilst
+now the inflammable principal of pleasure, so easily fired at my age,
+made strange work within me, and all the modesty I was brought up in
+the habit, not the instruction of, began to melt away like dew before
+the sun’s heat; not to mention that I made a vice of necessity, from
+the constant fears I had of being turned out to starve.
+
+I was soon pretty well recovered, and at certain hours allowed to range
+all over the house, but cautiously kept from seeing any company till
+the arrival of Lord B——, from Bath, to whom Mrs. Brown, in respect to
+his experienced generosity on such occasions, proposed to offer the
+perusal of that trinket of mine, which bears so great an imaginary
+value; and his lordship being expected in town in less than a
+fortnight, Mrs. Brown judged I would be entirely renewed in beauty and
+freshness by that time, and afforded her the chance of a better bargain
+than she had driven with Mr. Crofts.
+
+In the meantime, I was so thoroughly, as they call it, brought over, so
+tame to their whistle, that, had my cage door been set open, I had no
+idea that I ought to fly anywhere, sooner than stay where I was; nor
+had I the least sense of regretting my condition, but waited very
+quietly for whatever Mrs. Brown should order concerning me; who on her
+side, by herself and her agents, took more than the necessary
+precautions to lull and lay asleep all just reflections on my destiny.
+
+Preachments of morality over the left shoulder; a life of joy painted
+in the gayest colours; caresses, promises, indulgent treatment;
+nothing, in short, was wanting to domesticate me entirely and to
+prevent my going out anywhere to get better advice. Alas! I dreamed of
+no such thing.
+
+Hitherto I had been indebted only to the girls of the house for the
+corruption of my innocence: their luscious talk, in which modesty was
+far from respected, their description of their engagements with men,
+had given me a tolerable insight into the nature and mysteries of their
+profession, at the same time that they highly provoked an itch of
+florid warm-spirited blood through every vein: but above all, my bed
+fellow Phœbe, whose pupil I more immediately was, exerted her talents
+in giving me the first tinctures of pleasure: whilst nature, now warmed
+and wantoned with discoveries so interesting, piqued a curiosity which
+Phœbe artfully whetted, and leading me from question to question of her
+own suggestion, explained to me all the mysteries of Venus. But I could
+not long remain in such a house as that, without being an eye-witness
+of more than I could conceive from her descriptions.
+
+One day, about twelve at noon, being thoroughly recovered of my fever,
+I happened to be in Mrs. Brown’s dark closet, where I had not been half
+an hour, resting upon the maid’s bed, before I heard a rustling in the
+bed-chamber, separated from the closet only by two sash doors, before
+the glasses of which were drawn two yellow damask curtains, but not so
+close as to exclude the full view of the room from any person in the
+closet.
+
+I instantly crept softly and posted myself so, that seeing everything
+minutely, I could not myself be seen; and who should come in but the
+venerable mother Abbess herself! handed in by a tall, brawny young
+Horse-grenadiers, moulded in the Hercules style: in fine, the choice of
+the most experienced dame, in those affairs, in all London.
+
+Oh! how still and hush did I keep at my stand, lest any noise should
+baulk my curiosity, or bring Madam into the closet!
+
+But I had not much reason to fear either, for she was entirely taken up
+with her present great concern, that she had no sense of attention to
+spare to anything else.
+
+Droll was it to see that clumsy fat figure of her’s flop down on the
+foot of the bed, opposite to the closet door so that I had a full front
+view of all her charms.
+
+Her paramour sat down by her: he seemed to be a man of very few words,
+and a great stomach; for proceeding instantly to essentials, he gave
+her some hearty smacks, and thrusting his hands into her breasts,
+disengaged them from her stays, in scorn of whose confinement they
+broke loose, and sagged down, navel-low at least. A more enormous pair
+did my eyes never behold, nor of a worse colour, flagging, soft, and
+most lovingly contiguous: yet such as they were, this great beef-eater
+seemed to paw them with a most unenviable lust, seeking in vain to
+confine or cover one of them with a hand scarce less than a shoulder of
+mutton. After toying with them thus some time, as if they had been
+worth it, he laid her down pretty briskly, and canting up her
+petticoats, made barely a mask of them to her broad red face, that
+blushed with nothing but brandy.
+
+As he stood on one side, unbuttoning his waistcoat and breeches, her
+fat brawny thighs hung down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly
+open to my view; a wide open mouthed gap, overshaded with a grizzly
+bush, seemed held out like a beggar’s wallet for its provision.
+
+But I soon had my eyes called off by a more striking object that
+entirely engrossed them.
+
+Her sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked, stiff and
+erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before, and
+which, for the interest my own seat of pleasure began to take furiously
+in it, I stared at with all the eyes I had: however, my senses were too
+much flurried, too much concentered in that now burning spot of mine,
+to observe anything more than in general the make and turn of that
+instrument; from which the instinct of nature, yet more than all I had
+heard of it, now strongly informed me, I was to expect that supreme
+pleasure which she had placed in the meeting of those parts so
+admirably fitted for each other.
+
+Long, however, the young spark did not remain before giving it two or
+three shakes, by way of brandishing it, he threw himself upon her, and
+his back being now towards me, I could only take his being ingulphed
+for granted, by the directions he moved in, and the impossibility of
+missing so staring a mark; and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled
+so that I could scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the heaves and
+pantings that accompanied the action, from the beginning to the end;
+the sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of me, and made
+every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion grew so
+violent that it almost intercepted my respiration.
+
+Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse of my companions,
+and Phœbe’s minute detail of everything, no wonder that such a sight
+gave the last dying blow to my native innocence.
+
+Whilst they were in the heat of the action, guided by nature only, I
+stole my hand up my petticoats, and with fingers on fire, seized and
+yet more inflamed that center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as
+if it would force its way through my bosom: I breathed with pain; I
+twisted my thighs, squeezed and compressed the lips of that virgin
+slit, and following mechanically the example of Phœbe’s manual
+operation on it, as far as I could find admission, brought on at last
+the critical ecstasy, the melting flow, into which nature, spent with
+excess of pleasure, dissolves and dies away.
+
+After which, my senses recovered coolness enough to observe the rest of
+the transaction between this happy pair.
+
+The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady immediately
+sprung up, with all the vigour of youth, derived, no doubt, from her
+late refreshment; and making him sit down, began in her turn to kiss
+him, to pat and pinch his cheeks, and play with his hair: all which he
+received with an air of indifference and coolness that showed him to be
+much altered from what he was when he first went on to the breach.
+
+My pious governess, however, not being above calling in auxiliaries,
+unlocks a little case of cordials that stood near the bed, and made him
+pledge her in a very plentiful dram: after which, and a little amorous
+parley, Madam set herself down upon the same place, at the bed’s foot;
+and the young fellow standing sidewise by her, she, with the greatest
+effrontery imaginable, unbuttons his breeches, and removing his shirt,
+draws out his affair, so shrunk and diminished, that I could not but
+remember the difference, now crest-fallen, or just faintly lifting its
+head: but our experience matron very soon, by chaffing it with her
+hands, brought it to swell to that size and erection I had before seen
+it up to.
+
+I admired then, upon a fresh account, and with a nicer survey, the
+texture of that capital part of man: the flaming red head as it stood
+uncapt, the whiteness of the shaft, and the shrub growth of curling
+hair that embrowned the foots of it, the roundish bag that dangled down
+from it, all exacted my eager attention, and renewed my flame. But, as
+the main affair was now at the point the industrious dame had laboured
+to bring it to, she was not in the humour to put off the payment of her
+pains, but laying herself down, drew him gently upon her, and thus they
+finished, in the same manner as before, the old last act.
+
+This over, they both went out lovingly together, the old lady having
+first made him a present, as near as I could observe, of three or four
+pieces; he being not only her particular favourite on account of his
+performances, but a retainer to the house; from whose sight she had
+taken great care hitherto to secret me, lest he might not have had
+patience to wait for my lord’s arrival, but have insisted on being his
+taster, which the old lady was under too much subjection to him to dare
+dispute with him; for every girl of the house fell to him in course,
+and the old lady only now and then got her turn, in consideration of
+the maintenance he had, and which he could scarce be accused of not
+earning from her.
+
+As soon as I heard them go down-stairs, I stole up softly to my own
+room, out of which I had luckily not been missed; there I began to
+breathe more free, and to give a loose to those warm emotions which the
+sight of such an encounter had raised in me, I laid me down on the bed,
+stretched myself out, joining and ardently wishing, and requiring any
+means to divert or allay the rekindled rage and tumult of my desires,
+which all pointed strongly to their pole: man. I felt about the bed as
+if I sought for something that I grasped in my waking dream, and not
+finding it, could have cried for vexation; every part of me plowing
+with simulated fires. At length, I resorted to the only present remedy,
+that of vain attempts at digitation, where the smallness of the theatre
+did not yet afford room enough for action, and where the pain my
+fingers gave me, in striving for admission, though they procured me a
+slight satisfaction for the present, started an apprehension which I
+could not be easy till I had communicated to Phœbe and received her
+explanations upon it.
+
+The opportunity, however, did not offer till next morning, for Phœbe
+did not come to bed till long after I was gone to sleep. As soon then
+as we were both awake, it was but in course to bring our ly-a-bed chat
+to hand, on the subject of my uneasiness: to which a recital of the
+love scene I had thus, by chance, been spectatress of, served for a
+preface.
+
+Phœbe could not hear it to the end without more than one interruption
+by peals of laughter, and my ingenuous way of relating matters did not
+a little heighten the joke to her.
+
+But, on her sounding me how the sight had affected me, without mincing
+or hiding the pleasurable emotions it had inspired me with, I told her
+at the same time that one remark had perplexed me, and that very
+considerably. “Aye!” says she, “what was that?” “Why,” replied I,
+“having very curiously and attentively compared the size of that
+enormous machine, which did not appear, at least to my fearful
+imagination, less than my wrist, and at least three of my hand-fuls
+long, to that of the tender small part of me which was framed to
+receive it, I could not conceive its being possible to afford it
+entrance without dying, perhaps in the greatest pain, since she well
+knew that even a finger thrust in there hurt me beyond bearing. As to
+my mistress’s and yours, I can very plainly distinguish the different
+dimensions of them from mine, palpable to the touch, and visible to the
+eye; so that, in short, great as the promised pleasure may be, I am
+afraid of the pain of the experiment.”
+
+Phœbe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I expected a very serious
+solution of my doubts and apprehensions in this matter, only told me
+that “she never heard of a mortal wound being given in those parts, by
+that terrible weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately
+made as myself, had outlived the operation; that she believed, at the
+worst, I should take a great deal of liking; that true it was, there
+was a great diversity of sizes in those parts, owing to nature,
+child-bearing, frequent over-stretching with unmerciful machines, but
+that at a certain age and habit of body, even the most experienced in
+those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid and the
+woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, in their natural
+situation: but that since chance had thrown in my way one sight of that
+sort, she would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more
+delicately, and go a great way in the cure of my fears from that
+imaginary disproportion”.
+
+On this she asked me if I knew Polly Phillips? “Undoubterly,” says I,
+“the fair girl which was so tender of me when I was sick, and has been,
+as you told me, but two months in the house.” “The same,” says Phœbe.
+“You must know then, she is kept by a young Genoes merchant, whom his
+uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he is, on a pretex of
+settling some accounts, but in reality to humour his inclinations for
+travelling, and seeing the world. He met casually with this Polly once
+in company, and taking a likning to her, makes it worth her while to
+keep entirely to him. He comes to her here twice or thrice a week, and
+she receives him in the light closet up one pair of stairs, where he
+enjoys her in a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the heat, or perhaps the
+caprices of his own country, I say no more, but to-morrow being his
+day, you shall see what passes between them, from a place only known to
+your mistress and myself.”
+
+You may be sure, in the ply I was now taking, I had no objection to the
+proposal, and was rather a tip-toe for its accomplishments.
+
+At five in the evening next day, Phœbe, punctual to her promise, came
+to me as I sat alone in my own room, and beckoned me to follow her.
+
+We went down the back stairs very softly, and opening the door of a
+dark closet, where there was some old furniture kept, and some cases of
+liquor, she drew me in after her, and fastened the door upon us, we had
+no light but what came through a long crevice in the partition between
+ours and the light closet, where the scene of action lay; so that
+sitting on those low cases, we could, with the greatest ease, as well
+as clearness, see all objects (ourselves unseen), only by applying our
+eyes close to the crevice, where the moulding of a panel had warped, or
+started a little on the other side.
+
+The young gentleman was the first person I saw, with his back directly
+towards me, looking at a print. Polly was not yet come: in less than a
+minute though, the door opened, and she came in; and at the noise the
+door made he turned about, and come to meet her, with an air of the
+greatest tenderness and satisfaction.
+
+After saluting her, he led her to a coach that fronted us, where they
+both sat down, and the young Genoes helped her to a glass of wine, with
+some Naples biscuits on a salver.
+
+Presently, when they had exchanged a few kisses, and questions in
+broken English on one side, he began to unbutton, and, in fine, stript
+unto his shirt.
+
+As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling off all their
+clothes, a scheme which the heat of the season perfectly favoured,
+Polly began to draw her pins, and as she had no stays to unlace, she
+was in a trice, with her gallant’s officious assistance, undressed to
+all but her shift.
+
+When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosened, waist and
+knee bands, and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his shirt collar
+was unbottoned too: then, first giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he
+stole, as it were, the shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke
+and familiarized to this humour, blushed indeed, but less than I did at
+the apparition of her, now standing stark naked, just as she came ont
+of the hands of pure nature, with her black hair loose and a-float down
+her dazzling white neck and shoulders, whilst the deepened carnation of
+her cheeks went off gradually into the hue of glazed snow: for such
+were the blended tints polish of her skin.
+
+This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and sweet
+featured, her shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her two ripe
+enchanting breasts, finely plumped out in flesh, but withal so round,
+so firm, that they sustained themselves, in scorn of any stay: then
+their nipples, pointing different ways, marked their pleasing
+separation; beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which
+terminated in a parting of rift scarce discerning, that modesty seemed
+to retire downward, and seek shelter between two plump fleshy thighs:
+the curling hair that overspread its delightful front, clothed it with
+the richest sable fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a
+subject for the painters to court her, sitting to them for a pattern
+female beauty, in all the true pride and pomp of nakedness.
+
+The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing and transported at
+the sight of beauties that might have fired a dying hermit; his eager
+eyes devoured her, as she shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither
+were his hands excluded their share of the high feast, but wandered, on
+the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of her body, so
+qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it.
+
+In the mean time time, one could not help observing the swell of his
+shirt before, that bolstered out, and pointed out the condition of
+things behind the curtain: but he soon removed it, by slipping his
+shirt over his head; and now, as to nakedness, they had nothing to
+reproach one another.
+
+The young gentleman, by Phœbe’s guess, was about two and twenty; tall
+and well limbed. His body was finely formed, and of a most vigorous
+make, square shouldered, and broad chested: his face was not remarkable
+any way, but for a nose inclining to the Roman, eyes large, black, and
+sparkling, and a ruddiness in his cheeks that was the more a grace; for
+his complexion was of the brownest, not of that dusky dun colour which
+excludes, the idea of freshness, but of that clear, olive gloss, which
+glowing with life, dazzles perhaps less than fairness, and yet pleases
+more, when it pleases at all. His hair being too short to tie fell no
+lower than his neck, in short easy curls; and he had a few sprigs about
+his paps, that garnished his chest in a style of strength and
+manliness. Then his grand movement, which seemed to rise out of a
+thicket of curling hair, that spread from the root all over his thighs
+and belly up to the navel, stood stiff and upright, but of a size to
+frighten me, by sympathy for the small tender part which was the object
+of its fury, and which now lay exposed to my fairest view; for he had,
+immediately on stoppings off his shirt, gently pushed her down on the
+couch, which stood conveniently to break her willing fall. Her thighs
+were spread out to their utmost extention, and discovered between them
+the mark of the sex, the red-centered cleft of flesh, whose lips
+vermillioning inwards, expressed a small ruby line in sweet miniature,
+such as Guide’s touch or colouring: could never attain to the life or
+delicacy of.
+
+Phœbe, at this, gave me a gentle jog, to prepare me for a whisper
+question: “Whether I thought my little maiden-head was much less?” But
+my attention was too much engrossed, too much inwrapped with all I saw,
+to be able to give her any answer.
+
+By this time the young gentelman had changed her posture from lying
+breadth to length-wise on the coach: but her thighs were still spread,
+and the mark lay fair for him, who now kneeling between them, displayed
+to us a side view of that fierce erect machine of his, which threatened
+no less than splitting the tender victim, who lay smiling at the
+uplifted stroke, nor seemed to decline it. He looked upon his weapon
+himself with some pleasure, and guiding it with his hand to the
+inviting; slit, drew aside the lips, and lodged it (after some thrusts,
+which Polly seemed even to assist) about half way; but there it stuck,
+I suppose from its growing thickness: he draws it again, and just
+wetting it with spittle, re-enters, and with ease sheathed it now up to
+the hilt, at which Polly gave a deep sigh, which was quite another tone
+than one of pain; he thrusts, she heaves, at first gently, and in a
+regular cadence; but presently the transport began to be too violent to
+observe any order or measure; their motions were too rapid, their
+kisses too fierce’ and fervent for nature to support such fury long:
+both seemed to me out of themselves: their eyes darted fires: “Oh! oh!
+I can’t bear it. It is too much. I die. I am going,” were Polly’s
+expressions of extasy: his joys were more silent: but soon broken
+murmurs, sighs heart-fetched, and at length a dispatching thrust, as if
+he would have forced himself up her body, and then the motionless
+languor of all his limbs, all shewed that the die-away moment was come
+upon him; which she gave signs of joining with by, the wild throwing of
+her hands about, closing her eyes, and giving a deep sob, in which she
+seemed to expire in an agony of bliss.
+
+When he had finished his stroke, and got from off her, she lay still
+without the least motion, breathless, as it should seem, with pleasure.
+He replaced her again breadth-wise on the couch, unable to sit up, with
+her thighs open, between which I could observe a kind of white liquid,
+like froth, hanging about the outward lips of that recently opened
+wound, which now glowed with a deeper red. Presently she gets up, and
+throwing her arms round him, seemed far undelighted with the trial he
+had put her to, to judge, at least by the fondness with which she eyed,
+and hung upon him.
+
+For my part, I will not pretend to describe what I felt over me during
+this scene; but from that instant, adieu all fears of what man can do
+unto me! they were now changed into such ardent desires, such
+ungovernable longings, that I could have by the sleeve, and offered him
+the bauble, which I now imagined the loss of would be a gain I could
+not too soon procure myself.
+
+Phœbe, who had more experience, and to whom such sights were not so
+new, could not however, be unmoved at so warm a scene; and drawing me
+away softly from the peeping hole, for fear of being overheard, guided
+me as the door as possible, all passive and obedient to her least
+signals.
+
+Here was no room either to sit or lie, but making me stand with my back
+towards the door, she lifted up my petticoats, and with her busy
+fingers fell to visit and explore that part of me, where I was
+perfectly sick and ready to die with desire; that the bare touch of her
+finger, in that critical place, had the effect of a fire to a train,
+and her hand instantly made her sensible to what a pitch I was wound
+up, and melted by the sight she had thus procured me. Satisfied then
+with her success, in allaying a heat that would have made me impatient
+of seeing the continuation of the transactions between our amourous
+couple, she brought me again to the crevice, so favourable to our
+curiosity.
+
+We had certainly been but a few instants away from it, and yet on our
+return we saw everything in good forwardness for recommencing the
+tender hostilities.
+
+The young foreigner was sitting down, fronting us, on the coach, with
+Polly upon one knee, who had her arms round his neck, whilst the
+extreme whiteness of her skin was not undelightfully contrasted by the
+smooth glossy brown of her lover’s.
+
+But who could count the fierce, unnumbered kisses given and taken? In
+which I could often discover their mouths were double tongued, and
+seemed to favour the mutual insertion with the greatest gust and
+delight.
+
+In the meantime, his red-headed champion, that had so lately fled the
+pit, quelled and abashed, was now recovered to the top of his
+condition, perked and crested up between Polly’s thighs, who was not
+wanting, on her part, to coax and keep it in good humour, stroking it,
+with her head down, and receiving even its velvet tip between the lips
+of not its proper mouth: whether it was to render it more glib and easy
+of entrance, I could not tell; but it had such an effect, that the
+young gentleman seemed by his eyes, that sparkled with more excited
+lustre, and his inflamed countenance, to receive increase of pleasure.
+He got up, and taking Polly in his arms, embraced her, and said
+something too softly for me to hear, leading her withal to the foot of
+the couch, and taking delight to slap her thighs and posteriors with
+that stiff sinew of his, which hit them with a spring that he gave it
+with his hand, and made them resound again, but her about as much as he
+meant to hurt her, for she seemed to have as frolic a taste as himself.
+
+But guess my surprise, when I saw the lazy young rogue lie down on his
+back, and gently pull down Polly upon him, who giving way to his
+humour, stradled, and with her hands conducted her blind favourite to
+the right place; and following her impulse, ran directly upon the
+flaming point of this weapon of pleasure, which she staked herself
+upon, up pierced, and infixed to the extremest hair breadth of it: thus
+she sat on him a few instants, enjoying and relishing her situation,
+whilst he toyed with her provoking breasts. Sometimes she would stoop
+to meet his kiss: but presently the sting of pleasure spurred them up
+to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from the
+undermost combatant, were thrust at the same time, he crossing his
+hands over her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet violence: the
+inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon brought on the critical
+period, in which all the signs of a close conspiring extasy informed us
+of the point they were at.
+
+For me, I could bear to see no more; I was so overcome, so inflamed at
+the second part of the same play, that, mad to an intolerable degree, I
+hugged, I clasped Phœbe, as if she had wherewithal to relieve me.
+Pleased however with, and pitying the taking she could feel me in, she
+drew towards the door, and opening it softly as she could, we both got
+off undiscovered, and reconducted me to my own room, where, unable to
+keep my legs, in the agitation I was in, I instantly threw myself down
+on the bed, where I lay transported, though ashamed at what I felt.
+
+Phœbe lay down by me, and asked me archly, “if, now that I had seen the
+enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid of him? or did I
+think I could come to a close engagement with him?” To all which, not a
+word on my side; I sighed, and could scarcely breathe. She takes hold
+of my hand, and having rolled up her own petticoats, forced it half
+strivingly, towards those parts, where, now grown more knowing, I
+missed the main object of my wishes; and finding not even the shadow of
+what I wanted, where every thing was so flat, or so hollow, in the
+vexation I was in at it. I should have withdrawn my hand, but for fear
+of disobliging her. Abandoning it then entirely to her management, she
+made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself rather the
+shadow than the substance of any pleasure. For my part, I now pined for
+more solid food, and promised tacitly to myself that I would not be put
+off much longer with this foolery of woman to woman, of Mrs. Brown did
+not soon provide me with the essential specific. In short, I had all
+the air of not being able to wait the arrival of my lord B——, though he
+was now expected in a very fews days: nor did I wait for him, for love
+itself took charge of the disposal of me, in spite of interest, or
+gross lust.
+
+It was now two days after the closet scene, that I got up about six in
+the morning, and leaving my bedfellow fast asleep, stole down, with no
+other thought than of taking a little fresh air in a small garden,
+which our back parlour opened into, and from which my confinement
+debarred me, at the times company came to my house; but now sleep and
+silence reigned all over it.
+
+I opened the parlour door, and well surprised was I at seeing, by the
+side of a fire half-out, a young gentleman in the old lady’s elbow
+chair, with his legs laid upon another, fast asleep, and left there by
+his thoughtless companions, who had drank him down, and then went off
+with every one but his mistress, whilst he stayed behind by the
+courtesy of the old matron, who would not disturb or turn him out in
+that condition at one in the morning; and beds, it is more than
+probable there were none to spare. On the table still remained the
+punch bowl and glasses, stewed about in their usual disorder after a
+drunken revel.
+
+But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping estray, heavens! what a
+sight! No! term of years, no turn of fortune could ever eraze the
+lightninglike impression his form made on me. Yes! dearest object of my
+earliest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of thy first
+appearance to my ravished eyes, it calls thee up, present; and I see
+thee now.
+
+Figure to yourself, Madam, fair stripling between eighteen and
+nineteen, with his head reclined on one of the sides of the chair, his
+hair disordered curls, irregularly shading a face, on which all the
+roseate bloom of youth and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eye
+sand heart; even the languour and paleness of his face, in which the
+momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing to the excesses
+of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to the finest features
+imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep, displayed the meeting edges of
+their lids beautifully bordered with long eye-lashes; over which no
+pencil could have described two more regular arches than those that
+graced his forehead, which was high, perfectly white and smooth; then a
+pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch, as if a bee
+had freshly stung them, seemed to challenge me to get the gloves off
+this lovely sleeper, had not the modesty and respect, which in both
+sexes are inseparable from a true passion, checked my impulses.
+
+But on seeing his shirt collar unbottoned, and bosom whiter than a
+drift of snow, the pleasure of considering it could not bribe me to
+lengthen it, at the hazard of a health that began to be my life’s
+concern. Love, that made me timid, taught me to be tender too: with a
+trembling hand I took hold of one of his, and waking him as gently as
+possible, he started, and looking, at first a little wildly, said with
+a voice that sent its harmonious sound to my heart: “Pray, child,
+what-a-clock is it?” I told him, and added that he might catch cold if
+he slept longer with his breast open in the cool of the morning air. On
+this he thanked me with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with that of his
+features and eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly surveying me,
+carried the surightly fires they sparkled with directly to my heart.
+
+It seems, that having drank too freely before he came upon the rake
+with some of his young companions, he had put himself out of a
+condition to go through all the weapons with them, and crown the night
+with a getting a mistress; so that seeing me in a loose undress, he did
+not doubt but I was one of the misses of the house, sent in to repair
+his loss of time; but though he seized that notion, and a very obvious
+one it was, without hesitation, yet, whether my figure made a more than
+ordinary impression on him, or whether it was his natural politeness,
+he addressed me in a manner far from rude, though still on the foot of
+one of the house pliers come to amuse him; and giving me the first kiss
+that I ever relished from man in my life, asked me if I could favour
+him with my company, assuring me that he would make it worth my while:
+but had not even new-born love, that true refiner of lust, opposed so
+sudden a surrender, the fear of being surprised by the house was a
+sufficient bar to my compliance.
+
+I told him then, in a tone set by love itself, that for reasons I had
+not time to explain to him. I could not stay with him, and might even
+ever see him again, with a sigh at these words, which broke from the
+bottom of my heart. My conqueror, who, as he afterwards told me, had
+been struck with my appearance, and liked me as much as he could think
+of liking any one in my supposed way of life, asked me briskly at once,
+if I would be kept by him, and that he would take a lodging for me
+directly, and relieve me from any engagements he presumed I might be
+under to the house.
+
+Rash, sudden, undigested, even dangerous as this offer might be from a
+perfect stranger, and that stranger a giddy boy, the prodigious love I
+was struck with for him, had put a charm into every objection: I not
+resisting, and blinded me to every objection; I could, at that instant,
+have died for him: think if I could resist an invitation to live with
+him! Thus my heart, beating strong to the proposal, dictated my answer,
+after scarce a minute’s pause, that I would accept of his offer, and
+make my escape to him in what way he pleased, and that I would be
+entirely at his disposal, let it be good or bad. I have often since
+wondered that so great an easiness did not disgust him, or make me too
+cheap in his eyes, but my fate had so appointed it, that in his fears
+of the hazzard of the town, he had been some time looking out for a
+girl to take into keeping, and my person happening to hit his fancy, it
+was by one of those miracles reserved to love, that we struck the
+bargain in the instant, which we sealed by an exchange of kisses, that
+the hopes of a more uninterrupted enjoyment engaged him to content
+himself with.
+
+Never, however, did dear youth carry in his head more wherewith to
+justify the turning of a girl’s head, and making her set all
+consequences at defiance, for the sake of following a gallant.
+
+For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which were assembled
+in his form, he had an air of neatness and gentility, certain smartness
+in the carriage and port of his head, that yet more distinguished him;
+his eyes were sprightly and full of meaning; his looks had in them
+something at once sweet and commanding; his complexion out-bloomed the
+lovely coloured rose, whilst its inimitable tender vivid glow clearly
+saved it from the reproach of wanting life, of raw and dough-like,
+which is commonly made of those so extremely fair as he was.
+
+Our little plan was, that I should get out about seven the next morning
+(which I could readily promise, as I knew where to get the key of the
+street door) and he would wait at the end of the street with a coach to
+convey me safe off; after which, we would send, and clear any debt
+incurred by my stay at Mrs. Brown’s, who, he only judged, in gross,
+might not care to part with one, he thought, so fit to draw custom to
+the house.
+
+I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house his having seen
+such a person as me, for reasons I would explain to him more at
+leisure. And then, for fear of miscarrying, by being seen together, I
+tore myself from him with a bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my
+room, where I found Phœbe still fast asleep, and hurrying off my few
+clothes, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and anxiety, that may
+be easier conceived than expressed.
+
+The risks of Mrs. Brown’s discovering my purpose, of disappointments,
+misery, ruin, all vanished before this new-kindled flame. The seeing,
+the touching, the being, if but for a night, with this idol of my fond
+virgin heart, appeared to me a happiness above the purchase of my
+liberty or life. He might use me ill, let him: he was the master,
+happy, too happy, even to receive death at so dear a hand.
+
+To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day, of which every
+minute seemed to me a little eternity. How often did I visit the clock!
+nay, was tempted to advance the tedious hand, as if that would have
+advanced the time with it! Had those of the house had the least
+observations on me, they must have remarked something extraordinary
+from the discomposure I could not help betraying; especially when at
+dinner mention was made of the charmingest youth having been there, and
+stayed breakfast. “Oh! he was such a beauty!... I should have died for
+him!... they would pull caps for him!...” and the like fooleries;
+which, however, was throwing oil on a fire I was sorely put to it to
+smother the blaze of.
+
+The fluctuations of my mind, the whole day, produced one good effect:
+which was, that, through mere fatigue, I slept tolerably well till five
+in the morning, when I got up, and having dressed myself, waited, under
+the double tortures of fear and impatience, for the appointed hour. It
+came at last, the dear, critical, dangerous hour came; and now,
+supported only by the courage love lent me, I ventured, a tip-toe, down
+stairs, leaving my box behind, for fear of being surprized with it in
+going out.
+
+I got to the street door, the key whereof was always laid on the chair
+by our bed side, in trust with Phœbe, who having not the least
+suspicion of my entertaining any design to go from them (nor, indeed,
+had I, but the day before), made no reserve or concealment of it from
+me. I opened the door with great ease; love, that emboldened, protected
+me too: and now, got safe into the street, I saw my new guardian angel
+waiting at a coach door, ready open. How I got to him I know not: I
+suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a trice, and he by the side
+of me, with his arms clasped round me, and giving me the kiss of
+welcome. The coachman had his orders, and drove to them.
+
+My eyes were instantly filled with tears, but tears of the most
+delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of that beauteous youth,
+was a rapture that my little hear swam in; past or future were equally
+out of the question with me; the present was as much as all my powers
+of life were sufficient to bear the transport of, without fainting. Nor
+were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions wanting on
+his side, to assure me of his love, and of never giving me cause to
+repent the bold step I had taken, in throwing myself thus entirely upon
+his honour and generosity. But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I
+was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and, I did
+what I did, because I could not help it.
+
+In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were landed at
+a public house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for the reception of
+duet parties of pleasure, where a breakfast of chocolate was prepared
+for us.
+
+An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly well,
+breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and
+said, “we were well paired, i’ faith! that a great many gentlemen and
+ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple... he
+was sure I was a fresh piece... I looked so country, so innocent! well
+my spouse was a lucky man!...” all which, common landlord’s cant, not
+only pleased and soothed me, but helped to diver my confusion at being
+with my new sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to
+be alone with: a timidity which true love had a greater share in than
+even maiden bashful-ness.
+
+I wished, I doated, I could have died for him; and yet, I know not how,
+or why I dreaded the point which had been the object of my fiercest
+wishes; my pulses beat fears, amidst a flush of the warmest desires.
+This struggle of the passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty
+and lovesick longings, made me burst again into tears; which he took,
+as he had done before, only for the remains of concern and emotion at
+the suddenness of my change of condition, in committing myself to his
+care; and, in consequence of that idea, did and said all that he
+thought would most comfort and re-inspirit me.
+
+After breakfast, Charles (the dear familiar name I must take the
+liberty henceforward to distinguish my Adonis by), with a smile full of
+meaning, took me gently by the hand, and said: “Come, my dear, I will
+show you a room that commands a fine prospect over some gardens”; and
+without waiting for an answer, in which he relieved me extremely, he
+led me up into a chamber, airy and lightsome, where all seeing of
+prospects was out of the question, except that of a bed, which had all
+the air of recommending the room to him.
+
+Charles had just slipped the bolt of the door, and running, caught me
+in his arms, and lifting me from the ground, with his lips glued to
+mine, bore me trembling, panting, dying with soft fears and tender
+wishes, to the bed; where his impatience would not suffer him to
+undress me, more than just unpinning my handkerchief and gowns, and
+unlacing my stays.
+
+My bosom was now bare, and rising in the warmest throbs, presented to
+his sight and feeling the firm hard swell of a pair of young breast,
+such as may be imagined of a girl not sixteen, fresh out of the
+country, and never before handled: but even their pride, whiteness,
+fashion, pleasing resistance to the touch, could not bribe his restless
+hands from roving; but, giving them the loose, my petticoats and shift
+were soon taken up, and their stronger center of attraction laid open
+to their tender invasion. My fears, however, made me mechanically close
+my thighs; but the very touch of his hand insinuated between them,
+disclosed them and opened a way for the main attack.
+
+In the mean time, I lay fairly exposed to the examination of his eyes
+and hands, quiet and unresisting; which confirmed him the opinion he
+proceeded so cavalierly upon, that I was no novice in these matters,
+since he had taken me out of a common bawdy house, nor had I said one
+thing to prepossess him of my virginity; and if I had, he would sooner
+have believed that I took him for a cully that would swallow such an
+improbability, than that I was still mistress of that darling treasure,
+that hidden mine, so eagerly sought after by the men, and which they
+never dig for, but to destroy.
+
+Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he unbuttoned, and drawing
+out the engine of love assaults, drove it currently, as at a ready made
+breach... Then! then! for the first time, did I feel that stiff
+horn-hard gristle, battering against the tender part; but imagine to
+yourself his surprise, when he found, after several vigorous pushes,
+which hurt me extremely, that he made not the least impression.
+
+I complained, but tenderly complained: “I could not bear it... indeed
+he hurt me!...” Still he thought no more, than that being so young, the
+largeness of his machine (for few men could dispute size with him) made
+all the difficulty; and that possibly I had not been enjoyed by any so
+advantageously made in that part as himself: for still, that my virgin
+flower was yet un-cropped, never entered into his head, and he would
+have thought it idling with time and words, to have questioned me upon
+it.
+
+He tried again, still no admittance, still no penetration; but he had
+hurt me yet more, while my extreme love made me bear extreme pain,
+almost without a groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he
+lay down panting by me, kissed my falling tears, and asked me tenderly
+“what was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not borne it
+better from other than I did from him?” I answered, with a simplicity
+framed to persuade, that he was the first man that ever served me so.
+Truth is powerful, and it is not always that we do not believe what we
+eagerly wish.
+
+Charles, already disposed by the evidence, of his senses to think my
+pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers me with
+kisses, begs me, in the name of love, to have a little patience, and
+that he wilt be as tender of hurting me as he would be of himself..
+
+Alas! it was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joyfully to him,
+whatever pain I foresaw it would cost, me.
+
+He now resumes his attempts in more form: first, he put one of the
+pillows under me, to give the blank of his aim a more favourable
+elevation, and another Under my head, in ease of it; then spreading my
+thighs, and placing himself standing betwen them, made them rest upon
+his; applying then the point of his machine to the slit, into which he
+sought entrance, it was so small, he could scarce assure himself of its
+being rightly pointed. He looks, he feels, and satisfies himself: there
+driving on with fury, its prodigious stiffness, thus impacted,
+wedgelike, breaks the union of those parts, and gained him just the
+insertion of the tip of it, lip deep; which being sensible of, he
+improved his advantage, and following well his stroke, in a straight
+line, forcibly deepens his penetration; but put me to such intolerable
+pain, from the separation of the sides of that soft passage by a hard
+thick body, I could have screamed out; but, as I was unwilling to alarm
+the house, I held in my breath, and crammed my petticoat, which was;
+turned up over my face, into my mouth, and bit it through in the agony.
+At length, the tender texture of that tract giving way to such fierce
+tearing and rending, he pierced something further into me: and now,
+outrageous and no longer his own master, but borne headlong away by the
+fury and over-mettle of that member, now exerting itself with a kind of
+native rage, he breaks in, carries all before him, and one violent
+merciless lunge, sent it, imbrued, and reeking with virgin blood, up to
+the very hilt in me... Then! then all my resolution deserted me: I
+screamed out, and fainted away with the sharpness of the pain; and, as
+he told me afterwards, on his drawing out, when emission was over with
+him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream of blood, that flowed
+from the wounded torn passage.
+
+When I recovered my senses, I found myself undressed and a-bed, in the
+arms of the sweet relenting murderer of my virginity, who hung mourning
+tenderly over me, and holding in his hand a cordial, which, coming from
+the still dear author of so much pain, I could not refuse; my eyes,
+however, moistened with tears, and languishingly turned upon him,
+seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and ask him, if such were the
+rewards of love. But Charles, to whom I was now infinitely endeared by
+his complete triumph over a maidenhead, where he so little expected to
+find one, in tenderness to that pain which he had put me to, in
+procuring himself the height of pleasure, smothered his exultation, and
+employed himself with so much sweetness, so much warmth, to sooth, to
+caress, and comfort me in my soft complainings, which breathed, indeed,
+more love than resentment, that I presently drowned all sense of pain
+in the pleasure of seeing him, of thinking that I belonged to him: he
+who was now the absolute disposer of my happiness, and, in one word, my
+fate.
+
+The sore was, however, too tender, the wound too bleeding fresh, for
+Charles’s good-nature to put my patience presently to another trial;
+but as I could not stir, or walk a-cross the room, he ordered the
+dinner to be brought to the bed side, where it could not be otherwise
+than my getting down the wing of a fowl, and two or three glasses of
+wine, since it was my adored youth who both served, and urged them on
+me, with that sweet irresistible authority with which love had invested
+him over me.
+
+After dinner, and everything but the wine was taken away, Charles very
+impudently asks a leave, he might read the grant of in my eyes, to come
+to bed to me, and accordingly falls to undressing; which I could not
+see the progress of without strange emotions of fear and pleasure.
+
+He is now in bed with me the first time, and in broad day; but when
+thrusting up his own shirt and my shift, he laid his naked glowing body
+to mine... oh insupportable delight! oh! superhuman rapture! what pain
+could stand before a pleasure so transporting? I felt no more the smart
+of my wounds below; but, curling round him like the tendril of a vine,
+as if I feared any part of him should be untouched or unpressed by me,
+I returned his strenuous embraces and kisses with a fervour and gust
+only known to true love, and which mere lust never rise to.
+
+Yes, even at this time, that all the tyranny of the passions is fully
+over, and that my veins roll no longer but a cold tranquil stream, the
+remembrance of those passages that most affected me in my youth, still
+cheers and refreshes me; let me proceed then. My beauteous youth was
+now glued to me in all the folds and twists that we could make our
+bodies meet in; when, no longer able to rein in the fierceness of
+refreshed desires, he gives his steed the head, and gently insinuating
+his thighs between mine, stopping my mouth with kisses of humid fire,
+makes a fresh eruption, and renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and
+forces his way up the torn tender folds, that yielded him admission
+with a smart little less severe that when the breach was first made I
+stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with the passive fortitude of
+an heroine; soon his thrusts, more and more furious, cheeks flushed
+with a deeper scarlet, his eyes turned up in the fervent fit, some
+dying sighs, and an agonizing shudder, announced the approaches of that
+ecstatic pleasure, I was yet in too much pain to come in for my share
+of.
+
+Nor was it till after a few enjoyments had numbed and blunted the sense
+of the smart, and given me to feel the titillating inspersion of
+balsamic sweets, drew from me the delicious return, and brought down
+all my passion, that I arrived at excess of pleasure through excess of
+pain. But, when successive engagements had broke and inured me, I began
+to enter into the true unalloyed relish of that pleasure of pleasures,
+when the warm gush darts through all the ravished inwards; what floods
+of bliss! what melting transports! what agonies of delight! too fierce,
+too mighty for nature to sustain?... well has she therefore, no doubt
+provided the relief of a delicious momentary dissolution, the
+approaches of which are intimated by a dear delirium, a sweet thrill,
+on the point of emitting those liquid sweets, in which enjoyment itself
+is drowned, when one gives the languishing stretch out, and die at the
+discharge.
+
+How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had subsided, after
+the melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation, asked myself cooly
+the question, if it was in nature for any of its creatures to be so
+happy as I was? Or, what were all fears of the consequence, put in the
+scale of one night’s enjoyment, of any thing so transcendently the
+taste of my eyes and heart, as that delicious, fond, matchless youth.
+
+Thus we spent the whole afternoon, till supper time in a continued
+circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing, toying, and all the
+rest of the feast. At length, supper was served in, before which
+Charles had, for I do not know what reason, slipped his clothes on; and
+sitting down by the bed side, we made table and tablecloth of the bed
+and sheets, whilst he suffered nobody to attend or serve but himself.
+He ate with a very good appetite, and seemed charmed to see me eat. For
+my part, I was so transported with the comparison of the delights I now
+swam in, with the insipidity of all my past scenes of life, that I
+thought them sufficiently cheap, at even the price of my ruin, or the
+risk of their not lasting. The present possession was all my little
+head could find room for.
+
+We lay together that night, when, after playing repeated prizes of
+pleasure, nature, overspent and satisfied, gave us up to the arms of
+sleep: those of my dear youth encircled me, the consciousness of which
+made even that sleep more delicious.
+
+Late in the morning I waked, first; and observing my lover slept
+profoundly, softly disengaged myself from his arms, scarcely daring to
+breathe, for fear of shortening his repose; my cap, my hair, my shift,
+were all in disorder, from the rufflings I had undergone; and I took
+this opportunity to adjust and set them as well as I could: whilst,
+every now and then, looking at the sleeping youth, with inconceivable
+fondness and delight, and reflecting on all the pain he had put me to,
+tacitly owned that the pleasure had overpaid me for my sufferings.
+
+It was then broad day. I was sitting up in the bed, the clothes of
+which were all tossed, or rolled off, by the unquietness of our
+motions, from the sultry heat of the weather; nor could I refuse myself
+a pleasure that solicited me so irresistibly, as this fair occasion of
+feasting my sight with all those treasures of youthful beauty I had
+enjoyed, and which lay now almost entirely naked, his shirt being
+trussed up in a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the season and room
+made me easy about the consequence of. I hung over him enamoured
+indeed! and devoured all his naked charms with only two eyes, when I
+could have wished them at least an hundred for the fuller enjoyment of
+the gaze.
+
+Oh! could I paint his figure as I see it now, still present to my
+transported imagination! a whole length of an all perfect manly beauty
+in full view. Think of a face without a fault, glowing with all the
+opening bloom and verdant freshness of an age, in which beauty is of
+either sex, and which the first down over his upper lip scarce began to
+distinguish.
+
+The parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seemed to exhale an air
+sweeter and purer than what it drew in: ah! what violence did it not
+cost me to refrain the so tempted kiss!
+
+Then a neck exquisitely turned, graved behind and on the sides with
+fais hair, playing freely in natural ringlets, connected his head to a
+body of the most perfect form, and of the most vigorous contexture, in
+which all the strength of manhood was concealed, and softened to
+appearance by the delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his
+skin, and the plumpness of his flesh.
+
+The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a manly
+proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of each pap, the idea of
+a rose about to blow.
+
+Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of his limbs,
+that exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the loins, where the
+waist ends and the rounding swell of the hips commences; where the
+skin, sleek, smooth, and dazzling white, burnishes on; the stretch-over
+firm, plump, ripe flesh, that crimped’ and ran into dimples at the
+least pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid over on
+the surface of the most polished ivory.
+
+His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy roundness,
+gradually tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support
+that beauteous frame at the bottom of which I could not, without some
+remains of terror, some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that
+terrible machine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke
+into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender parts of mine, that
+had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but behold it
+now! crest fallen, reclining its half-caped vermilion head over one of
+his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the
+mischiefs and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of
+the hair, in short and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness,
+branched veins, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay
+foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a squat thickness, languid,
+and borne up from between his thighs, by its globular appendage, that
+wondrous treasure bag of nature’s sweets, which revelled round, and
+pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, perfected the
+prospect, and altogether formed the most interesting moving picture in
+nature, and surely infinitely superior to those nudities furnished by
+the painters, statuaries, or any art, which are purchased at immense
+prices; whilst the sight of them in actual life is scarce sovereignly
+tasted by any but the few whom nature has endowed with a fire of
+imagination, warmly pointed by a truth of judgment to the spring-head,
+the originals of beauty, of nature’s unequalled composition, above all
+the imitations of art, or the reach of wealth to pay their price.
+
+But every thing must have an end. A motion made by this angelic youth,
+in the listlessness of goingoff sleep, replaced his shirt and the bed
+clothes in a posture that shut up that treasury from longer view.
+
+I lay down then, and carrying my hands to that part of me in which the
+objects just seen had begun to raise a mutiny, that prevailed over the
+smart of them, my fingers now opened themselves an easy passage; but
+long I had not time to consider the wide difference there, between the
+maid and the now finished woman, before Charles waked, and turning
+towards me, kindly enquired how I had rested? and, scarce giving me
+time to answer, imprinted on my lips one of his burning rapture kisses,
+which darted a flame to my heart, that from thence radiated to every
+part of me; and presently, as if he had proudly meant revenge for the
+survey I had smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the bed
+clothes, and trussing up my shift as high as it would go, took his turn
+to feast his eyes on all the gifts nature had bestowed on my person;
+his busy hands, too, ranged intemperately over every part of me. The
+delicious austerity and hardness of my yet unripe budding breasts, the
+whiteness and firmness of my flesh, the freshness and regularity of my
+features, the harmony of my limbs, all seemed to confirm him in his
+satisfaction with his bargain; but when curious to explore the havock
+he had made in the centre of his over fierce attack, he not only
+directed his hands there, but with a pillow put under, placed me
+favourably for his wanton purpose of inspection. Then, who can express
+the fire his eyes glistened, his hands glowed with! whilst sighs of
+pleasure, and tender broken exclamations, were all the praises he could
+utter. By this time his machine, stiffly risen at me, gave me to see it
+in its highest state and bravery. He feels it himself, seems pleased at
+its condition, and, smiling loves and graces, seizes one of my hands,
+and carries it, with gentle compulsion, to this pride of nature, and
+its richest master piece.
+
+I, struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I could not grasp, a
+column of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked with blue veins, and
+carrying, fully un-capt, a head of the liveliest vermilion: no horn
+could be harder or stiffer; yet no velvet more smooth or delicious to
+the touch. Presently he guided my hand lower, to that part in which
+nature, and pleasure keep their stores in concert, so aptly fastened
+and hung on to the root of their first instrument and minister, that
+not improperly he might be styled their purse-bearer too: there he made
+me feel distinctly, through their soft cover, the contents, a pair of
+roundish balls, that seemed to play within, and elude all pressure, but
+the tenderest, from without.
+
+But now this visit of my soft, warm hand, in those so sensible parts,
+had put every thing into such ungovernable fury, disdaining all further
+preluding, and taking advantage of my commodious posture, he made the
+storm fall where I scarce patiently expected, and where he was sure to
+lay it: presently, then, I felt the stiff intersection betwen the
+yielding, divided lips of the wound, now open for life; where the
+narrowness no longer put me to intolerable pain, and afforded my lover
+no more difficulty than what heightened his pleasure, in the strict
+embrace of that tender, warm sheath, round the instrument it was so
+delicately adjusted to, and which now cased home, so gorged me with
+pleasure, that it perfectly suffocated me and took away my breath; then
+the killing thrusts! the unnumbered kisses! every one of which was a
+joy inexpressible; and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses!
+But this was a disorder too violent in nature to last long: the
+vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for
+that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport
+had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to
+lay breakfast and dinner into one.
+
+In our calmer intervals Charles gave the following account of himself,
+every tittle of which was true. He was the only son of a father, who,
+having a small post in the revenue, rather overlived his income, and
+had given this young gentleman a very slender education: no profession
+had he bred him up to, but designed to provide for him in the army, by
+purchasing him an ensign’s commission, that is to say, provided he
+could raise the money, or procure it by interest, either of which
+clauses was rather to be wished than hoped for by him. On no better a
+plan, however, had his improvident father suffered this youth, a youth
+of great promise, to run up to the age of manhood, or near it at least,
+in next to idleness; and had, besides, taken no sort of pains to give
+him even the common premonitions against the vices of the town, and the
+dangers of all sorts which wait the unexperienced and unwary in it. He
+lived at home, and at discretion with his father, who himself kept a
+mistress; and for the rest, provided Charles did not ask him for money,
+he was indolently kind to him: he might lie out when he pleased, any
+excuse would serve, and even his reprimands were so slight, that they
+carried with them rather an air of connivance at the fault, than any
+serious control or constraint. But, to supply his calls for money,
+Charles, whose mother was dead, had, by her side, a grandmother, who
+doated upon him. She had a considerable annuity to live on, and very
+regularly parted with every shilling she could spare, to this darling
+of her’s, to the no little heart-burn of his father; who was vexed, not
+that she, by this means, fed his son’s extravagance, but that she
+preferred Charles to himself; and we shall too soon see what a fatal
+turn such a mercenary jealousy could operate on the breast of a father.
+
+Charles was, however, by the means of his grandmother’s lavish
+fondness, very sufficiently enabled to keep a mistress, so easily
+contented as my love made me; and my good fortune, for such I must ever
+call it, threw me in his way, in the manner above related, just as he
+was on the look-out for one.
+
+As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born for domestic
+happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-manner’d; it could
+never be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities ruffled a calm he was
+so qualified every way to maintain or restore. Without those great or
+shining qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a noise
+in the world, he had all those humble ones that compose the softer
+social merit: plain common sense, set off with every grace of modesty
+and good nature, made him, if not admired, what is much happier:
+universally beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the beauties of
+his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion,
+neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had
+afterwards full occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that
+season of giddiness and levity, would have touched my heart very
+little, had it been lodged in a person less the delight of my eyes, and
+idol of my senses. But to return to our situation.
+
+After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder, Charles
+got up, and taking a passionate leave of me for a few hours, went to
+town, where concerting matters with a young sharp lawyer, they went
+together to my late venerable mistress’s, from whence I had, but the
+day before, made my elopement, and with whom he was determined to
+settle accounts, in a manner that should cut off all after reckonings
+from that quarter.
+
+Accordingly they went; but by the way, the Templar, his friend, on
+thinking over Charles’s information, saw reason to give their visit
+another turn, and, instead of offering satisfaction, to demand it.
+
+On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles, whom
+they knew, and from the earlyness of my escape, and their perfect
+ignorance of his ever having so much as seen me, not having the least
+suspicion of his being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way,
+making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him probably for a
+fresh cully. But the Templar soon checked their forwardness, by
+enquiring for the old lady, with whom he said, with a grave-like
+countenance, that he had some business to settle.
+
+Madam was immediately sent for down, and the ladies being desired to
+clear the room, the lawyer asked her, severely, if she did know, or had
+not decoyed, under pretence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just
+come out of the country, called Frances or Fanny Hill, describing me
+withal as particularly as he could from Charlie’s description.
+
+It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of justice; and Mrs.
+Brown, whose conscience was not entirely clear upon my account, as
+knowing as she was of the town as hackneyed as she was in bluffing
+through all the dangers of her vocation, could not help being alarmed
+at the questions, especially when he went on to talk of a Justice of
+peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for keeping a disorderly
+house, pillory, carting, and the whole process of that nature. She,
+who, it is likely, imagined I had lodged an information against her
+house, looked extremely blank, and began to make a thousand
+protestations and excuses. However, to abridge, they brought away
+triumphantly my box of things, which, had she not ben under an awe, she
+might have disputed with them; and not only that, but a clearance and
+discharge of any demands on the house, at the expense of no more than a
+bowl of arrack-punch, the treat of which, together with the choice of
+the house conveniences, was offered and not accepted. Charles all the
+time acted the chance companion of the lawyer, who had brought him
+there, as he knew the house, and appeared in no wise interested in the
+issue; but he had the collateral pleasure of hearing all that I told
+him verified, as far as the bawd’s fears would give her leave to enter
+into my history, which, if one may guess by the composition she so
+readily came into, were not small.
+
+Phœbe, my kind tutoress Phœbe, was at the time gone out, perhaps in
+search of me, or their cooked-up story had not, it is probable, passed
+smoothly.
+
+This negociation had, however, taken up some time, which would have
+appeared much longer to me, left as I was, in a strange house, if the
+landlady, a motherly sort of a woman, to whom Charles had liberally
+recommended me, had not come up and borne me company. We drank tea, and
+her chat helped to pass away the time very agreeably, since he was our
+theme; but as the evening deepened, and the hour set for his return was
+elapsed, I could not dispel the gloom of impatience, and tender fears
+which gathered upon me, and which our timid sex are apt to feel in
+proportion to their love.
+
+Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him over-paid me; and the
+soft reproach I had prepared for him, expired before it reached my
+lips.
+
+I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise than awkwardly,
+and Charles flew to me, catches me in his arms, raised and extending
+mine to meet his dear embrace, and gives me an account, interrupted by
+many a sweet parenthesis of kisses, of the success of his measures.
+
+I could not help laughing at the fright of the old woman had been put
+into, which my ignorance, and indeed my want of innocence, had far from
+prepared me from bespeaking. She had, it seems, apprehended that I fled
+the shelter to some relation I had recollected in town, on my dislike
+of their ways and proceedings towards me, and that this application
+came from thence; for, as Charles had rightly judged, not one neighbour
+had, at that still hour, seen the circumstance of my escape into the
+coach, or, at least, noticed him; neither had any in the house, the
+least hint of suspicion of my having spoken to him, much less of my
+having clapt up such a sudden bargain with a perfect stranger, thus the
+greatest improbability is not always what we should most mistrust.
+
+We supped with all the gaiety of two young giddy creatures at the top
+of their desires; and as I had given up to Charles the whole charge of
+my future happiness, I thought of nothing beyond the exquisite pleasure
+of possessing him.
+
+He came to bed in due time; and this second night, the pain being
+pretty well over, I tasted, in full draught, all the transports of
+perfect enjoyment: I swam, I bathed in bliss, till both fell asleep,
+through the natural consequences of satisfied desires, and appeased
+flames; nor did we wake but to renewed raptures.
+
+Thus, making the most of love, and life did we stay in this lodging in
+Chelsea about ten days; in which time Charles took care to give his
+excursions from home a favourable gloss, and to keep his footing with
+his fond indulgent grand-mother, from whom he drew constant and
+sufficient supplies for the charge I was to him, and which was very
+trifling, in comparison with his former less regular course of
+pleasure.
+
+Charles removed me then to a private ready furnished lodging in D....
+street, St. James’s, where he paid half a guinea a week for two rooms
+and a closet on the second floor, which he had been some time looking
+out for, and was more convenient for the frequency of his visits, than
+where he had at first placed me, in a house, which I cannot say but I
+left with regret, as it was infinitely endeared to me by the first
+possession of my Charles, and the circumstance of losing, there, that
+jewel, which can never be twice lost. The landlord, however, had no
+reason to complain of any thing, but of a procedure in Charles too
+liberal not to make him regret the loss of us.
+
+Arrived at our new lodging, I remember I thought them extremely fine,
+though ordinary enough, even at that price; but, had it been a dungeon
+that Charles had brought me to, his presence would have made a little
+Versailles.
+
+The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apartment, and with great
+volubility of tongue, explained to us all its conveniences: “that her
+own maid should wait on us... that the best of quality had lodged at
+her house... that her first floor was let to a foreign secretary of an
+embassy, and his lady... that I looked like a very good natured
+lady...” At the word lady, I blushed out of flattered vanity: this was
+strong for a girl of my condition; for though Charles had the
+precaution of dressing me in a less tawdry flaunting style than were
+the clothes I escaped to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that
+she had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on account
+of his friends, I dare swear this appeared extremely apocryphal to a
+woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the least of
+her concern: it was impossible to be less scruple-ridden than she was;
+and the advantage of letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth
+itself would have far from scandalized her, or broke her bargain.
+
+A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dispose you to
+account for the part she is to act in my concern.
+
+She was about forty six years old, tall, meagre, red-haired, with one
+of those trivial ordinary faces you meet with every where, and go about
+unheeded and un-mentioned. In her youth she had been kept by a
+gentleman, who, dying, left her forty pounds a year during her life, in
+consideration of a daughter he had by her: which daughter, at the age
+of seventeen, she sold, for not a very considerable sum neither, to a
+gentleman who was going on envoy abroad, and took his purchase with
+him, where he used her with the utmost tenderness, and it is thought,
+was secretly married to her: but had constantly made a point of her not
+keeping up the least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a
+market of her own flesh and blood. However, as she had not nature, nor,
+indeed, any passion but that of money, this gave her no further
+uneasiness, then, as she thereby lost a handle of squeezing presents,
+or other after advantages, out of the bargain. Indifferent then, by
+nature of constitution, to every other pleasure but that of increasing
+the lump, by any means whatever, she commenced a kind of private
+procuress, for which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave decent
+appearance, and sometimes did a job in the match-making way; in short,
+there was, nothing that appeared to her under the shape of gain, that
+she would not have undertaken. She knew most of the ways of the town,
+having not only herself been upon, but kept up constant intelligences
+in promoting a harmony between the two sexes, in private pawn-broking,
+and other profitable secrets. She rented the house she lived in, and
+made the most of it, by letting it out in lodgings; though she was
+worth, at least, near three or four thousand pounds, she would not
+allow herself even the necessaries, of life, and pinned her subsistence
+entirely on what she could squeeze out of her lodgers.
+
+When she saw such a young pair come under her roof, her immediate
+notions, doubtless, were how she should make the most money of us, by
+every means that money might be made, and which, she rightly judged,
+our situations and inexperience would soon beget her occasions of.
+
+In this hopeful sanctuary, and under the clutches of this harpy, did we
+pitch our residence. It will not be might material to you, or very
+pleasant to me, to enter into a detail of all the petty cut-throat ways
+and means with which she used to fleece us; all which Charles
+indolently chose to bear with, rather than take the trouble of
+removing, the difference of expense being scarce attended to by a young
+gentleman who had no ideas of stint, or even economy, and a raw country
+girl who knew nothing of the matter.
+
+Here, however, under the wings of my sovereignly beloved, did the most
+delicious hours of my life flow on; my Charles I had, and, in him,
+every thing my fond heart could wish or desire. He carried me to plays,
+operas, masquerades, and every diversion of the town; all which pleased
+me, indeed, but pleased me infinitely the more for his being with me,
+and explaining every thing to me, and enjoying perhaps, the natural
+impressions of surprise and admiration, which such sights, at the
+first, never fail to excite in a country girl, new to the delights of
+them; but to me, they sensibly proved the power and dominion of the
+sole passion of my heart over me, a passion in which soul and body were
+concentered, and left me no room for any other relish of life but love.
+
+As to the men I saw at those places, or at any other, they suffered so
+much in the comparison my eyes made of them with my all-perfect Adonis,
+that I had not the infidelity even of one wandering thought to reproach
+myself with upon his account. He was the universe to me, and all that
+was not him, was nothing to me.
+
+My love, in fine, was so excessive, that is arrived at annihilating
+every suggestion or kindling spark of jealousy; for, one idea only,
+tending that way, gave me such exquisite torment, that my self-love,
+and dread of worse than death, made me for ever renounce and defy it:
+nor had I, indeed, occasion; for, were I to enter here on the recital
+of several instances wherein Charles sacrificed to me women of much
+greater importance than I dare hint (which, considering his form, was
+no such wonder), I might, indeed, give you full proof of his unshaken
+constancy to me; but would not you accuse me of warming up against a
+feast, which my vanity ought long ago to have been satisfied with?
+
+In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles framed himself one, in
+instructing me, as far as his own lights reached, in a great many
+points of life, that I was, in consequence of my no-education,
+perfectly ignorant of: nor did I suffer one word to fall in vain from
+the mouth of my lovely teacher: I hung on every syllable he uttered,
+and received, as oracles, all he said; whilst kisses were all the
+interruption I could not refuse myself the pleasure of admitting, from
+lips that breathed more than Arabian sweetness, I was in a little time
+enabled, by the progress I had made, to prove the deep regard I had
+paid to all that he had said to me: repeating it to him almost word for
+word; and to shew that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I
+reflected upon, that I entered into it, I joined my own comments, and
+asked him questions of explanation.
+
+My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, manners, and
+deportment, began now sensibly to wear off: so quick was my
+observation, and so efficacious my desire of growing every day worthier
+of his heart.
+
+As to money, though, he brought me constantly all he received, it was
+with difficulty he even got me to give it room in my bureau; and what
+clothes I had, he could prevail on me to accept of on no other foot,
+than that of pleasing him by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond
+which I had no ambition. I could have made a pleasure of the greatest
+toil, and worked my fingers to the bone, with joy, to have supported
+him: guess, then, if I could harbour any idea of being burthensome to
+him, and this disinterested turn in me was so unaffected, so much the
+dictate of my heart, that Charles could not but feel it: and if he did
+not love me as much as I did him (which was the constant and only
+matter of sweet contention between us), he managed so, at least, as to
+give me the satisfaction of believing it impossible for man to be more
+tender, more true, more faithful than he was.
+
+Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my apartment, from
+whence I never stirred on any pretext without Charles; nor was it long
+before she wormed out, without much art, the secret of our having
+cheated the church of a ceremony, and, in course, of the terms we lived
+together upon; a circumstance which far from displeased her,
+considering the designs she had upon me, and which, alas! she will have
+too soon, room to carry into execution. But in the meantime, her own
+experience of life let her see, that any attempt, however indirect or
+disguised, to divert or break, at least presently, so strong a cement
+of hearts as ours was, could only end in losing two lodgers, of whom
+she had made very competent advantages, if either of us came to smoke
+her commission, for a commission she had from one of her customers,
+either to debauch, or get me away from my keeper at any rate.
+
+But the barbarity of my fate soon saved her the task of disuniting us.
+I had now been eleven months with this life of my life, which had
+passed in one continued rapid stream of delight: but nothing so violent
+was ever made to last. I was about three months gone with a child by
+him, a circumstances would have added to his tenderness, had he ever
+left me room to believe it could receive an addition, when the mortal,
+the unexpected blow of separation fell upon us. I shall gallop
+post-over the particulars, which I shudder yet to think of, and cannot;
+to this instant, reconcile myself how, or by what means I could
+out-live it.
+
+Two live-long days had I lingered through without hearing from him, I
+who breathed, who existed but in him, and had never yet seen
+twenty-four hours pass without seeing or hearing from him. The third
+day my impatience was so strong, my alarms had been so severe, that I
+perfectly sickened with them; and being unable to support the shock
+longer, I sunk upon the bed, and ringing for Mrs. Jones, who had far
+from comforted me under my anxieties, she came up, and I had scarce
+breath and spirit enough to find words to beg of her, if she would save
+my life, to fall upon some means of finding out, instantly, what was
+become of its only prop and comfort. She pitied me in a way that rather
+sharpened my affliction than suspended it, and went out upon this
+commission.
+
+For she had but to go to Charles’s house, who lived but an easy
+distance, in one of the streets that run into Covent Garden. There she
+went into a public house, and from thence sent for a mid servant, whose
+name I had given her, as the properest to inform her.
+
+The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones enquired of her
+what had become of Mr. Charles, or whether he was gone out of town,
+acquainted her with the disposal of her master’s son, which, the very
+day after, was no secret to the servants. Such sure measures had he
+taken, for the most cruel punishment of his child for having more
+interest with his grandmother than he had, though he made use of a
+pretence, plausible enough, to get rid of him in this secret abrupt
+manner, for fear her fondness should have interposed a bar to his
+leaving England, and proceeding on a voyage he had concerted for him;
+which pretext was, that it was indispensably necessary to secure a
+considerable inheritance that devolved to him by the death of a rich
+merchant (his own brother) at one of the factories in the South Seas,
+of which he had lately received advice, together with a copy of the
+will.
+
+In consequence of which resolution, to send away his son, he had,
+unknown to him, made the necessary preparations for fitting him out,
+struck a bargain with the captain of a ship, whose punctual execution
+of his orders he had secured, by his interest with his principal owners
+and patron; and, in short, concerted his measures so secretly, and
+effectually, that whilst the son thought he was going down to the
+river, that would take him a few hours, he was stopt on board of a
+ship, debarred from writing, and more strictly watched than a State
+criminal.
+
+Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forced on a long voyage,
+without taking leave of one friend, or receiving one line of comfort,
+except a dry explanation and instructions, from his father, how to
+proceed when he should arrive at his destined port, enclosing, withal,
+some letters of recommendation to a factor there: all these particulars
+I did not learn minutely till some time after.
+
+The maid, at the same time, added, that she was sure this usage of her
+sweet young master would be the death of his grand-mamma, as indeed it
+proved true; for the old lady, on hearing it, did not survive the news
+a whole month, and as her fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which
+she had laid up no reserves, she left nothing worth mentioning to her
+so fatally envied darling, but absolutely refused to see his father
+before she died.
+
+When Mrs. Jones returned, and I observed her looks, they seemed so
+unconcerned, and even nearest to pleased, that I half flattered myself
+she was going to set my tortured heart at ease, by bringing me good
+news; but this, indeed, was a cruel delusion of hope: the barbarian,
+with all the coolness imaginable, stabs me to the heart, in telling me,
+succinctly, that he was sent away, at least, on a four years’ voyage
+(here she stretched maliciously), and that I could not expect, in
+reason, ever to see him again: and all this with such pregnant
+circumstances, that I could not escape giving them credit, as they
+were, indeed, too true!
+
+She had hardly finished her report before I fainted away, and after
+several successive fits, all the while wild and senseless, I miscarried
+of the dear pledge of my Charles’s love; but the wretched never die
+when it is fittest they should die, and women are hard-lived! to a
+proverb.
+
+The cruel and interested care taken to recover me, saved an odious
+life: which, instead of the happiness and joys it had overflower in,
+all of a sudden presented no view before me of any thing but the depth
+of misery, horror, and the sharpest affliction.
+
+Thus I lay six weeks, in the struggles of youth and constitution,
+against the friendly efforts of death, which I constantly invoked to my
+relief and deliverance, but which proved too weak for my wish. I
+recovered at length, but into a state of stupefaction and despair, that
+threatened me with the loss of my senses, and a mad house.
+
+Time, however, that great comforter in ordinary, began to assuage the
+violence of my suffering, and to numb my feeling of them. My health
+returned to me, though I still retained an air of grief, dejection, and
+languor, which taking off from the ruddiness of my country complexion,
+rendered it rather more delicate and affecting.
+
+The landlady had all this while officiously provided, and seen that I
+wanted for nothing: and as soon as she saw me retrieved into a
+condition of answering her purpose, one day, after we had dined
+together, she congratulated me on my recovery, the merit of which she
+took entirely to herself, and all this by way of introduction to a most
+terrible, and scurvy epilogue: “You are now,” says she, “Miss Fanny,
+tolerably well, and you are very welcome to stay in these lodgings as;
+long as you please! you see I have asked you for nothing this long
+time, but truly I have a call to make up a sum of money, which must be
+answered.” And, with that, presents me with a bill of arrears for rent,
+diet, apothecaries’ charges, nurse, etc., sum total twenty-three
+pounds, seventeen and six-pence: towards discharging of which I had not
+in the world (which she well knew) more than seven guineas, left by
+chance, of my dear Charles’s common stock, with me. At the same time,
+she desired me to tell her what course I would take for payment. I
+burst out into a flood of tears, and told her my condition: that I
+would sell what few clothes I had, and that, for the rest, would pay
+her as soon as possible. But my distress, being favourable to her view,
+only stiffened her the more.
+
+She told me, very cooly, that “she was indeed sorry for my misfortunes,
+but that she must do herself justice, though it would go to the very
+heart of her to send such a tender young creature to prison....” At the
+word “prison!” every drop of my blood chilled, and my fright acted so
+strongly upon me, that, turning as pale and faint as a criminal at the
+first sight of his place of execution, I was on the point of swooning.
+My landlady, who wanted only to terrify me to a certain point, and not
+to throw me into a state of body inconsistent with her designs upon it,
+began to sooth me again, and told me, in a tone composed to more pity
+and gentleness, that “it would be my own fault, if she was forced to
+proceed to such extremities; but she believed there was a friend to be
+found in the world, who would make up matters to both our
+satisfactions, and that she would bring him to drink tea with us that
+very afternoon, when she hoped we would come to a right understanding
+in our affairs.” To all this, not a word of answer; I sat mute,
+confounded, terrified.
+
+Mrs. Jones, however, judging rightly that it was time to strike while
+the impressions were so strong upon me, left me to myself and to all
+the terrors of an imagination, wounded to death by the idea of going to
+prison, and, from a principle of self-preservation, snatching at every
+glimpse of redemption from it.
+
+In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallowed up in grief and
+despair, when my landlady came in, and observing a death-like dejection
+in my countenance, still in pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity,
+and bidding me be of good heart: “Things,” she said, “would be but my
+own friend”; and closed with telling me “she had brought a very
+honourable gentleman to drink tea with me, who would give me the best
+advice how to get rid of all my troubles.” Upon which, without waiting
+for a reply, she goes out, and returns with this very honourable
+gentleman, whose very honourable procuress she had been, on this, as
+well as other occasions.
+
+The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very civil bow,
+which I had scarce strength, or presence of mind enough to return a
+curtsey to; when the landlady, taking upon her to do all the honours of
+the first interview (for I had never, that I remember, seen the
+gentleman before), sets a chair for him, another for herself. All this
+while not a word on either side; a stupid stare was all the face I
+could put on this strange visit.
+
+The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I suppose, to lose any
+time, observing my silence and shyness before this entire stranger:
+“Come, Miss Fanny,” says she, in a coarse familiar style, and tone of
+authority, “hold up your head, child, and do not let sorrow spoil that
+pretty face of yours. What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be free,
+here is a worthy gentleman who has heard of your misfortunes, and is
+willing to serve you; you must be better acquainted with him, do not
+you now stand upon your punctilios, and this and that, but make your
+market while you may.”
+
+At this so delicate, and eloquent harangue, the gentleman, who saw I
+looked frighted and amazed, and, indeed, incapable of answering, took
+her up for breaking things in so abrupt a manner, as rather to shock
+than incline me to an acceptance of the good he intended me then,
+addressing himself to me, told me “he was perfectly acquainted with my
+whole story, and every circumstance of my distress which he owned was a
+cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to fall into.... that he
+had long taken a liking to my person, for which he appealed to Mrs.
+Jones, there present; but finding me so deeply engaged to another, he
+had lost all hopes of succeeding, till he had heard the sudden reverse
+of fortune that had happened to me, on which he had given particular
+orders to my landlady to see that I should want for nothing; and that,
+had he not been forced abroad to the Hague, on affairs he could not
+refuse himself to, he would himself have attended me during my
+sickness;... that on his return, which was the day before, he had, on
+learning my recovery, desired my landlady’s good offices to introduce
+him to me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shocked, at the manner
+in which she had conducted herself towards obtaining him that
+happiness; but, that to show me how much he disdained her procedure,
+and how far he was from taking any ungenerous advantage of my
+situation, and from exacting any security for my gratitude, he would
+before my face, that instant, discharge my debt entirely to my
+landlady, and give me her receipt in full; after which I should be at
+liberty either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above
+putting any force upon my inclinations.”
+
+Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured just to look up
+to him, and observed his figure, which was that of a very well-looking
+gentleman, well made, of about forty, dressed in a suit of plain
+clothes, with a large diamond ring on one of his fingers, the lustre of
+which played in my eyes as he waved his hand in talking, and raised my
+notions of his importance. In short, he might pass for what is commonly
+called a comely black man, with an air of distinction natural to his
+birth and condition.
+
+To all his speeches, however, I answered only in tears that flower
+plentifully to my relief, and choking up my voice, excused me from
+speaking, very luckily, for I should not have known what to say.
+
+The sight, however, moved him, as he afterwards told me, irresistibly,
+and by way of giving me some reason to be less powerfully afflicted, he
+drew out his purse, and calling for pen and ink, which the landlady was
+prepared for, paid her every farthing of her demand, independent of a
+liberal gratification which was to follow unknown to me, and taking a
+receipt in full, very tenderly forced me to secure it, by guiding my
+hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make me passively put it
+into my pocket.
+
+Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melancholic despair, as
+my spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks that they had
+received; and the accommodating landlady had actually left the room,
+and me alone with this strange gentleman, before I had observed it, and
+then I observed it without alarm, for I was now lifeless, and
+indifferent to every thing.
+
+The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this sort, drew near
+me; and, under the pretence of comforting me, first with his
+handkerchief dried my tears as they ran down my cheeks: presently he
+ventured to kiss me on my part, neither resistance nor compliance. I
+sat stock still; and now looking on myself as bought by the payment
+that had been transacted before me.
+
+I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting life,
+spirits, or courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of the
+modesty of my sex, I suffered, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased;
+who proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuating his hand
+between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled at discretion:
+finding thus no repulse, and that every thing favoured, beyond
+expectation, the completion of his desires, he took me in his arms, and
+bore me, without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying me gently
+downed, and having me at what advantage he pleased, I did not so much
+as know what he was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless
+insensibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and
+innocent of the least sensations of pleasure: a death-cold corpse could
+scarce have less life or sense in it. As soon as he had thus pacified a
+passion which had too little respected the condition I was in, he got
+off, and after recomposing the disorder of my clothes, employed himself
+with the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and
+madness at myself, with which I was seized, too late, I confess, for
+having suffered on that bed, the embraces of an utter stranger I tore
+my hair, wrung my hands, and beat my breast like a mad woman. But when
+my new master, for in that light I then viewed him, applied himself to
+appease me, as my whole rage was levelled at myself, no part of which I
+thought myself permitted to aim at him, I begged of him with more
+submission than anger, to leave me alone, that I might, at least, enjoy
+my affliction in quiet. This he positively refused, for fear, as he
+pretended, I should do myself a mischief. Violent passions seldom last
+long, and those of women least of any. A dead still calm succeeded this
+storm, which ended in a profuse shower of tears.
+
+Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I should have ever
+known any man but Charles, I would have spit in his face or had I been
+offered infinitely a greater sum of money than that I saw paid for me,
+I had spurned the proposal in cold blood. But our virtues and our vices
+depend too much on our circumstances; unexpectedly beset as I was,
+betrayed by a mind weakened by a long severe affliction, and stunned
+with the terrors of a goal, my defeat will appear the more excusable,
+since I certainly was not present at, or a party in any sense to it.
+However, as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now over the
+bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of one
+that had got that advantage over me, no matter how obtained; conforming
+myself then to this maxim, I considered myself as so much in his power,
+that I endured his kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or
+anger; not that he, as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevailed over the
+aversion of my soul, to give myself up to any sensation of that sort;
+what I suffered, I suffered out of a kind of gratitude, and as a matter
+of course what had passed.
+
+He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the renewal of those
+extremities which had thrown me, just before, into such violent
+agitations; but, now secure of possession, contented himself with
+bringing me to temper by degrees, and waiting at the hand of time for
+those fruits of generosity and courtship, which he since often
+reproached himself with having gathered much too green, when, yielding
+to the inability to resist him, and overborne by desires, he had
+wreaked his passion on a mere lifeless, spiritless body, dead to all
+purpose of joy, since taking none, it ought to be supposed incapable of
+giving any. This is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly
+forgave him the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point
+of interest, I had fallen to him, I had reason to be pleased that he
+found, in my person, wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as easily
+as he had had me.
+
+The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanced, that the maid came
+in to lay the cloth for supper, when I understood, with joy, that my
+landlady, whose sight was present poison to me, was not to be with us.
+
+Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduced, and a bottle of
+Burgundy, with the other necessaries, were set on a dumb-waiter.
+
+The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with a tender
+warmth, that I should sit up in the elbow chair by the fire, and see
+him eat, if I could not be prevailed on to eat myself. I obeyed with a
+heart full or affliction, at the comparison it made between those
+delicious _tête-à-têtes_ with my very dear youth, and this forced
+situation, this new awkward scene, imposed and obtruded on me a cruel
+necessity.
+
+At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort and reconcile
+me to my fate, he told me that his name was H..., brother to the Earl
+of L.... and that having, by the suggestions of my landlady, been led
+to see me, he had found me perfectly to his taste, and given her a
+commission to procure me at any rate, and that at length he had
+succeeded, as much to his satisfaction as he passionately wished it
+might be to mine adding, withal, some flattering assurances, that I
+should have no cause to repent my knowledge of him.
+
+I had now got down at least half a partridge, and three or four glasses
+of wine, which he compelled me to drink by way of restoring nature, but
+whether there was any thing extraordinary put into the wine, or whether
+there wanted no more to revive the natural warmth of my constitution,
+and give fire to the old train, I began no longer to look with that
+constraint, not to say disguise, on Mr. H...., which I had hitherto
+done but, withal, there was not the least grain of love mixed with this
+softening of my sentiments: any other man would have been just the same
+to me as Mr. H..., that stood in the same circumstances, and had done
+for me, and with me, what he had done.
+
+There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine were, if not at
+an end, at least suspended: my heart, which had been so long overloaded
+with anguish and vexation, began to dilate and open to the last gleam
+of diversion or amusement. I wept a little, and my tears relieved me; I
+sighed, and my sighs seemed to lighten me of a load that oppressed me;
+my countenance grew, if not cheerful, at least more composed and free.
+
+Mr. H..., who had watched, perhaps brought on this change, knew too
+well not to seize it: he thrust the table imperceptibly from between
+us, and bringing his chair to face me, he soon began, after preparing
+me by all the endearments of assurance and protestations, to lay hold
+of my hands, to kiss me, and once more to make free with my bosom,
+which, being at full liberty from the disorder of a loose dishabile,
+now panted and throbbed, less with indignation than with fear and
+bashfulness, at being used so familiarly by still a stranger. But he
+soon gave me greater occasion to exclaim, by stooping down and slipping
+his hands above my garters; thence he strove to regain the pass, which
+he had before found so open, and unguarded; but now he could not unlock
+the twist of my thighs; I gently complained, and begged him to let me
+alone; told him I was not well. However, he saw there was more form and
+ceremony in my resistance, than good earnest; he made his conditions
+for desisting from pursuing his point, that I should be put instantly
+to bed, whilst he gave certain orders to the landlady, and that he
+would return in an hour, when he hoped to find me more reconciled to
+his passion for me, than I seemed at present. I neither assented nor
+denied, but my air and manner of receiving his proposal, gave him to
+see that I did not think myself enough my own mistress to refuse it.
+
+Accordingly he went out and left me, when a minute or two after, before
+I could recover myself into any composure for thinking, the maid came
+in with her mistress’s service, and a small silver orringer of what she
+called a bridal posset, and desired me to eat it as I went to bed,
+which consequently I did, and felt immediately a heat, a fire run like
+a hue-and-cry through every part of my body; I burnt, I glowed, and
+wanted even little of wishing for any man.
+
+The maid, as soon as I was lain down, took the candle away, and wishing
+me a good night, went out of the room, and shut the door after her.
+
+She had hardly time to get down stairs, before Mr. H.... opened my room
+door softly, and came in, now undressed, in his night-gown and cap,
+with two lighted wax candles, and bolting the door, gave me, though I
+expected him, some sort of alarm. He came a tip-toe to the bed side,
+and saying with a gentle whisper: “Pray, my dear, do not be startled...
+I will be very tender and kind to you.” He then hurried off his
+clothes, and leaped into bed, having given me openings enough, whilst
+he was stripping, to observe his brawny structure, strong made limbs,
+and rough shaggy breast.
+
+The bed shook again when it received this new load. He lay on the
+outside, where he kept the candles burning, no doubt for the
+satisfaction of every sense, for as soon as he had kissed me, he rolled
+down the bed clothes, and seemed transported with the view of all my
+person at full length, which he covered with a profusion of kisses,
+sparing no part of me. Then, being on his knees between my thighs, he
+drew up his shirt, and bared all his hairy thighs, and stiff staring
+truncheon, red top, and rooted into a thicket of curls, which covered
+his belly to the novel, and gave it the air of a flesh brush; and soon
+I feel it joining close to mine, when he had drove the nail up to the
+head, and left no partition but the intermediate hair on both sides.
+
+I had it now, I felt it now, and, beginning to drive, he soon gave
+nature such a powerful summons down to her favourite quarters, that she
+could no longer refuse repairing thither; all my animals spirits then
+rushed mechanically to that center of attraction, and presently, inly
+warmed, and stirred as I was beyond bearing, I lost all restraint, and
+yielding to the force of the emotion, gave down, as mere woman, those
+effusions of pleasure, which, in the strictness of still faithful love,
+I could have wished to have kept in.
+
+Yet oh! what an immense difference did I feel between this impression
+of a pleasure merely animal, and struck out of the collision of the
+sexes, by a passive bodily effect, from that sweet fury, that rage of
+active delight which crowns the enjoyments of a mutual love passion,
+where two hearts, tenderly and truly united, club to exalt the joy, and
+give it a spirit and soul that bids defiance to that end which mere
+momentary desires generally terminate in, when they die of a surfeit of
+satisfaction!
+
+Mr. H..., whom no distinctions of that sort seemed to distract, scarce
+gave himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but, as if
+he had tasked himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour were
+no signs hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for
+renewing the onset; to which, preluding with a storm of kisses, he
+drove the same course as before, with unbated fervour; and thus, in
+repeated engagements, kept me constantly in exercise, till dawn of
+morning, in all which time he made me fully sensible of the virtues of
+his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest, compact
+hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that might pass for no
+bad image of our ancient sturdy barons, whose race is now so thoroughly
+refined and frittered away into the more delicate and modern built
+frame of our pap-nerved softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and
+almost as masculine as their sisters.
+
+Mr. H..., content, however, with having the day break upon his triumph,
+resigned me up to the refreshment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon
+dropped into a profound sleep.
+
+Though he was some time awake before me, yet he did not offer to
+disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion for; but on my first
+stirring, which was not till past ten o’clock, I was obliged to endure
+one more trial of his manhood.
+
+About eleven, in came Mrs. Jones, with two basins of the richest soup,
+which her experience in these matters had moved her to prepare. I pass
+over the fulsome compliments, the cant of the decent procuress, with
+which she saluted us both; but though my blood rose at the sight of
+her, I supprest my emotions, and gave all my concerne to reflections on
+what would be the consequence of this new engagement.
+
+But Mr. H..., who penetrated my uneasiness, did not suffer me to
+languish under it, and acquainted me, that having taken a solid sincere
+affection to me, he would begin by giving me one leading mark of it, in
+removing me out of a house which must, for many reasons, be irksome and
+disagreeable to me, into convenient lodgings, where he would take all
+imaginable care of me; and desiring not to have any explanations with
+my landlady, or be impatient till he returned, he dressed and went out,
+having left me a purse with two and twenty guineas in it, being all he
+had about him, as he express it, to keep my pocket still further
+supplied.
+
+As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence of the first
+launch into vice (for my love attachment to Charles never appeared to
+me in that light). I was instantly borne away down the stream without
+making back to the shore. My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and
+above all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion I
+began to find in this new acquaintance, from the black corroding
+thoughts my heart had been a prey to, ever since the absence of my dear
+Charles, concurred to stun all my contrary reflections. If I now
+thought of my first, my only charmer, it was still with the tenderness
+and regret of the fondest love, embittered with the consciousness that
+I was no longer worthy of him. I could have begged my bread with him
+all over the world, but wretch that I was! I had neither the virtue or
+courage requisite not to outlive my separation from him.
+
+Yet, had not my heart been thus preengaged, Mr. H... might probably
+have been the sole master of it; but the place was full, and the force
+of conjectures alone had made him the possessor of my person; the
+charms of which had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and
+were, of course, no foundation for a love either very delicate or very
+durable.
+
+He did not return till six in the evening, to take me away to my new
+lodgings; and my moveables being soon packed, and conveyed into a
+hackney coach, it cost me but little regret to take my leave of a
+landlady whom I thought I had so much reason not to be over pleased
+with; and as for her part, she made no other difference to my staying
+or going, but what that of the profit created.
+
+We soon got to the house appointed for me, which was that of a plain
+tradesman, who, on the score of interest, was entirely at Mr. H...’s
+devotion, and who let him the first floor, very genteelly furnished,
+for two guineas a week, of which I was instated mistress, with a maid
+to attend me.
+
+He stayed with me that evening, and we had a supper from a neighbouring
+tavern, after which, and a gay glass or two, the maid put me to bed.
+Mr. H.... soon followed, and notwithstanding the fatigues of the
+preceding night, I found no quarter nor remission from him: he piquet
+himself, as he told me, on doing the honours of my new apartment.
+
+The morning being pretty well advanced, we got to breakfast; and the
+ice now broke, my heart, no longer engrossed by love, began to take
+ease, and to please itself with such trifles Mr. H....’s liberal liking
+led him to make his court to the usual vanity of our sex. Silks, laces:
+ear rings, pearl necklace, gold watch, in sort, all the trinkets and
+articles of dress were lavishly heaped upon me; the sence of which, if
+it did not create returns of love, forced a kind of grateful fondness,
+something like love: a distinction which it would be spoiling the
+pleasure of nine tenths of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I
+suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do make it.
+
+I was now established the kept mistress in form, well lodged, with a
+very sufficient allowance, and lighted up with all the lustre of dress.
+
+Mr. H.... continued kind and tender to me; yet, with all this, I was
+far from happy: for, besides my regrets for my dear youth, which,
+though often suspended or diverted, still returned upon me in certain
+melancholic moments with redoubled violence, I wanted more society,
+more dissipation.
+
+As to Mr. H.... he was so much my superior in every sense, that I felt
+it too much to the disadvantage of the gratitude I owed him. Thus he
+gained my esteem, though he could not raise my taste; I was qualified
+for no sort of conversation with him, except one sort, and that is a
+satisfaction which leaves tiresome intervals, if not filled up by love,
+or other amusements.
+
+Mr. H...., so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of
+whom had passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this
+uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking me the better for it, had
+the complaisance to indulge me.
+
+He made suppers at my lodging, where he brought several companions of
+his pleasures, with their mistresses; and by this means I got into a
+circle of acquaintance, that soon stripped me of all the remains of
+bashfulness and modesty which might be yet left of my country
+education, and were, to a just taste, perhaps, the greatest of my
+charms.
+
+We visited one another in form, and mimicked, as near as we could, all
+the miseries, the follies, and impertinencies of the women in quality,
+in the round of which they trifle away their time, without it ever
+entering their little heads, that on earth there cannot subsist any
+thing more silly, more flat, more insipid and worthless, than,
+generally considered, their system of life is: they ought to treat the
+men as their tyrants, indeed! were they to condemn them to it.
+
+But though, amongst the kept mistresses (and I was now acquainted with
+a good many, besides some useful matrons, who live by their connexions
+with them), I hardly knew one that did not perfectly detest their
+keepers, and, of course, made little or no scruple of any infidelity
+they could safely accomplish, I had still no notion of wronging mine:
+for, besides that no mark of jealousy on his side started me the hint,
+or gave me the provocation to play him a trick of that sort, and that
+his constant generosity, politeness, and tender attention to please me,
+forced a regard to him, that, without affecting my heart, insured him
+my fidelity, no object had yet presented that could overcome the
+habitual liking I had contracted for him and I was on the eve of
+obtaining, from the movements of his own voluntary generosity, a modest
+provision for life, when an accident happened which broke all the
+measures he had resolved upon in my favour.
+
+I had now lived near seven months with Mr. H.... when one day returning
+to my lodgings, from a visit in the neighbourhood, where I used to stay
+longer, I found the street door open, and the maid of the house
+standing at it, talking with some of her acquaintance, so that I came
+in without knocking and, as I passed by, she told me Mr. H.... was
+above. I slept up stairs into my own bed-chamber, with no other thought
+than of pulling off my hat etc., and then to wait upon him in the
+dining room, into which my bed-chamber had a door, as is common enough.
+Whilst I was untying my hat strings, I fancied I heard my maid Hannah’s
+voice and a sort of tustle, which raised my curiosity; I stole softly
+to the door, where a knot in the wood had been slipped out, and
+afforded a very commanding peep-hole to the scene then in agitation,
+the actors of which had been to earnestly employed to hear my opening
+my own door, from the landing place of the stairs, into my bedchamber.
+
+The first sight that struck me was Mr. H.... pulling and hauling this
+coarse country strammel towards a couch that stood in a corner of the
+dining-room; to which the girl made only a sort of awkward holdening
+resistance, crying out so loud, that I, who listened at the door, could
+scarce hear her: “Pray Sir, don’t.., let me alone... I am not for your
+turn... You cannot, sure, demean yourself with such a poor body as I...
+Lord! Sir, my mistress may come home... I must not indeed... I will cry
+out...” All of which did not hinder her from insensibly suffering
+herself to be brought to the foot of the couch, upon which a push of no
+mighty violence served to give her a very easy fall, and my gentleman
+having got up his hands to the strong hold of her Virtue, she, no
+doubt, thought it was time to give up the argument, and that all
+further defense would be vain: and he, throwing her petticoats over her
+face, which was now as red as scarlet, discovered a pair of stout,
+plump, substantial thighs, and tolerably white; he mounted them round
+his haps, and coming out with his drawn weapon, stuck it in the cloven
+sport, where he seemed to find a less difficult entrance than perhaps
+he had flattered himself with (for, by the way, this blouse had left
+her place in the country, for a bastard), and, indeed, all his motions
+shewed he was lodged pretty much at large. After he had done, his Deare
+gets up, drops her petticoats down, and smooths her apron and
+handkerchief. Mr. H.... looked a little silly, and taking out some
+money, gave it her, with an air indifferent enough, bidding her be a
+good girl, and say nothing.
+
+Had I loved this man, it was not in nature for me to have had patience
+to see the whole scene through: I should have broke in and played the
+jealous princess with a vengeance. But that was not the case: my pride
+alone was hurt, my heart not, and I could easier win upon myself to see
+how far he would go, till I had no uncertainty upon my conscience.
+
+The least delicate of all affairs of this sort being now over, I
+retired softly into my closet, where I began to consider what I should
+do. My first scheme naturally, was to rush in and upbraid them; this,
+indeed, flattered my present emotions and vexations, as it would have
+given immediate vent to them; but, on second thoughts, not being so
+clear as to the consequence to be apprehended from such a step, I began
+my discovery still a safer season, when dissembly my discovery till a
+safer season, when Mr. H.... should have perfected the settlement he
+had made overtures to me of, and which I was not to think such a
+violent explanation, as I was indeed not equal to the management of,
+could possibly forward, and might destroy. On the other hand, the
+provocation seemed too gross, too flagrant not to give me some thoughts
+of revenge; the very start of which idea restored me to perfect
+composure; and delighted as I was with the confused plan of it in my
+head, I was easily mistress enough of myself to support the part of
+ignorance I had prescribed to myself; and as all this circle of
+reflections was instantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage door,
+and opening it with a noise, passed for having that moment come home;
+and after a short pause, as if to pull off my things, I opened the door
+into the dining room, where I fund the dowdy blowing the fire, and my
+faithful shepherd walking about the room, and wistling, as cool and
+unconcerned as if nothing had happened. I think, however, he had not
+much to brag of having out-dissembled me: for I kept up, nobly, the
+character of our sex for art, and went up to him with the same open air
+of frankness as I had ever received him. He stayed but a little while,
+made some excuse for not being able to stay the evening with me, and
+went out.
+
+As for the wench, she was now spoiled, at least for my servant; and
+scarce eight and forty hours were gone round, before her insolence, on
+what had passed betwen Mr. H.... and her, gave me so fair an occasion
+to turn her away, at a minute’s warning, that, not to have done it
+would have been the wonder; so that he could neither disapprove it nor
+find in it the least reason to suspect my original motive. What became
+of her afterwards, I know not; but generous as Mr. H.... was, he
+undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare answer, that he kept up no
+further commerce with her of that sort; as his stooping to such a
+coarse morsel, was only a sudden sally of lust, on seeing a wholesome
+looking, buxom country wench, and no more strange than hunger, or even
+a whimsical appetite’s making a fling meal of neck-beef, for change of
+diet.
+
+Had I considered this escapade of Mr. H.... in no more than that light
+and contented myself with turning away the wench, I had thought and
+acted right; but, flushed as I was with imaginary wrongs, I should have
+held Mr. H... to have been cheaply off, if I had not pushed my revenge
+farther, and repaid him, as exactly as could for the soul of me, in the
+same coin.
+
+Nor was this worthy act of justice long delayed: I had it too much at
+heart. Mr. H... had, about a fortnight before, taken into his service a
+tenant’s son, just come out the country, a very handsome young lad,
+scarce turned of nineteen, fresh as a rose, well sharped and clear
+limbed: in short, a very good excuse for any woman’s liking, even
+though revenge had been out of the question; any woman, I say, who was
+disprejudiced, and that wit and spirit enough to prefer a point of
+pleasure to a point of pride.
+
+Mr. H... had clapped a livery upon him; and his chief employ was, after
+being shewn my lodgings, to bring and carry letters or messages between
+his master and me; and as the situation of all kept ladies is not the
+fittest to inspire respect, even to the meanest of mankind, and,
+perhaps, less of it from the most ignorant, I could not help observing
+that this lad, who was, I suppose, acquainted with my relation to his
+master by his fellow servants, used to eye me in that bashful confused
+way, more expressive, more moving and readier caught at by our sex,
+than any other declarations whatever: my figure had, it seems, struck
+him, and modest and innocent as he was, he did not himself know that
+the pleasure he took in looking at me was love, or desire; but his
+eyes, naturally wanton, and now inflamed with passion, spoke a great
+deal more than he durst have imagined they did. Hitherto, indeed, I had
+only taken notice of the comeliness of the youth, but without the least
+design: my pride alone would have guarded me from a thought that way,
+had not Mr. H....’s condescension with my maid, where there was not
+half the temptation, in point of person, set me a dangerous example;
+but now I began to look on this stripling as every way a delicious
+instrument of my designed retaliation upon Mr. H.... of an obligation
+for which I should have made a conscience to die in his debt.
+
+In order then to pave the way for the accomplishment of my scheme, for
+two or three times that the young fellow came to me with messages, I
+managed so, or without affectation to have him admitted to my bed side,
+or brought to me at my toilet, where I was dressing; and by carelessly
+shewing or letting him, as if without meaning or design, sometimes my
+bosom rather more bare than it should be; sometimes my hair, of which I
+had a very fine head, in the natural flow of it while combing;
+sometimes a neat leg, that had unfortunately slipt its garter, which I
+made no scruple of tying before him, easily gave him the impressions
+favourable to my purpose, which I could perceive to sparkle in his
+eyes, and glow in his cheeks: then certain slight squeezes by the hand,
+as I took letters from him, did his business completely.
+
+When I saw him thus moved, and fired for my purpose, I inflamed him yet
+more, by asking him several leading questions, such as: “Had he a
+mistress?... was she prettier than me?... could he love such a one as I
+was?...” and the like; to all which the blushing simpleton answered to
+my wish, in a strain of perfect nature, perfect undebauched innocence,
+but with all the awkwardness and simplicity of country breeding.
+
+When I thought I had sufficiently ripened him for the laudable point I
+had in view, one day that I expected him at a particular hour, I took
+care to have the coast clear for the reception I designed him; and, as
+I laid it, he came to the dining room door, tapped at it, and, in my
+bidding him come in; he did so, and shut the door after him. I desired
+him, then, to bolt it on the inside, pretending it would not otherwise
+keep shut.
+
+I was then lying at length upon that very couch, the scene of Mr.
+H....’s polite joys, in an undress, which was with all the art of
+negligence flowing loose, and in a most tempting disorder: no stays, no
+hoop..., no incumbrance whatever. On the other hand, he stood at a
+little distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featured, shapely,
+healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh blooming youth; his
+hair, which was of a perfect shining black, played to his face in
+natural side curls, and was set out with a smart tuck-up behind; new
+buckskin breechs, that, clipping close, shewed the shape of a plump,
+well made thigh; white stockings, garter-laced livery, shoulder knot,
+altogether composed a figure of pure flesh and blood, and appeared
+under no disgrace from the lowness of a dress, to which a certain
+spruce neatness seems peculiarly fitted.
+
+I bid him come towards me, and give me his letter, at the same time
+throwing down, carelessly, a book I had in my hands. He coloured, and
+came within reach of delivering me the letter, which he held out,
+awkwardly enough, for me to take, with his eyes rivetted on my bosom,
+which was, through the designed disorder of my handkerchief,
+sufficiently bare, and rather than hid.
+
+I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immediately catching hold
+of his shirt sleeve, drew him towards me, blushing, and almost
+trembling; for surely his extreme bashfulness, and utter inexperience
+called for, at least, all the advances to encourage him: his body was
+now conveniently inclined toward me, and just softly chucking his
+beardless chin, I asked him: “If he was afraid of a lady?...” and with
+that took, and carrying his hands to my breasts, I press it tenderly to
+them. They were now finely furnished, and raised in flesh, so that,
+panting with desire, they rose and fell, in quick heaves, under his
+touch: at this, the boy’s eyes began to lighten with all the fires of
+inflamed nature, and his cheeks flushed with a deep scarlet:
+tongue-tied with joy, rapture, and bashfulness, he could not speak, but
+then his looks, his emotion, sufficiently satisfied me that my train
+had taken, and that I had no disappointment to fear.
+
+My lips, which I threw in his way, so that he could not escape kissing
+them, fixed, fired, and emboldened him: and now, glancing my eyes
+towards that part of his dress which covered the essential object of
+enjoyment, I plainly discovered the swell and commotion there; and as I
+was now too far advanced to stop in so fair a way, and was indeed no
+longer able to contain myself, or wait the slower progress of his
+maiden bash-fulness (for such it seemed, and really was), I stole my
+hands upon his thighs, down one of which I could both see and feel a
+stiff hard body, confined by his breeches, that my fingers could
+discover no end to. Curious then, and eager to unfold so alarming a
+mystery, playing, as it were, with his buttons, which were bursting
+ripe from the active force within, those of his waistband and fore-flap
+flew open at a touch, when out IT started; and now, disengaged from the
+shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play thing of a
+boy, not the weapon of a man, but a Maypole, of so enormous a standard,
+that had proportions been observed, it must have belonged to a young
+giant. Yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even venture to
+feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well
+turned and fashioned, the proud stiffness of which distented its skin,
+whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie with that of the most
+delicate of our sex, and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set
+off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root: through the jetty
+springs of which the fair skin shewed as in a fine evening you may have
+remarked the clear light through the branchwork of distant trees
+over-topping the summit of a hill: then the broad of blueish-casted
+incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins, altogether
+composed the most striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature.
+In short, it stood an object of terror and delight.
+
+But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity,
+through the want of occasions in the strictness of his home breeding,
+and the little time he had been in town not having afforded him one;
+was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of
+all that manhood he was so nobly stocked with; and it now fell to my
+lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks
+of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversized
+machine was very fit to lay in ruins.
+
+But it was now of the latest to deliberate, for, by this time, the
+young fellow, over heated with the present objects, and too high metled
+to be longer curbed in by that modesty and awe which had hitherto
+restrained him, ventured, under the stronger impulse, and instructive
+promptership of nature alone, to slip his hands, trembling with eager
+impetuous desires, under my petticoats; and seeing, I suppose, nothing
+extremely severe in my looks, to stop or dash him, he feels out, and
+seizes, gently, the center spot of his ardours. Oh then! the fiery
+touch of his lingers determines me, and my fears melting away before
+the glowing intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and
+yield all liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable movement giving my
+petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair, too open to be missed. He
+is now upon me: I had placed myself with a jerk under him, as
+commodious and open as possible to his attempts, which were untoward
+enough, for his machine, meeting with no inlet, bore and battered
+stiffly against me in random pushes, now above, now below, now beside
+his point; till, burning with impatience from its irritating touches, I
+guided gently, with my hand, this furious fescue to where my young
+novice was now to be taught his first lesson of pleasure. Thus he
+nicked, at length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made
+to find no breach impracticable, and mine, though so often entered, was
+still far from wide enough to take him easily in.
+
+By my direction, however, the head of his unwieldy machine was so
+critically pointed, that, feeling him fore-right against the tender
+opening, a favourable motion from me met his timely thrust, by which
+the lips of it, strenuously dilated, gave way to his thus assisted
+impetuosity, so that we might both feel that he had gained a lodgment.
+Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent, and, to me, most painful
+piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so far in, as to be now
+tolerably secure of his entrance: here he stuck, and I now felt such a
+mixture of pleasure and pain, as there is no giving a definition of. I
+dreaded alike his splitting me farther up, or his withdrawing; I could
+not bear either to keep or part with him. The sense of pain, however,
+prevailing, from his prodigious size and stiffness, acting upon me in
+those continued rapid thrusts, with which he furiously pursued his
+penetration, made me cry out gently: “Oh, my dear, you hurt me!” This
+was enough to check the tender respectful boy even in his mid-career;
+and he immediately drew out the sweet cause of my complaint, whilst his
+eyes eloquently expressed, at once, his grief for hurting me, and his
+reluctance at dislodging from quarters, of which the warmth and
+closeness had given him a gust of pleasure, that he was now desire mad
+to satisfy, and yet too much a novice not to be afraid of my
+withholding his relief, on account of the pain he had put me to.
+
+But I was, myself, far from being pleased with his having too much
+regarded my tender exclaims; for now, more fired with the object before
+me, as it still stood with the fiercest erection, unbonneted, and
+displayed its broad vermilion head, I first gave the youth a
+re-encouraging kiss, which he repaid me with a fervour that seemed at
+once to thank me, and bribe my further compliance; and soon replaced
+myself in a posture to receive, at all risk, the renewed invasion,
+which he did not delay an instant: for, being presently remounted, I
+once more felt the smooth hard gristle forcing an entrance, which he
+achieved rather easier than before. Pained, however, as I was, with his
+efforts of gaining a complete admission, which he was so regardful as
+to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to complain. In the mean
+time, the soft strait passage gradually loosens, yields, and, stretched
+to its utmost bearing, by the stick, thick, indriven engine, sensible,
+at once, to the ravishing pleasure of the feel and the pain of the
+distension, let him in about half way, when all the most nervous
+activity he now exerted, to further his penetration, gained him not an
+inch of his purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis of
+pleasure overtook him, and the close compressure of the warm
+surrounding flow drew from him the ecstatic gush, even before mine was
+ready to meet it, kept up by the pain I had endured in the course of
+the engagement, from the insufferable size of his weapon, though it was
+not as yet in above half its length.
+
+I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would draw, but was
+pleasingly disappointed: for he was not to be let off so. The well
+breathed youth, hot-mettled, and flush with genial juices, was now
+fairly in for making me know my driver. As soon, then, as he had made a
+short pause, waking, as it were, out of the trance of pleasure (in
+which every sense seemed lost for a while, whilst, with his eyes shut,
+and short quick breathings, he had yielded down his maiden tribute), he
+still kept his post, yet unsated with enjoyment, and solacing in these
+so new delights; till his stiffness, which had scarce perceptibly
+remitted, being thoroughly recovered to him, who had not once
+unsheathed, he proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself an entire
+entry into me, which was not a little made easy to him by the balsamic
+injection, with: which he had just plentifully moistened the whole
+internals of the passage. Redoubling, then, the active energy of his
+thrusts, favoured by the fervid appetency of my motions, the soft oiled
+wards can no longer stand so effectual a picklock, but yield, and open
+him an entrance. And now, with conspiring nature, and my industry,
+strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates, and at length, winning his
+way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and finally, a home made thrust
+sheaths it up to the guard; on the information of which, from the close
+jointure of our bodies (insomuch that the hair on both sides perfectly
+interweaved and incircled together), the eyes of the transported youth
+sparkled with more joyous fires, and all his looks and motions
+acknowledged excess of pleasure, which I now began to share, for I felt
+him in my very vitals! I was quite sick with delight! stirred beyond
+bearing with its furious agitations within me, and gorged and crammed,
+even to a surfeit. Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his
+broken breathings, faultering accents, eyes twinkling with humid fires,
+lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness, gave me to hail the
+approaches of the second period: it came... and the sweet youth,
+overpowered with the ecstasy, died away in my arms, melting a flood
+that shot in genial warmth into the innermost recesses of my body;
+every conduit of which, dedicated to that pleasure, was on flow to mix
+with it. Thus we continued for some instants, lost, breathless,
+senseless of every thing, and in every part but those favourite ones of
+nature, in which all that we enjoyed of life and sensation was now
+totally concentered.
+
+When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young fellow had
+withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he had most plentifully
+drowned all thoughts of revenge, in the sense of actual pleasure, the
+widened wounded passage refunded a stream of pearly liquids, which
+flowed down my thighs, mixed with streaks of blood, the marks of the
+ravage of that monstrous machine of his, which had now triumphed over a
+kind of second maidenhead. I stole, however, my handkerchief to those
+parts, and wiped them as dry as I could, whilst he was re-adjusting and
+buttoning up.
+
+I made him sit down by me, and as he had gathered courage from such
+extreme intimacy, he gave me an aftercourse of pleasure, in a natural
+burst of tender gratitude and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had
+opened to him: scenes positively new, as he had never before had the
+least acquaintance with that mysterious mark, the cloven stamp of
+female distinction, though nobody better qualified than he to penetrate
+into its deepest recesses, or do it nobler justice. But when, by
+certain motions, certain unquietness of his hands, that wandered not
+without design, I found he languished for satisfying a curiosity,
+natural enough, to view and handle those parts which attract and
+concenter the warmest force of imagination, charmed, as I was, to have
+any occasion of obliging and humouring his young desires, I suffered
+him to proceed as he pleased, without check or control, to the
+satisfaction of them.
+
+Easily, then, reading in my eyes the full permission of myself to all
+his wishes, he scarce pleased himself more than me; when, having
+insinuated his hand under my petticoat and shift, he presently removed
+those bars to the sight, by slily lifting them upwards, under favour of
+a thousand kisses, which he thought, perhaps, necessary to divert my
+attention from what he was about. All my drapery being now rolled up to
+my waist, I threw myself into such a posture upon the couch, as gave up
+to him, in full view, the whole region of delight, and all the
+luxurious landscape around it. The transported youth devoured every
+thing with his eyes, and tried, with his fingers, to lay more open to
+his sight the secrets of that dark and delicious deep: he opens the
+folding lips, the softness of which, yielding entry to any thing of a
+hard body, close round it, and oppose the sight; and feeling further,
+meets with, and wonder at, a soft fleshy excrescence, which, limber and
+relaxed after the late enjoyment, now grew, under the touch and
+examination of his fiery fingers, more and more stiff and considerable,
+till the titillating ardours of that so sensible part made me sigh, as
+if he had hurt me; on which he withdrew his curious probing fingers,
+asking me pardon, as it were, in a kiss that rather increased the flame
+there.
+
+Novelty ever makes the strongest impressions, and in pleasures,
+especially; no wonder then, that he was swallowed up in raptures of
+admiration of things so interesting by their nature, and now seen and
+handled for the first time. On my part, I was richly overpaid for the
+pleasure I gave him, in that of examining the power of those objects
+thus abandoned to him, naked and free to his loosest wish, over the
+artless, natural stripling: his eyes streaming fire, his cheeks glowing
+with a florid red, his fervid frequent sighs, whilst his hands
+convulsively squeezed, opened, pressed together again the lips and
+sides of that deep flesh wound, or gently twitched the over-growing
+moss; and all proclaimed the excess, the riot of joys, in having his
+wantonness thus humoured. But he did not long abuse my patience, for
+the objects before him had now put him by all his, and, coming out with
+that formidable machine of his, he lets the fury loose, and pointing it
+directly to the pouting-lip mouth, that bid him sweet defiance in dumb
+shew, squeezes in his head, and, driving with refreshed rage, breaks
+in, and plugs up the whole passage of that soft pleasure-conduit pipe,
+where he makes all shake again, and put, once more, all within me into
+such an uproar, as nothing could still, but a fresh inundation from the
+very engine of those flames, as well as from all the springs with which
+nature floats that reservoir of joy, when risen to its floodmark.
+
+I was now so bruised, so battered, so spent with this overmatch, that I
+could hardly stir, or raise myself, but lay palpitating, till the
+ferment of my senses subsiding by degrees, and the hour striking at
+which I was obliged to dispatch my young man, I tenderly advised him of
+the necessity there was for parting; at which I felt so much
+displeasure as he could do, who seemed eagerly disposed to keep the
+field, and to enter on a fresh action. But the danger was too great,
+and after some hearty kisses of leave, and recommendations of secrecy
+and discretion, I forced myself to send him away, not without
+assurances of seeing him again, to the same purpose, as soon as
+possible, and thrust a guinea into his hands: not more, less, being too
+flush of money, a suspicion or discovery might arise from thence;
+having everything to fear from the dangerous indiscretion of that age
+in which young fellows would be too irresistible, too charming, if we
+had not that terrible fault to guard against.
+
+Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating draughts of
+pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely stretched out, in a
+delicious languor diffused over all my limbs, hugging myself for being
+thus revenged to my heart’s content, and that in a manner so precisely
+alike, and on the identical spot in which I had received the supposed
+injury. No reflections on the consequences ever once perplexed me, nor
+did I make myself one single reproach for having, by this step,
+completely entered myself into a profession more decried than disused.
+I should have held it ingratitude to the pleasure I had received, to
+have repented of it; and since I was now over the bar, I thought, by
+plunging head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to drown
+all sense of shame or reflection.
+
+Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions, and whispering to
+myself a kind of tacit vow of incontinency, enters Mr. H... The
+consciousness of what I had been doing deepened yet the glowing of my
+cheeks, flushed with the warmth of the late action, which, joined to
+the piquant air of my dishabile, drew from Mr. H.... a compliment on my
+looks, which he was proceeding to bask the sincerity of with proofs,
+and that with so brisk an action, as made me tremble for fear of a
+discovery from the condition those parts were left in from their late
+severe handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen
+with their uncommon distension, the ringlets pressed down, crushed and
+uncurled with the over flowing moisture that had wet everything round
+it; in short, the different feel and state of things would hardly have
+passed upon one of Mr. H.....’s nicety and experience unaccounted for
+but by the real cause. But here the woman saved me: I pretended a
+violent disorder of my head, and a feverish heat, that indisposed me
+too much to receive his embraces. He gave in to this, and good
+naturedly desisted. Soon after, an old lady coming in made a third,
+very apropos for the confusion I was in, and Mr. H...., after bidding
+me take care of myself, and recommending me to my repose, left me much
+at ease and relieved by his absence.
+
+In the close of the evening, I took care to have prepared for me a warm
+bath of aromatik and sweet herbs; in which having fully laved and
+solaced myself, I came out voluptuously refreshed in body and spirit.
+
+The next morning waking pretty early, after a night’s perfect rest and
+composure, it was not without some dread and uneasiness that I thought
+of what innovation that tender soft system of mine might have
+sustained, from the shock of a machine so sized for its destruction.
+
+Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry my hand thither,
+to inform myself of the state and posture of things.
+
+But I was soon agreeably cured of my fears.
+
+The silky hair that covered round the borders, now smoothed and
+re-pruned, had resumed its wonted curl and trimness; the fleshy pouting
+lips that had stood the brunt of the engagement, were no longer swollen
+or moisture-drenched; and neither they, nor the passage into which they
+opened, that had suffered so great a dilation, betrayed any the least
+alteration, outwardly or inwardly, to the most curious research,
+notwithstanding the laxity that naturally follows the warm bath.
+
+This continuation of that grateful stricture which is in us, to the
+men, the very jet of their pleasure, I owed, it seems, to a happy habit
+of body, juicy, plump and furnished, towards the texture of those
+parts, with a fullness of soft springy flesh, that yielding
+sufficiently, as it does, to almost any distension soon recovers itself
+so as to re-tighten that strict compression of its mantlings and folds,
+which form the sides of the passage, wherewith it so tenderly embraces
+and closely clips any foreign body introduced into it, such as my
+exploring finger then was.
+
+Finding then every thing in due tone and order, I remember my fears,
+only to make a jest of them to myself. And now, palpably mistress of
+any size of man, and triumphing in my double achievement of pleasure
+and revenge, I abandoned myself entirely to the ideas of all the
+delight I had swam in. I lay stretching out, glowingly alive all over,
+and tossing with burning impatience for the renewal of joys that had
+sinned but in a sweet excess; nor did I lose my longing, for about ten
+in the morning, according to expectation, Will, my new humble
+sweetheart, came with a message from his master, Mr. H...., to know how
+I did. I had taken care to send my maid on an errand into the city,
+that I was sure would take up time enough; and, from the people of the
+house, I had nothing to fear, as they were plain good sort of folks,
+and wise enough to mind no more other people’s business than they could
+well help.
+
+All dispositions then made, not forgetting that of lying in bed to
+receive him, when he was entered the door of my bed chamber, a latch,
+that I governed by a wire, descended and secured it.
+
+I could not but observe that my young minion was as much spruced out as
+could be expected from one in his condition: a desire of pleasing that
+could not be indifferent to me, since it proved that I pleased him;
+which, I assure you, was now a point I was not above having in view.
+
+His hair trimly dressed, clean linen, and, above all, a hale, ruddy,
+wholesome country look, made him out as pretty a piece of woman’s meat
+as you could see, and I should have thought any one much out of taste,
+that could not have made a hearty meal of such a morsel as nature
+seemed to have designed for the highest diet of pleasure.
+
+And why should I here suppress the delight I received from this amiable
+creature, in remarking each artless look, each motion of pure
+indissembled nature, betrayed by his wanton eyes; or shewing,
+transparently, the glow and suffusion of blood through his fresh, clear
+skin, whilst even his stury rustic pressure wanted not their peculiar
+charm? Oh! but, say you, this was a young fellow of too low a rank of
+life to deserve so great a display. May be so: but was my condition,
+strictly considered, one jot more exalted? or, had I really been much
+above him, did not his capacity of giving such exquisite pleasure
+sufficiently raise and enoble him, to me, at least? Let who would, for
+me cherish, respect, and reward the painter’s, the statuary’s, the
+musician’s art, in proportion to the delight taken in them: but at my
+age, and with my taste for pleasure, a taste strongly constitutional to
+me, the talent of pleasing, with which nature has endowed a handsome
+person, formed to me the greatest of all merits; compared to which, the
+vulgar prejudices in favour of titles, dignities, honours, and the
+like, held a very low rank indeed. Nor perhaps would the beauties of
+the body be so much affected to be held cheap, were they, in their
+nature, to be bought and delivered. But for me, whose natural
+philosophy all resided in the favourite center of sense, and who was
+ruled by its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right handle,
+I could scarce have made a choice more to my purpose.
+
+Mr. H....’s loftier qualifications of birth, fortune and sense, laid me
+under a sort of subjection and constraint, that were far from making
+harmony in the concert of love; nor had he, perhaps, thought me worth
+softening that superiority to; but, with this lad, I was more on the
+level which love delights in.
+
+We may say what we please, but those we can be the easiest and freest
+with, are ever those we like, not to say love the best.
+
+With this stripling, all whose art of love was the action of it, I
+could, without check of awe or restraint, give a loose to jay, and
+execute every scheme of dalliance my fond fancy might put me on, in
+which he was, in every sense, a most exquisite companion. And now my
+great pleasure lay in humouring all the petulances, all the wanton
+frolic of a raw novice just fledged, and keen on the burning scent of
+his game, but unbroken to the sport: and, to carry on the figure, who
+could better read the wood than he, or stand fairer for the heart of
+the hunt?
+
+He advanced then to my bed side, and whilst he faultered out his
+message, I could observe his colour rise, and his eyes lighten with
+joy, in seeing me in a situation as favourable to his loosest wishes,
+as if he had bespoke the play.
+
+I smiled, and put out my hand towards him, which he kneeled down to (a
+politeness taught him by love alone, that great master of it) and
+greedily kissed. After exchanging a few confused questions and answers,
+I asked him if he would come to bed to me, for the little time I could
+venture to detain him. This was just asking a person, dying with
+hunger, to feast upon the dish on earth the most to his palate.
+Accordingly, without further reflection, his clothes were off in an
+instant; when, blushing still more at this new liberty, he got under
+the bed clothes I held up to receive him, and was now in bed with a
+woman for the first time in his life.
+
+Here began the usual tender preliminaries, as delicious, perhaps, as
+the crowning act of enjoyment itself; which they often beget an
+impatience of, that makes pleasure destructive of itself, by hurrying
+on the final period, and closing that scene of bliss, in which the
+actors are generally too well pleased with their parts, not to wish
+them an eternity of duration.
+
+When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards the main point,
+by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my breasts, now round and plump,
+feeling that part of me I might call a furnace mouth, from the
+prodigious intense heat his fiery touches had rekindled there, my young
+sportsman, emboldened by the very freedom he could wish, wontonly takes
+my hand, and carries it to that enormous machine of his, that stood
+with a stiffness! a hardness! an upward bend of erection! and which,
+together with it bottom dependence, the inestimable bulse of ladies
+jewels, formed a grand showout of goods indeed! Then its dimensions,
+mocking either grasp or span, almost renewed my terrors.
+
+I could not conceive how, or by what means I could take, or put such a
+bulk out of sight. I stroked it gently, on which the mutinous rogue
+seemed to swell, and gather a new degree of fierceness and insolence;
+so that finding it grew not to be trifled with any longer, I prepared
+for rubbers in good earnest.
+
+Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give him the fairest
+play, I guided officiously with my hand this furious battering ram,
+whose ruby head, presenting nearest the resemblance of a heart, I
+applied to its proper mark, which lay as finely elevated as we could
+wish; my hips being borne up, and my thighs at their utmost extension,
+the gleamy warmth that shot from it, made him feel that he was at the
+mouth of the indraught, and driving fore right, the powerfully divided
+lips of that pleasure-thirsty channel received him. He hesitated a
+little; then, settled well in the passage, he makes his way up the
+straights of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing, widening
+as he went so as to distend and smooth each soft furrow: our pleasure
+increasing deliciously, in proportion to our points of mutual touch
+increased in that so vital part of me which I had now taken him, all
+indriven, and completely sheathed; and which, crammed as it was,
+stretched splitting ripe, gave it so gratefully straight an
+accommodation! so strict a fold! a suction so fierce! that gave and
+took unutterable delight. We had now reached the closest point of
+union; but when he beckened to come on the fiercer, as if I had ben
+actuated by a fear of losing him, in the height of my fury, I twist my
+legs round his naked loins, the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to
+the touch, quivered again under the pressure; and now I had him every
+way encircled and begirt; and having drawn him home to me, I kept him
+fast there, as if I had sought to unite bodies with him at that point.
+This bred a pause of action, a pleasure stop, whilst that delicate
+glutton, my nether mouth, as full as it could hold, kept palating, with
+exquisite relish, the morsel that so deliciously ingorged it. But
+nature could not long endure a pleasure that it so highly provoked
+without satisfying it: pursuing then its darling end, the battery
+recommenced with redoubled exertion; nor lay I inactive on my side, but
+encountering him with all the impetuosity of motion I was mistress of,
+the downy cloth of our meeting mount was now of real use to break the
+violence of the tilt; and soon, indeed! the highwrought agitation, the
+sweet urgency of this to-and-fro friction, raised the titillation on me
+to its height; so that finding myself on the point of going, and loath
+to leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I employed all the
+forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested to me, to promote
+his keeping me company to our journey’s end. I not only then tightened
+the pleasure-girth round my restless inmate, by a secret spring of
+friction and compression that obeys the will in those parts, but stole
+my hand softly to that store bag of nature’s prime sweets, which is so
+pleasingly attached to its conduit pipe, from which we receive them;
+there feeling, and most gently indeed, squeezing those tender globular
+reservoirs, the magic touch took instant effect, quickened, and brought
+on upon the spur the symptoms of that sweet agony, the melting moment
+of dissolution, when pleasure dies by pleasure, and the mysterious
+engine of it overcomes the titillation it has raised in those parts, by
+plying them with the stream of a warm liquid, that in itself the
+highest of all titillations, and which they thirstily express and draw
+in like the hot natured leach, which, to cool itself, tenaciously
+extracts all the moisture within its sphere of execution. Chiming then
+to me, with exquisite consent, as I melted away, his oily balsamic
+injection, mixing deliciously with the sluices in flow from me,
+sheathed and blunted all the stings of pleasure, whilst a voluptuous
+languor possest, and still maintained us motionless, and fast locked in
+one another’s arms. Alas! that these delights should be no
+longer-lived; for now the point of pleasure, unedged by enjoyment, and
+all the brisk sensations flattened upon us, resigned us up to the cool
+cares of insipid life. Disengaging myself then from his embrace, I made
+him sensible of the reasons there were for his present leaving me; on
+which, though reluctantly, he put on his clothes, with as little
+expedition, however, as he could help, wantonly interrupting himself,
+between whiles, with kisses, touches and embraces I could not refuse
+myself to. Yet he happily returned to his master before he was missed;
+but, at taking leave, I forced him (for he had sentiments enough to
+refuse it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that great
+article of subaltern finery, which he at length accepted of, as a
+remembrance he was carefully to preserve of my affections.
+
+And here, Madam, I ought, perhaps, to make you an apology for this
+minute detail of things, that dwelt so strongly upon my memory, after
+so deep an impression; but, besides that this intrigue bred one great
+revolution in my life, which historical truth requires I should not
+sink from you, may I not presume that so exalted a pleasure ought not
+to be ungratefully forgotten, or suppressed by me, because I found it
+in a character in low life; where, by the by, it is oftener met with,
+purer, and more unsophisticated, than among the false, ridiculous
+refinements with which the great suffer themselves to be so grossly
+cheated by their pride: the great! than whom, there exist few amongst
+those they call the vulgar, who are more ignorant of, or who cultivate
+less, the art of living than they do; they, I say, who for ever mistake
+things the most foreign to the nature of pleasure itself; whose capital
+favourite object is enjoyment of beauty, wherever that rare invaluable
+gift is found, without distinction of birth, or station.
+
+As love never had, so now revenge had no longer any share in my
+commerce in this handsome youth. The sole pleasures of enjoyment were
+now the link I held to him by: for though nature had done such great
+maters for him in his outward form, and especially in that superb piece
+of furniture she had so liberally enriched him with; though he was thus
+qualified to give the senses their richest feast, still there was
+something more wanting to create in me, and constitute the passion of
+love. Yet Will had very good qualities too: gentle, tractable, and,
+above all, grateful; silentious, even to a fault: he spoke, at any
+time, very little, but made it up emphatically with action; and, to do
+him justice, he never gave me the least reason to complain, either of
+any tendency to encroach upon me for the liberties I allowed him, or of
+his indiscretion in blabbing them. There is, then, a fatality in love,
+or have loved him I must; for he was really a treasure, a bit for the
+Bonne Bouche of a duchess; and, to say the truth, my liking for him was
+so extreme, that it was distinguishing very nicely to deny that I loved
+him.
+
+My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but found an end
+from my own imprudent neglect. After having taken even superfluous
+precautions against a discovery, our success in repeated meetings
+emboldened me to omit the barely necessary ones. About a month after
+our first intercourse, one fatal morning (the season Mr. H.... rarely
+or never visited me in) I was in my closet, where my toilet stood, in
+nothing but my shift, a bed gown and under petticoat. Will was with me,
+and both ever too well disposed to baulk an opportunity. For my part, a
+whim, a wanton toy had just taken me, and I had challenged my man to
+execute it on the spot, who hesitated not to comply with my humour: I
+was set in the arm chair, my shift and petticoat up, my thighs wide
+spread and mounted over the arms of the chair, presenting the fairest
+mark to Will’s drawn weapon, which he stood in act to plunge into me,
+when, having neglected to secure the chamber door, and that of the
+closet standing a-jar, Mr. H.... stole in upon us, before either of us
+was aware, and saw us precisely in these convicting attitudes.
+
+I gave a great scream, and dropped my petticoat: the thunder-struck lad
+stood trembling and pale, waiting his sentence of death. Mr. H....
+looked sometimes at one, sometimes at the other, with a mixture of
+indignation and scorn; and, without saying a word, spun upon his heel
+and went out.
+
+As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn the key, and
+lock the chamber door upon us, so that there was no escape but through
+the dining room, where he himself was walking about with distempered
+strides, stamping in a great chafe, and doubtless debating what he
+would do with us.
+
+In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of his senses, and,
+as much need as I had of spirits myself, I was obliged to employ them
+all to keep his a little up. The misfortune I had now brought upon him,
+endeared him the more to me, and I could have joyfully suffered any
+punishment he had not shared in. I watered, plentifully, with my tears,
+the face of the frightened youth, who sat, not having strength to
+stand, as cold and as lifeless as a statue.
+
+Presently Mr. H.... comes in to us again, and made us go before him
+into the dining room, trembling and dreading the issue, Mr. H.....sat
+down on a chair whilst we stood like criminals under examination; and,
+beginning with me, asked me, with an even firm tone of voice, neither
+soft nor severe, but cruelly indifferent, what I could say for myself,
+for having abused him in so unworthy a manner, with his own servant
+too, and how he had deserved this of me?
+
+Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity, that of an audacious
+defence of it, in the old style of a common kept miss, my answer was
+modest, and often interrupted by my tears, in substance as follows:
+“That I never had a single thought of wronging him” (which was true),
+“till I had seen him taking the last liberties with my servant wench”
+(here he coloured prodigiously), “and that my resentment at that, which
+I was over-awed from giving vent to by complaints, or explanations with
+him, had driven me to a course that I did not pretend to justify; but
+that as to the young man, he was entirely faultless; for that, in the
+view of making him the instrument of my revenge, I had down right
+seduced him to what he had done; and therefore hoped, whatever he
+determined about me, he would distinguish between the guilty and the
+innocent; and that; for the rest, I was entirely at his mercy.”
+
+Mr. H.... on hearing what I said, hung his head a little; but instantly
+recovering himself, he said to me, as near as I can retain, to the
+following purpose:
+
+“Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have fairly turned the
+tables upon me. It is not with one of your cast of breeding and
+sentiments, that I allow you so much reason on your side, as great
+difference of the provocations: be it sufficient that I should enter
+into a discussion of the very to have changed my resolution, in
+consideration of what you reproach me with; and I own, too, that your
+clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest in you. Renew with you I
+cannot: the affront is too gross. I give you a week’s warning to get
+out of these lodgings; whatever I have given you, remains to you; and
+as I never intend to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty
+pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I hope you will
+own I do not leave you in a worse condition than what I took you up in,
+or that you deserve of me. Blame yourself only that it is no better.”
+
+Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to the
+young fellow:
+
+“For you, spark, I shall, for your father’s sake, take care of you: the
+town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and to-morrow you
+shall set out, under the charge of one of my men, well recommended, in
+my name, to your father, not to let you return and be spoil’d here.”
+
+At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to stop him, by
+throwing myself at his feet. He shook me off, though he seemed greatly
+moved too, and took Will away with him, who, I dare swear, thought
+himself very cheaply off.
+
+I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by a gentleman
+whom I certainly did not deserve. And all the letters, arts, friends,
+entreaties that I employed within the week of grace in my lodging,
+could never win on him so much as to see me again. He had irrevocably
+pronounced my doom, and submission to it was my only part. Soon after
+he married a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard he proved
+an irreproachable husband.
+
+As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country to his
+father, who was an easy farmer, where he was not four months before an
+inn-keepers’ buxom young widow, with a very good stock, both in money
+and trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret
+excellencies, married him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good
+foundation for their living happily together.
+
+Though I should have been charmed to see him before he went, such
+measures were taken, by Mr. H....’s orders, that it was impossible;
+otherwise I should certainly have endeavoured to detain him in town,
+and would have spared neither offers nor expense to have procured
+myself the satisfaction of keeping him with me. He had such powerful
+holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be shaken off, or
+replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the question: glad,
+however, I was from my soul, that nothing worse, and as things turned
+out, nothing better could have happened to him.
+
+As to Mr. H..., though views of conveniency made me, at first, exert
+myself to regain his affection, I was giddy and thoughtless enough to
+be much easier reconciled to my failure than I ought to have been; but
+as I never had loved him, and his leaving me gave me a sort of liberty
+that I had often longed for, I was soon comforted; and flattering
+myself, that the stock of youth and beauty I was going to trade with,
+could hardly fail of procuring me a maintenance, I saw myself under the
+necessity of trying my fortune with them, rather, with pleasure and
+gaiety, than with the least idea of despondency.
+
+In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among the sisterhood, who
+had soon got wind of my misfortune, flocked to insult me with their
+malicious consolations. Most of them had long envied me the affluence
+and splendour I had been maintained in; and though there was scarce one
+of them that did not at least deserve to be in my case, and would
+probably, sooner or later, come to it, it was equally easy to remark,
+even in their affected pity, their secret pleasure at seeing me thus
+discarded, and their secret grief that it was no worse with me.
+Unaccountable malice of the human heart! and which is not confined to
+the class of life they were of.
+
+But as the time approached for me to come to some resolution how to
+dispose of myself, and I was considering, round where to shift my
+quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle aged discreet sort of woman, who had
+been brought into my acquaintance by one of the misses that visited me,
+upon learning my situation, came to offer her cordial advice and
+service to me; and as I had always taken to her more than to any of my
+female acquaintances, I listened the easier to her proposals. And, as
+it happened, I could not have put myself into worse, or into better
+hands in all London: into worse, because keeping a house of
+conveniency, there were no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me
+to go, in compliance with her customers; no schemes, or pleasure, or
+even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight in
+promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more experience of
+the wicked part of the town than she had, was fitter to advise and
+guard one against the worst dangers of our profession; and what was
+rare to be met with in those of her’s, she contented herself with a
+moderate living profit upon her industry and good offices, and had
+nothing of their greedy rapacious turn. She was really too a
+gentlewoman born and bred, but through a train of accidents reduced to
+this course, which she pursued, partly through necessity, partly
+through choice, as never woman delighted more in encouraging a brisk
+circulation of the trade, for the sake of the trade itself, or better
+understood all the mysteries and refinements of it, than she did; so
+that she was consummately at the top of her profession, and dealt only
+with customers of distinction: to answer the demands of whom she kept a
+competent number of her daughters in constant recruit (so she called
+those whom their youth and personal charms recommended to her adoption
+and management: several of whom, by her means, and through her tuition
+and instructions, succeeded very well in the world).
+
+This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now threw myself,
+having her reasons of state, respecting Mr. H...., for not appearing
+too much in the thing herself, sent a friend of her’s, on the day
+appointed for my removal, to conduct me to my new lodgings at a
+brush-maker’s in E—— street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her
+own house, where she had no conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings
+that, by having been for several successions tenanted by ladies of
+pleasures, the landlord of them was familiarized to their ways; and
+provided the rent was paid, every thing else was as easy and commodious
+as one could desire.
+
+The fifty guineas promised me by Mr. H...., at his parting with me,
+having been duly paid me, all my clothes and moveables chested up,
+which were at least of two hundred pounds value, I had them conveyed
+into a coach, where I soon followed them, after taking a civil leave of
+the landlord and his family, with whom I had never lived in a degree of
+familiarity enough to regret the removal; but still, the very
+circumstance of its being a removal, drew tears from me. I left, too, a
+letter of thanks for Mr. H...., from whom I concluded myself, as I
+really was, irretrievably separated.
+
+My maid I had discharged the day before, not only because I had her of
+Mr. H...., but that I suspected her of having some how or other been
+the occasion of his discovering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not
+having trusted her with him.
+
+We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so handsomely furnished,
+nor so showy as those I left, were to the full as convenient, and at
+half price, though on the first floor. My trunks were safely landed,
+and stowed in my apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante,
+Mrs. Cole, was ready with my landlord to receive me, to whom she took
+care to set me out in the most favourable light, that of one from whom
+there was the clearest reason to expect the regular payment of his
+rent: all the cardinal virtues attributed to me, would not have had
+half the weight of that recommendation alone.
+
+I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandoned to my own conduct,
+and turned loose upon the town, to sink or swim, as I could manage with
+the current of it; and what were the consequences, together with the
+number of adventures which befell me in the exercise of my new
+profession, will compose the mater of another letter: for surely it is
+high time to put a period! to this.
+
+I am,
+
+MADAM,
+
+Yours, etc., etc., etc.
+
+THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER
+
+
+
+LETTER THE SECOND
+
+Madam,
+
+If I have delayed the sequel of my history, it has been purely to allow
+myself a little breathing time not without some hopes, that, instead of
+pressing me to a continuation, you would have acquitted me of the task
+of pursuing a confession, in the course of which my self-esteem has so
+many wounds to sustain.
+
+I imagined, indeed, that you would have been cloyed and tired with
+uniformity of adventures and expressions, inseparable from a subject of
+this sort, whose bottom, or groundwork being, in the nature of things
+eternally one and the same, whatever variety of forms and modes the
+situations are susceptible of, there is no escaping a repetition of
+near the same images, the same figures, the same expressions, with this
+further inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words
+Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic
+terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure, flatten
+and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they
+indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice
+professedly composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the
+candour of your judgment, for your allowing for the disadvantage I am
+necessarily under in that respect; and to your imagination and
+sensibility, the pleasing taks of repairing it, by their supplements,
+where my descriptions flag or fail: the one will readily place the
+pictures I present before your eyes; the other give life to the colours
+where they are dull, or worn with too frequent handling.
+
+What you say besides, by way of encouragement concerning the extreme
+difficulty of continuing so long in one strain, in a mean tempered with
+taste, between the revoltingness of gross, rank and vulgar expressions,
+and the ridicule of mincing metaphors and affected circumlocutions, is
+so sensible, as well as good-natured, that you greatly justify me to
+myself for my compliance with a curiosity that is to be satisfied so
+extremely at my expense.
+
+Resuming now where I broke off in my last, I am in my way to remark to
+you, that it was late in the evening before I arrived at my lodgings,
+and Mrs. Cole, after helping me to range and secure my things, spent
+the whole evening with me in my apartment, where we supped together, in
+giving me the best advice and instruction with regard to the new stage
+of my profession I was now to enter upon; and passing thus from a
+private devotee to pleasure into a public one, to become a more general
+good, with all the advantages requisite to put my person out to use,
+either for interest or pleasure, or both. “But then,” she observed, “as
+I was a kind of new face upon the town, that is, was an established
+rule, and part of trade, for me to pass for a maid and dispose of
+myself as such on the first good occasion, without prejudice, however,
+to such diversions as I might have a mind to in the interim; for that
+nobody could be a greater enemy than she was to the losing of time.
+That she would, in the mean time, do her best to find out a proper
+person, and would undertake to manage this nice point for me, if I
+would accept of her aid and advice to such good purpose, that, in the
+loss of a fictitious maidenhead, I should reap all the advantages of a
+native one.”
+
+As too great a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong to my
+character at that time, I confess, against myself, that I perhaps too
+readily closed with a proposal which my candor and ingenuity gave me
+some repugnance to: but not enough to contradict the intention of one
+to whom I had now thoroughly abandoned the direction of all my steps.
+For Mrs. Cole had, I do not know how unless by one of those
+unaccountable invincible sympathies that, nevertheless, from the
+strongest links, especially of female friendship, won and got entire
+possession of me. On her side, she pretended that a strict resemblance,
+she fancied she saw in me, to an only daughter whom she had lost at my
+age, was the first motive of her taking to me so affectionately as she
+did. It might be so: there exist a slender motives of attachment, that,
+gathering force from habit and liking, have proved often more solid and
+durable than those founded on much stronger reasons; but this I know,
+that though I had no other acquaintance with her, than seeing her at my
+lodgings, when I lived with Mr. H..., where she had made errands to
+sell me some millinery ware, she had by degrees insinuated herself so
+far into my confidence, that I threw myself blindly into her hands, and
+came, at length, to regard, love, and obey her implicitly; and, to do
+her justice, I never experienced at her hands other than a sincerity of
+tenderness, and care for my interest, hardly heard of in those of her
+profession. We parted that night, after having settled a perfect
+unreserved agreement; and the next morning Mrs. Cole came, and took me
+with her to her house for the first time.
+
+Here, at the first sight of things, I found every thing breathe an air
+of decency, modesty and order.
+
+In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young women, rather
+demurely employed on millinery work, which was the cover of a traffic
+in more precious commodities; but three beautifuller creatures could
+hardly be seen. Two of them were extremely fair, the eldest not above
+nineteen; and the third, much about that age, was a piquant brunette,
+whose black sparking eyes, and perfect harmony of features and shape,
+left her nothing to envy in her fairer companions. Their dress too had
+the more design in it, the less it appeared to have, being in a taste
+of uniform correct neatness, and elegant simplicity. These were the
+girls that composed the small domestic flock, which my governess
+trained up with surprising order and management, considering the giddy
+wildness of young girls once got upon the loose. But then she never
+continued any in her house, whom, after a due noviciate, she found
+un-tractable, or unwilling to comply with the rules of it. Thus she had
+insensibly formed a little family of love, in which the members found
+so sensibly their account, in a rare alliance of pleasure and interest,
+and of a necessary outward decency, with unbounded secret liberty, that
+Mrs. Cole, who had picked them as much for their temper as their
+beauty, governed them with ease to herself and them too.
+
+To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepared, she presented me
+as a new boarder, and one that was to be immediately admitted to all
+the intimacies of the house; upon which these charming girls gave me
+all the marks of a welcome reception, and indeed of being perfectly
+pleased with my figure, that I could possibly expect from any of my own
+sex: but they had been effectually brought to sacrifice all jealousy,
+or competition of charms, to a common interest, and considered me a
+partner that was bringing no despicable stock of goods into the trade
+of the house. They gathered round me, viewed me on all sides; and as my
+admission into this joyous troop made a little holiday, the shew of
+work was laid aside; and Mrs. Cole giving me up, with special
+recommendation, to their caresses and entertainment, went about her
+ordinary business of the house.
+
+The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views, soon creased as
+unreserved a freedom and intimacy as if we had been for years
+acquainted. They took and shewed me the house, their respective
+apartments, which were furnished with every article of convenience and
+luxury; and above all, a spacious drawing-room, where a select
+revelling band usually met, in general parties of pleasure; the girls
+supping with their sparks, and acting their wanton pranks with
+unbounded licentiousness; whilst a defiance of awe, modesty or jealousy
+were their standing rules, by which, according to the principles of
+their society, whatever pleasure was lost on the side of sentiment, was
+abundantly made up to the senses in the poignancy of variety, and the
+charms of ease and luxury. The authors and supporters of this secret
+institution would, in the height of their humour, style themselves the
+restorers of the golden age and its simplicity of pleasures, before
+their innocence became so unjustly branded with the names of guilt and
+shame.
+
+As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a shop was shut, the
+academy opened; the mask of mock-modesty was completely taken off, and
+all the girls delivered over to their respective calls of pleasure or
+interest with their men: and none of that sex was promiscuously
+admitted, but only such as Mrs. Cole was previously satisfied with
+their character and discretion. In short, this was the safest,
+politest, and, at the same time, the most thorough house of
+accommodation in town: every thing being conducted so, that decency
+made no intrenchment upon the most libertine pleasures; in the practice
+of which, too, the choice familiars of the house had found the secret
+so rare and difficult, of reconciling even all the refinements of taste
+and delicacy, with the most gross and determinate gratifications of
+sensuality.
+
+After having consumed the morning in the dear endearments and
+instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner, when Mrs. Cole,
+presiding at the head of her club, gave me the first idea of her
+management and address, in inspiring these girls with so sensible a
+love and respect for her. There was no stiffness, no reserve, no airs
+of pique, or little jealousies, but all was unaffectedly gay, cheerful
+and easy.
+
+After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies, acquainted me
+that there was a chapter to be held that night in form, for the
+ceremony of my reception into the sisterhood; and in which, with all
+due reserve to my maidenhead, that was to be occasionally cooked up for
+the first proper chapman. I was to undergo a ceremonial of initiation
+they were sure I should not be displeased with.
+
+Embarked as I was, and moreover captivated with the charms of my new
+companions, I was too much prejudiced in favour of any proposal they
+could make, to as much as hesitate an assent; which, therefore, readily
+giving in the style of a carte blanche, I received fresh kisses of
+compliment from them all, in approval of my docility and good nature.
+Now I was “a sweet girl... I came into things with a good grace... I
+was not affectedly coy... I should be the pride of the house,” and the
+like.
+
+This point thus adjusted, the young women left Mrs. Cole to talk and
+concert matters with me, when she explained to me, that “I should be
+introduced that very evening, to four of her best friends, one of whom
+she had, according to the custom of the house, favoured with the
+preference of engaging me in the first party of pleasure;” assuring me,
+at the same time, “that they were all young gentlemen agreeable in
+their persons, and unexceptionable in every respect; that united, and
+holding together by the band of common pleasures, they composed the
+chief support of her house, and made very liberal presents to the girls
+that pleased and humoured them, so that they were, properly speaking,
+the founders and patrons of this little seraglio. Not but that she had,
+at proper seasons, other customers to deal with, whom she stood less
+upon punctilio with, than with these; for instance, it was not on one
+of them she could attempt to pass me for a maid; they were not only too
+knowing, too much town-bred to bite at such a bait, but they were such
+generous benefactors to her, that it would be unpardonable to think of
+it.”
+
+Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise of pleasure, for
+such I conceived it, stirred up in me, I preserved so much of the
+woman, as to feign just reluctance enough to make some merit, of
+sacrificing it to the influence of my patroness, whom I likewise, still
+in character, reminded of it perhaps being right for me to go home and
+dress, in favour of my first impressions.
+
+But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me, “that the gentlemen I
+should be presented to were, by their rank and taste of things,
+infinitely superior to the being touched with any glare of dress or
+ornaments, such slick women rather confound and overlay than set off
+their beauty with; that these veteran voluptuaries knew better than not
+to hold them in the highest contempt: they with whom the pure native
+charms alone could pass current, and who would at any time leave a
+sallow, washy, painted duchess on her own hands, for a ruddy, healthy
+firm fleshed country maid; and as for my part, that nature had done
+enough for me, to set me above owing the least favour to art;”
+concluding withal, that for the instant occasion, there was no dress
+like an undress.
+
+I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters, not to be
+easily overruled by her: after which she went on preaching very
+pathetically the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance to
+all those arbitrary tastes of pleasure, which are by some styled the
+refinements, and by others the depravations of it; between whom it was
+not the business of a simple girl, who was to profit by pleasing, to
+decide, but to conform to. Whilst I was edifying by these wholesome
+lessons, tea was brought in, and the young ladies, returning, joined
+company with us.
+
+After a great deal of mixed chat, frolic and humour, one of them,
+observing that there would be a good deal of time on and before the
+assembly hour, proposed that each girl should entertain the company
+with that critical period of her personal history, in which she first
+exchanged the maiden state for womanhood. The proposal was approved,
+with only one restriction of Mrs. Cole, that she, on account of her
+age, and I, on account of my titular maidenhead, should be excused, at
+least till I had undergone the forms of the house. This obtained me a
+dispensation, and the promotress of this amusement was desired to
+begin.
+
+Her name was Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose limbs were, if
+possible, too well made, since their plump fulness was rather to the
+prejudice of that delicate slimness required by the nicer judges of
+beauty; her eyes were blue, and streamed inexpressible sweetness, and
+nothing could be prettier than her mouth and lips, which closed over a
+range of the evenest and whitest teeth. Thus she began:
+
+“Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure of my life, is
+sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in the advancement of the
+proposal you have approved of. My father and mother were, and for aught
+I know, are still, farmers in the country, not above forty miles from
+town: their barbarity to me, in favour of a son, on whom alone they
+vouchsafed to bestow their tenderness, had a thousand times determined
+me to fly their house, and throw myself on the wide world; but, at
+length, an accident forced me on this desperate attempt at the age of
+fifteen. I had broken a chinabowl, the pride and idol of both their
+hearts; and as an unmerciful beating was the least I had to depend on
+at their hands, in the silliness of these tender years, I left the
+house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London. How my loss was
+resented I do not know, for till this instant I have not heard a
+syllable about them. My whole stock was two broad pieces of my
+godmother’s, a few shillings, silver shoe-buckles and a silver thimble.
+Thus equipped, with no more clothes than the ordinary ones I had on my
+back, and frightened at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I
+hurried on; and I dare sweare, walked a dozen miles before I stopped,
+through mere weariness and fatigue. At length I sat down on a style,
+wept bitterly, and yet was still rather under increased impressions of
+fear on the account of my escape; which made me dread, worse than
+death, the going back to my unnatural parents. Refreshed by this little
+repose, and relieved by my tears, I was proceeding onward, when I was
+overtaken by a sturdy country lad, who was going to London to see what
+he could do for himself there, and, like me, had given his friends the
+slip. He could not be above seventeen, was ruddy, well featured enough,
+with uncombed flaxen hair, a little flapped hat, kersey frock, yarn
+stockings, in short, a perfect plough boy. I saw him come whistling
+behind me, with a bundle tied to the end of a stick, his travelling
+equipage. We walked by one another for some time without speaking; at
+length we joined company, and agreed to keep together till we got to
+our journey’s end; what his designs or ideas were, I know not: the
+innocence of mine I can solemnly protest.
+
+“As night drew on, it became us to look out for some inn or shelter; to
+which perplexity another was added, and that was, what we should say
+for ourselves, if we were questioned. After some puzzle, the young
+fellow started a proposal, which I thought the finest that could be;
+and what was that? why, that we should pass for husband and wife: I
+never dreamed of consequences. We came presently, after having agreed
+on this notable experience, to one of those hedge accommodations for
+foot passengers, at the door of which stood an old crazy beldam, who
+seeing us trudge by, invited us to lodge there. Glad of any cover, we
+went in, and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him, called for what
+the house afforded, and we supped together as man and wife; which,
+considering our figures and ages, could not have passed on any one but
+such as any thing could pass on. But when bed-time came on, we had
+neither of us the courage to contradict our first account of ourselves;
+and what was extremely pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I
+was how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the state we
+had pretended to. Whilst we were in this quandary, the landlady takes
+the candles, and lights us to our apartment, through a long yard, at
+the end of which it stood, separate from the body of the house. Thus we
+suffered ourselves to be conducted, without saying a word in opposition
+to it; and there, in a wretched room, with a bed answerable, we were
+left to pass the night together, as a thing quite of course. For my
+part, I was so incredibly innocent, as not even to think much more harm
+of going into bed with the young man, than with one of our dairy
+wenches; nor had he, perhaps, any other notions than those of
+innocence, till such a fair occasion put them into his head.
+
+“Before either of us undressed, however, he put out the candle; and the
+bitterness of the weather made it a kind of necessity for me to go into
+bed: slipping then my clothes off, I crept under the bedclothes, where
+I found the young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm
+flesh rather pleased than alarmed me. I was indeed too much disturbed
+with the novelty of my condition to be able to sleep; but then I had
+not the least thought of harm. But oh! how powerful are the instincts
+of nature! how little is there wanting to set them in action! The young
+man, sliding his arm under my body, drew me gently towards him, as if
+to keep himself and me warmer; and the heat I felt from joining our
+breasts, kindled another that I had hitherto never felt, and was, even
+then, a stranger to the nature of. Emboldened, I suppose, by my
+easiness, he ventured to kiss me, and I insensibly returned it; without
+knowing the consequence of returning it: for, on this encouragement, he
+slipped his hand all down from my breast to that part of me where the
+sense of feeling is so exquisitely critical, as I then experienced by
+its instant taking fire upon the touch, and glowing with a strange
+tickling heat: there he pleased himself and me, by feeling, till
+growing a little too bold with me, he hurt me, and made me complain.
+Then he took my hand, which he guided, not unwillingly on my side,
+between the twist of his closed thighs, which were extremely warm;
+there he lodged and pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me
+feel the proud distinction of his sex from mine. I was frightened at
+the novelty, and drew back my hand; yet, pressed and spurred on by
+sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not help asking him what that
+was for? He told me he would shew me if I would let him; and without
+waiting for my answer, which he prevented by stopping my mouth with
+kisses I was far from disrelishing, he got upon me, and inserting one
+of his thighs between mine, opened them so as to make way for himself,
+and fixed me to his purpose; whilst I was so much out of my usual
+sense, so subdued by the present power of a new one, that, between far
+and desire, I lay utter passive, till the piercing pain rouzed and made
+me cry out. But it was too late: he was too firm fixed in the saddle
+for me to compass flinging him, with all the struggles I could use,
+some of which only served to further his point, and at length an
+irresistible thrust murdered at once my maidenhead, and almost me. I
+now lay a bleeding witness of the necessity imposed on our sex, to
+gather the first honey off the thorns.
+
+“But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was soon reconciled to
+fresh trials, and before morning, nothing on earth could be dearer to
+me than this rifler of my virgin sweets: he was every thing to me now.
+
+“How we agreed to join fortunes: how we came up to town together, where
+we lived some time, till necessity-parted us, and drove me into this
+course of life, to which I had been long ago bettered and torn to
+pieces before I came to this age, as much through my easiness, as
+through inclination, had it not been for my finding refuge in this
+house: these are all circumstances which pass the mark I proposed, so
+that here my narrative ends.”
+
+In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet’s turn to go on. Amongst
+all the beauties of our sex, that I had before, or have since seen, few
+indeed were the forms that could dispute excellence with her’s; it was
+not delicate, but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of
+her small but exactly fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was,
+appeared yet more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the
+brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity than belonged to the
+colour of it, which was only defended from paleness, by a sweetly
+pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and fainter, till at
+length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white. Then her
+miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of it, which
+was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence, languor, and
+the pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her contingent, she smiled,
+blushed a little, and thus complied with our desires:
+
+“My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the city of
+York; and both he and my mother dying whilst I was an infant, I fell
+under the care of a widow and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord
+N..., at his seat in the county of..., where she brought me up with all
+imaginable tenderness. I was not seventeen, as I am not now eighteen,
+before I had, on account of my person purely (for fortune I had
+notoriously none), several advantageous proposals; but whether nature
+was slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had
+not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least emotion or
+curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till that age,
+preserved a perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst my fears of I
+did not now well know what, made me no more desirous of marrying than
+of dying. My aunt, good woman, favoured my timorousness, which she
+looked on as childish affection, that her own experience might
+probably assure her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper
+answers for me.
+
+“The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was
+neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to
+take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house
+and gardens, situated at about half a mile distance from any other
+habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.
+
+“Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable
+accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my
+aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to
+a kind of ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I
+carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and
+window faced upon. Here I fell into a gentle breathing slumber, which
+stole upon my senses, as they fainted under the excessive heat of the
+season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow,
+were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and
+alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got up to
+see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a
+neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him
+before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his
+sport, and the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness
+of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jumped into it on
+the other side, which bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined
+down to the water, formed a pleasing shady recess, commodious to
+undress and leave his clothes under.
+
+“My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the water,
+were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprise and fear;
+and, in course, I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty,
+fatally for itself, interposed the objection of the door and window
+being so situated, that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my
+way along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I could
+not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and confounded was I at having
+seen him. Condemned then to stay till his departure should release me,
+I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of myself: I kept some time
+betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking through the window, which
+being an old fashioned casement, without any light behind me, could
+hardly betray any one’s being there to him from within; then the door
+was so secure, that without violence, or my own consent, there was no
+opening it from without.
+
+“But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that objects which
+affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw our eyes as forcibly as
+those that please us. I could not long withstand that nameless impulse,
+which, without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me towards it;
+emboldened too by my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I
+ventured by degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and
+alarming to my virgin modesty as a naked man.
+
+“But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was in
+general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which the sun
+playing upon made the reflection of it perfectly beamy. His face, in
+the confusion I was in, I could not well distinguish the lineamints of,
+any farther than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in
+it. The frolic and various play of all his fine polished limbs, as they
+appeared above the surface, in the course of his swimming or wantoning
+with the water, amused and insensibly delighted me; sometimes he lay
+motionless, on his back, waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head
+of hair, that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls.
+Then the overflowing water would make a separation between his breast
+and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not escape
+observing so remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy tuft, out of
+which appeared to emerge a round, softish, limber, white something,
+that played every way, with ever the least motion or whirling eddy. I
+cannot say but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct,
+attracted, detained, captivated my attention: it was out of the power
+of all my modesty to command my eye away from it; and seeing nothing so
+very dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all my fears:
+but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes took
+place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had so long
+lain dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made me feel my sex
+for the first time. He had now changed his posture, and swam prone on
+his belly, striking out with his legs and arms; finer modeled than
+which could not have been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a
+neck and shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off. Then the
+luxuriant swell of flesh that rose from the small of his back, and
+terminates its double cope at where the thighs are set off, perfectly
+dazzled one with its watery glistening gloss.
+
+“By this time I was so affected by this inward involution of
+sentiments, so softened by this sight, that now, betrayed into a sudden
+transition from extreme fears to extreme desires, I found these last so
+strong upon me, the heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt
+their rage, that nature almost fainted under them. Not that I so much
+as knew precisely what was wanting to me: my only thought was, that so
+sweet a creature, as this youth seemed to me, could only make me happy;
+but then, the little likelihood there was of compassing an acquaintance
+with him, or perhaps of ever seeing him again, dashed my desires, and
+turned them into torments. I was still gazing, with all the powers of
+my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in an instant, down he went.
+I had heard of such things as a cramp seizing on even the best
+swimmers, and occasioning their being drowned; and imagining this so
+sudden eclipse to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this
+unknown lad had given birth to, distracted me with the most killing
+terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I flew to the
+door, opened it, ran down to the canal, guided thither by the madness
+of my fears for him, and the intense desire of being an instrument to
+save him, though I was ignorant how, or by what means to effect it: but
+was it for fears, and a passion so sudden as mine, to reason! All this
+took up scarce the space of a few moments. I had then just life enough
+to reach the green borders of the waterpiece, where wildly looking
+round for the young man, and missing him still, my fright and concern
+sunk me down in a deep swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for
+I did not come to myself, till I was roused out of it by a sense of
+pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked me to the the most
+surprising circumstance of finding myself not only in the arms of this
+very young gentleman I had been so solicitous to save; but taken at
+such an advantage in my unresisting condition, that he had actually
+completed his entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all
+the preceding conflicts of mind I had suffered, and struck dumb by the
+violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to cry out, nor the
+strength to disengage myself from his strenuous embraces, before,
+urging his point, he had forced his way and completely triumphed over
+my virginity, as he might now as well see by the streams of blood that
+followed his drawing out, as he had felt by the difficulties he had met
+with consummating his penetration. But the sight of the blood, and the
+sense of my condition, had (as he told me afterwards), since the
+ungovernable rage of his passion was somewhat appeased, now wrought so
+far on him, that at all risks, even of the worst consequences, he could
+not find in his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily
+have done. I still lay all discomposed in bleeding ruin, palpitating,
+speechless, unable to get off, and frightened, and fluttering like a
+poor wounded partridge, and ready to faint away again at the sense of
+what had befallen me. The young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing
+my hand, and with tears in his eyes, beseeching me to forgive him, and
+offering all the reparation in his power. It is certain that could I,
+at the instant of regaining my senses, have called out, or taken the
+bloodiest revenge, I would not be stuck at it; the violation was
+attended too with such aggravating circumstances, though he was
+ignorant of them, since it was to my concern for the preservation of
+his life, that I owed my ruin.
+
+“But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to another!
+and how little are they acquainted with the human heart who dispute it!
+I could not see this amiable criminal, so suddenly the first object of
+my love, and as suddenly of my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my
+hands with his tears, without relenting. He was still stark-naked, but
+my modesty had been already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so
+much shocked as I should have otherwise been with appearances only; in
+short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love returned so strong
+upon me, that I felt it a point of my own happiness to forgive him. The
+reproaches I made him were murmured in so soft a tone, my eyes met his
+with such glances, expressing more languor than resentment, that he
+could not but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate distance; but
+still he would not quit his posture of submission, till I had
+pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most fervent entreaties,
+protestations, and promises, I had not the power to withhold. On which,
+with the utmost marks of a fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss
+my lips, which I neither declined nor resented: but on my mild
+expostulation with him upon the barbarity of his treatment, he
+explained the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the clearance, at
+least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in the eyes of a judge so
+partial in his favour as I was grown.
+
+“It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking, which in
+my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something very fatal, was no
+other than a trick of diving, which I had not ever heard, or at least
+attended o, the mention of: and he was so long-breathed at it, that in
+the few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet emerged,
+before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose, seeing me extended
+on the bank, his first idea was, that some young woman was upon some
+design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could not have
+fallen asleep there without his having seen me before: agreebly to
+which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign
+of life, and still perplexed as he was what to think of the adventure,
+he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into the
+summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there he laid me down
+on the couch, and tried, as he protested in good faith, by several
+means to bring me to myself again, till fired, as he said, beyond all
+bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me, which were
+unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and
+the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon
+being a feint, was not the very truth of the case; seduced then by this
+flattering notion, and overcome by the present, as he styled them,
+super-human temptations, combined with the solitude and seeming
+security of the attempt, he was not enough his own master not to make
+it. Leaving me then just only whilst he fastened the door, he returned
+with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced,
+he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than the
+dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused me just in
+time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able to defeat, and
+now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of his voice sounded,
+methought, so sweetly in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and
+interesting an object to me, wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in
+the rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all
+sense of the past injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the
+symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening to
+receive the seal of it from my lips, pressed them tenderly to pass his
+pardon in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of
+it being carried to my heart, and thence to my new discovered sphere of
+Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him nothing. When
+now he managed his caresses and endearments so artfully, as to
+insinuate the most soothing consolations for the past pain and the most
+pleasing expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept
+my eyes from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a glimpse of
+that instrument of mischief which was now, obviously even to me, who
+had scarce had snatches of a comparative observation of it, resuming
+its capacity to renew it, and grew greatly alarming with its increase
+of size, as he bore it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one
+of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employed such tender
+prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning passion of
+desire being now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of
+the sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield
+at length at the force of the present impressions, and he obtained of
+my tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure left in
+the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had cropt its richest
+flower, during my suspension of life, and abilities to guard it.
+
+“Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop; but I am so much
+in notion, that I could not if I would. I shall only add, however, that
+I got home without the least discovery, or suspicion of what had
+happened. I met my young ravisher several times after, whom I now
+passionately loved and who, though not of age to claim a small but
+independent fortune, would have married me; but as the accident that
+prevented it, and its consequences, which threw me on the public,
+contain matters too moving and serious to introduce at present, I cut
+short here.”
+
+Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her turn to
+treat the company with her history. I have already hinted to you the
+graces of her person, than which nothing could be more exquisitely
+touching; I repeat touching, as a just distinction from striking, which
+is ever a less lasting effect, and more generally belongs to the fair
+complexions; but leaving that decision to every one’s taste, I proceed
+to give you Louisa’s narrative as follows:
+
+“According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my birth,
+since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I know, it was
+scarce possible to inherit a stronger propensity to that cause of my
+being than I did. I was the rare production of the first essay of a
+journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master’s maid: the consequence of
+which was a big belly, and the loss of a place. He was not in
+circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this blemish, she
+found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of me to a
+poor relation in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook
+here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of
+the complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a child
+she had by her first husband. I had, on that footing, been taken home,
+and was not six years old when this father-in-law died, and left my
+mother in tolerable circumstances, and without any children by him. As
+to my natural father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when
+the truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not immensely
+rich you may think, since he was no more than a common sailor. As I
+grew up, under the eyes of my mother, who kept on the business, I could
+not but see, in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip, which she
+did not care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our passions
+than our features or complexions, and the bent of mine was so strong to
+the forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at length, of all her
+care and precaution. I was scarce twelve years old, before that part
+which she wanted so much to keep out of harm’s way, made me feel its
+impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play; already had it
+put forth the signs of forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over
+it, which had often fluttered, and I might also say, grown under my
+constant touch and visitation, so pleased was I with what I took to be
+a kind of title to womanhood, that state I pined to be entered of, for
+the pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the growing
+importance of that part to me, and the new sensations in it, demolished
+at once all my girlish play-things and amusements. Nature now pointed
+me strongly to more solid diversions, while all the stings of desire
+settled so fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not
+mistake the spot I wanted a playfellow in.
+
+“I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of coming at the
+object of my longings, and used to shut myself up, to indulge in
+solitude some tender meditation on the pleasure I strongly perceived
+the overture of, in feeling and examining what nature assured me must
+be the chosen avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I
+panted after.
+
+“But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew the fire
+that consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at length to the
+insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm that tormented me,
+I seized it with my fingers, teazing it to no end. Sometimes, in the
+furious excitations of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my
+thighs abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief, till
+finding my illusion, I shut and squeezed them together again, burning
+and fretting. In short, this develish thing, with its impetuous girds
+and itching fires, led me such a life, that I could neither, night or
+day, be at peace with it or myself. In time, however, I thought I had
+gained a prodigious prize, when figuring to myself that my fingers were
+something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way in with one
+of them with great agitation and delight; yet not without pain too did
+I deflower myself as far as it could reach; proceeding with such a fury
+of passion, in this solitary and last shift of pleasure, as extended me
+at length breathless on the bed in an amorous melting trance.
+
+“But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon began to perceive
+that this work was but a paultry shallow expedient, that went but a
+little way to relieve me, and rather raised more flame than its dry and
+insignificant titillation could rightly appease.
+
+“Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by what I had
+industriously picked up at weddings and christenings, was possessed of
+the only remedy that could reduce this rebellious disorder; but watched
+and overlooked as I was, how to come at it was the point, and that, to
+all appearance, an invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains
+and invention how at once to elude my mothers vigilance, and procure
+myself the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity and longings for this
+mighty and untasted pleasure. At length, however, a singular chance did
+at once the work of a long course of alertness. One day that we had
+dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a
+gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house, there
+started an indispensable necessity for my mother’s going down to
+Greenwich to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know
+what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I certainly had
+not, against my being included in a jaunt that I had not the least
+relish for. The pretext, however, passed, and my mother, with much
+reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but took
+particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the
+hands of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had
+not a male creature in the house.
+
+“As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on
+our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same
+time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction
+probably proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the
+bedchamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the
+bedclothes, in all the loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to the
+old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing, self-touching
+self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of self knowledge I could
+devise, in search of the pleasure that fled before me, and tantalized
+with that unknown something that was out of my reach; thus all only
+served to enflame myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst
+the one thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I
+could have bit my finger for representing it so ill. After then
+wearying and fatiguing myself with grasping shadows, whilst that most
+sensible part of me disdained to content itself with less than
+realities, the strong yearnings, the urgent struggles of nature towards
+the melting relief, and the extreme self-agitations I had used to come
+at it, had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if
+I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the distraction of
+my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could not have
+helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems; for waking out
+of my very short slumber, I found my hand locked in that of a young
+man, who was kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his
+boldness: but that being a son to the lady to whom, this bed-chamber,
+he knew, belonged, he had slipped by the servant of the shop, as he
+supposed, unperceived, when finding me asleep, his first ideas were to
+withdraw; but that he had been fixed and detained there by a power he
+could better account for, than resist.
+
+“What shall I say? my emotions of fear and surprise were instantly
+subdued by those of the pleasure I bespoke in great presence of mind
+from the turn this adventure might take. He seemed to me no other than
+a pitying angel, dropt out of the clouds: for he was young and
+perfectly handsome, which was more than even I had asked for, man, in
+general, being all that my utmost desires had pointed at. I thought
+then I could not put too much encouragement into my eyes and voice; I
+regretted no leading advances; no matter for his after-opinion of my
+forwardness, so it might bring him to the point of answering my
+pressing demands of present case; it was not now with his thoughts but
+his actions that my business immediately lay. I raised then my head,
+and told him, in a soft tone, that tended to prescribe the same key to
+him, that his mamma was gone out and would not return till late at
+night: which I thought no bad hint; but as it proved, I had nothing of
+a novice to deal with. The impressions I had made on him from the
+discoveries I had betrayed of my person in the disordered motions of
+it, during his view of me asleep, had, as he afterwards told me, so
+fixed and charmingly prepared him, that, had I known his dispositions,
+I had more to hope from his violence, than to fear from his respect;
+and even less than the extreme tenderness which I threw into my voice
+and eyes, would have served to encourage him to make the most of the
+opportunity. Finding then that his kisses, imprinted on my hand, were
+taken as tamely as he could wish, he rose to my lips; and glewing his
+to them, made me so faint with overcoming joy and pleasure, that I fell
+back, and he with me, in course, on the bed, upon which I had, by
+insensibly shifting from the side to near the middle, invitingly, made
+room for him. He is now lain down by me, and the minutes being too
+precious to consume in ultimate ceremony, or dalliance, my youth
+proceeds immediately to those extremities, which all my looks, humming
+and palpitations, had assured him he might attempt without the fear of
+a repulse: those rogues the men, read us admirably on these occasions.
+I lay then at length panting for the imminent attack, with wishes far
+beyond my fears, and for which it was scarce possible for a girl,
+barely thirteen, but tall and well grown, to have better dispositions.
+He threw up my petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an
+instinct of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so
+thoroughly destroyed all modesty in me, that even their being now naked
+and all laid open to him, was part of the prelude that pleasure
+deepened my blushes at, more than same. But when his hand, and touches,
+naturally attracted to their center, made me feel all their wantonness
+and warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a sense of
+things, did I perceive there, than when under my own insipid handling!
+And now his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and the confinement of the
+breeches burst through, when out started to view the amazing, pleasing
+object of all my wishes, all my dreams, all my love, the king member
+indeed! I gazed at, I devoured it, at length and breadth, with my eyes
+intently directed to it, till his; getting upon me, and placing between
+my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of its sight, to give me a far
+more grateful one, in its touch, in that part where its touch is so
+exquisitely affecting. Applying it then to the minute opening, for such
+at that age it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt
+with too great a rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it, to heed
+much the pain that followed: I thought nothing too dear to pay for this
+the richest treat of the sense; so that, split up, torn, bleeding,
+mangled I was still superiorly pleased, and hugged the author of all
+this delicious ruin. But when, soon after, he made his second attack,
+sore as every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sovereign
+cordial; all my soft complainings were silenced, and the pain melting
+fast away into pleasure. I abandoned myself over to all its transports,
+and gave it the full possession of my whole body and soul; for now all
+thought was at an end with me; I lived in what I felt only. And who
+could describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by the
+charm of their novelty and surprise? when that part of me which had so
+hungered for the dear morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced
+all my vital sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my
+beloved guest; who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome, in a
+dissolvent, richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating
+her paramour with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly poured into me,
+where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry reception, I hailed
+it with the warmest confluence on my side, amidst all those ecstatic
+raptures, not unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus, however,
+I arrived at the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected
+indeed, but not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived
+in town from college, and came familiarly to his mother at her
+apartment, where he had once before been, though, by mere chance. I had
+not seen him: so that we knew one another by hearing only; and finding
+me stretched on his mother’s bed, he readily concluded from her
+description, who it was. The rest you know.
+
+“This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the young gentleman
+escaping then, and many more times undiscovered. But the warmth of my
+constitution, that made the pleasures of love a kind of necessary of
+life to me, having betrayed me into indiscretions fatal to my private
+fortune, I fell at length to the public; from which, it is probable, I
+might have met with the worst of ruin, if my better fate had not thrown
+me into this safe and agreeable refuge.”
+
+Here Louisa ended; and these little histories having brought the time
+for the girls to retire, and to prepare for the revels of the evening,
+I staid with Mrs. Cole, till Emily came, and told us the company was
+met, and waited for us.
+
+Mrs. Cole on this, taking me by the hand, with a smile of
+encouragement, led me up stairs, preceded by Louisa, who was come to
+hasten us, and lighted us with two candles, one in each hand.
+
+On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we were met by a
+young gentleman, extremely well dressed, and a very pretty figure, to
+whom I was to be indebted for the first essay of the pleasures of the
+house. He saluted me with great gallantry, and handed me into the
+drawing room, the floor of which was overspread with a Turkey carpet,
+and all its furniture voluptuously adapted to every demand of the most
+studied luxury; now too it was, by means of a profuse illumination,
+enlivened by a light scarce inferior, and perhaps more favourable to
+joy, more tenderly pleasing, than that of broad sunshine.
+
+On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction! to hear a buzz of
+approbation run through the whole company, which now consisted of four
+gentlemen, including my particular (this was the cant term of the house
+for one’s gallant for the time), the three young-women, in a neat
+flowing dishabille, the mistress of the academy, and myself. I was
+welcomed and saluted by a kiss all round, in which, however, it was
+easy to discover, in the superior warmth of that of the men, the
+distinction of the sexes.
+
+Awed, and confounded as I was, at seeing myself surrounded, caressed,
+and made court to by so many strangers, I could not immediately
+familiarize myself to all that air of gaiety and joy, which dictated
+their compliments, and animated their caresses.
+
+They assured me that I was so perfectly to their taste, as to have but
+one fault against me, which I might easily be cured of, and that was my
+modesty: this, they observed, might pass for a beauty the more with
+those who wanted it for a heightener; but their maxim was, that it was
+an impertinent mixture, and dashed the cup so as to spoil the sincere
+draught of pleasure; they considered it accordingly as their mortal
+enemy, and gave it no quarter wherever they met with it. This was a
+prologue not unworthy of the revels that ensued.
+
+In the midst of all the frolic and wantonness, which this joyous band
+had presently, and all naturally, run into, an elegant supper was
+served in, and we sat down to it, my spark elect placing himself next
+to me, and the other couples without order or ceremony. The delicate
+cheer and good wine soon banished all reserve; the conversation grew as
+lively as could be wished, without taking too loose a turn: these
+professors of pleasure knew too well, how to stale impressions of it,
+or evaporate the imagination of words, before the time of action.
+Kisses however were snatched at times, or where a handkerchief round
+the neck interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected:
+the hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till the
+provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my particulars’s
+proposal for beginning the country dances was received with instant
+assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instruments were in
+tune. This was a signal for preparation, that the complaisant Mrs.
+Cole, who understood life, took for her cue of disappearing; no longer
+so fit for personal service herself, and content with having settled
+the order of battle, she left us the field, to fight it out at
+discretion.
+
+As soon as she was gone, the table was removed from the middle, and
+became a side-board; a couch was brought into its place, of which when
+I whisperingly inquired the reason, of my particular, he told me, “that
+as it was chiefly on my account that his convention was met, the
+parties intended at once to humour their taste of variety in pleasures,
+and by an open public enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint of
+reserve or modesty, which they looked on as the poison of joy; that
+though they occasionally preached pleasure, and lived up to the text,
+they did not enthusiastically set up for missionaries, and only
+indulged themselves in the delights of a practical instruction of all
+the pretty women they liked well enough to bestow it upon, and who fell
+properly in the way of it; but that as such a proposal might be too
+violent, too shocking for a young beginner, the old standers were to
+set an example, which he hoped I would not be averse to follow, since
+it was to him I was devolved in favour of the first experiment; but
+that still I was perfectly at my liberty to refuse the party, which
+being in its nature one of pleasure, supposed an exclusion of all force
+or constraint.”
+
+My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise as my silence did my
+acquiescence. I was now embarked, and thoroughly determined on any
+voyage the company would take me on.
+
+The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cornet of horse, and
+that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft and amorous Louisa. He led
+her to the couch (nothing loth), on which he gave her the fall, and
+extended her at length with an air of roughness and vigour, relishing
+high of amorous eagerness and impatience. The girl, spreading herself
+to the best advantage, with her head upon the pillow, was so
+concentered in that she was about, that our presence was the least of
+her care and concern. Her petticoats, thrown up with her shift,
+discovered to the company the finest turned legs and thighs that could
+be imagined, and in broad display, that gave us a full view of that
+delicious cleft of flesh, into which the pleasing hair, grown mount
+over it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance, between two
+close hedges, delicately soft and pouting. Her gallant was now ready,
+having disencumbered himself from his clothes, overloaded with lace,
+and presently, his shirt removed, shewed us his forces at high plight,
+bandied and ready for action. But giving us no time to consider the
+dimensions, he threw himself instantly over his charming antagonist who
+received him as he pushed at once dead at mark, like a heroine, without
+flinching; for surely never was girl constitutionally truer to the
+taste of joy, or sincerer in the expressions of its sensations, than
+she was: we could observe pleasure lighten in her eyes, as he
+introduced his plenipotentiary instrument into her; till, at length,
+having indulged her to its utmost reach, its irritations grew so
+violent, and gave her the spurs so furiously, that collected within
+herself, and lost to every thing but the enjoyment of her favourite
+feelings, she retarded his thrusts with a just concert of spring
+heaves, keeping time so exactly with the most pathetic sighs, that one
+might have numbered the strokes in agitation by their distinct murmurs,
+whilst her active limbs kept wreathing and intertwisting with his, in
+convulsive folds: then the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant
+painless lovebites, which they both exchanged, in a rage of delight,
+all conspiring towards the melting period. It soon came on, when
+Louisa, in the ravings of her pleasure-frensy, impotent of all
+restraint, cried out: “Oh Sir!... Good Sir! pray do not spare me! ah!
+ah!...” All her accents now faultering into heart-fetched sighs, she
+closed her eyes in the sweet death, in the instant of which we could
+easily see the signs in the quiet, dying, languid posture of her late
+so furious driver, who was stopped of a sudden, breathing short,
+panting, and, for that time, giving up the spirit of pleasure. As soon
+as he was dismounted, Louisa sprung up, shook her petticoats, and
+running up to me, gave me a kiss, and drew me to the side-board, to
+which she was herself handed by her gallant, where they made me pledge
+them in a glass of wine, and toast a droll health of Louisa’s proposal
+in high frolic.
+
+By this time the second couple was ready to enter the lists: which were
+a young baronet, and that delicatest of charmers, the winning, tender
+Harriet. My gentle esquire came to acquaint me with it, and brought me
+back to the scene of action.
+
+And, surely, never did one of her profession accompany her
+dispositions, for the barefaced part she was engaged to play, with such
+a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty and yielding coyness, as she
+did. All her air and motions breathed only unreserved, unlimited
+complaisance without the least mixture of impudence, or prostitution.
+But what was yet more surprising, her spark elect, in the midst of the
+dissolution of a public open enjoyment, doated on her to distraction,
+and had, by dint of love and sentiments, touched her heart, though for
+a while the restraint of their engagement to the house laid him under a
+kind of necessity of complying with an institution which himself had
+had the greatest share establishing.
+
+Harriet was then led to the vacant couch by her gallant, blushing as
+she looked at me, and with eyes made to justify any thing, tenderly
+bespeaking of me the most favourable construction of the step she was
+thus irresistibly drawn into.
+
+Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the couch, and
+passing his arm round her neck, preluded with a kiss fervently applied
+to her lips, that visibly gave her life and spirit to go through with
+the scene; and as he kissed, he gently inclined her head, till it fell
+back on a pillow disposed to receive it, and leaning himself down all
+the way with her, at once countenanced and endeared her fall to her.
+There, as if he had guessed our wishes, or meant to gratify at once his
+pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by the title of present
+possession, of beauties delicate beyond imagination, he discovered her
+breast to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what delicious
+manual of love devotion; how inimitable fine moulded! small, round,
+firm, and excellently white; then the grain of their skin, so soothing,
+so flattering to the touch! and of beauty. When he had feasted his eyes
+with the their nipples, that crowned them, the sweetest buds touch and
+perusal, feasted his lips with kisses of the highest relish, imprinted
+on those all delicious twin-orbs, he proceeded downwards.
+
+Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the tenderest attention
+not to shock or alarm her too suddenly, he, by degrees, rather stole
+than rolled up her petticoats; at which, as if a signal had been given,
+Louisa and Emily took hold of her legs, in pure wantonness, and, in
+ease to her, kept them stretched wide abroad. Then lay exposed, or, to
+speak more properly, displayed the greatest parade in nature of female
+charms. The whole company, who, except myself, had often seen them,
+seemed as much dazzled, surprised and delighted, as any one could be
+who had now beheld them for the first time. Beauties so excessive could
+not but enjoy the privileges of eternal novelty. Her thighs were so
+exquisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of flesh than
+they were, they would have declined from that point of perfection they
+presented. But what infinitely enriched and adorned them, was the sweet
+intersection formed, where they met, at the bottom of the smoothest,
+roundest, whitest belly, by that central furrow which nature had sunk
+there, between the soft relievo of two pouting ridges, and which, in
+this girl, was in perfect symmetry of delicacy and miniature with the
+rest of her frame. No! nothing in nature could be of a beautifuller
+cut; then, the dark umbrage of the downy spring moss that over-arched
+it, bestowed, on the luxury of the landscape, a touching warmth, a
+tender finishing, beyond the expression of words, or even the paint of
+thought.
+
+Her truly enamoured gallant, who had stood absorbed and engrossed by
+the pleasure of the sight long enough to afford us time to feast ours
+(no fear of glutting!) addressed himself at length to the materials of
+enjoyment, and lifting the linen veil that hung between us and his
+master member of the revels, exhibited one whose eminent size
+proclaimed the owner a true woman’s hero. He was, besides in every
+other respect, an accomplished gentleman, and in the bloom and vigour
+of youth. Standing then between Harriet’s legs, which were supported by
+her two companions at their widest extension, with one hand he gently
+disclosed the lips of that luscious mouth of nature, whilst with the
+other, he stooped his mighty machine to its lure, from the height of
+his stiff stand-up towards his belly; the lips, kept open by his
+fingers, received its broad shelving head of coral hue: and when he had
+nestled it in, he hovered there a little, and the girls then delivered
+over to his hips the agreeable office of supporting her thighs; and
+now, as if he meant to spin out his pleasure, and give it the more play
+for its life, he passed up his instrument so slow that we lost sight of
+it inch by inch, till at length it was wholly taken into the soft
+laboratory of love, and the mossy mounts of each fairly met together.
+In the mean time, we could plainly mark the prodigious effect the
+progressions of this delightful energy wrought in this delicious girl,
+gradually heightening her beauty as they heightened her pleasure. Her
+countenance and whole frame grew more animated; the faint blush of her
+cheeks, gaining ground on the white, deepened into a florid vivid
+vermillion glow, her naturally brilliant eyes now sparkled with
+ten-fold lustre; her languor was vanished, and she appeared quick,
+spirited and alive all over. He had now fixed, nailed, this tender
+creature, with his home-driven wedge, so that she lay passive by force,
+and unable to stir, till beginning to play a strain of arms against
+this vein of delicacy, as he urged the to-and-fro con-friction, he
+awakened, roused, and touched her so to the heart, that unable to
+contain herself, she could not but reply to his motions, as briskly as
+her nicety of frame would admit of, till the raging stings of the
+pleasure rising towards the point, made her wild with the intolerable
+sensations of it, and she now threw her legs and arms about at random,
+as she lay lost in the sweet transport; which on his side declared
+itself by quicker, eager thrusts, convulsive gasps, burning sighs,
+swift laborious breathing, eyes darting humid fires: all faithful
+tokens of the imminent approaches of the last gasp of joy. It came on
+at length: the baronet led the extasy, which she critically joined in,
+as she felt the melting symptoms from him, in the nick of which, gluing
+more ardently than ever his lips to hers, he shewed all the signs of
+that agony of bliss being strong upon him, in which he gave her the
+finishing titillation; inly thrilled with which, we saw plainly that
+she answered it down with all effusion of spirit and matter she was
+mistress of, whilst a general soft shudder ran through all her limbs,
+which she gave a stretch out, and lay motionless, breathless, dying
+with dear delight; and in the height of its expression, showing,
+through the nearly closed lids of her eyes, just the edges of their
+black, the rest being rolled strongly upwards in their extasy; then her
+sweet mouth appeared languishingly open, with the tip of her tongue
+leaning negligently towards the lower range of her white teeth, whilst
+natural ruby colour of her lips glowed with heightened life. Was not
+this a subject to dwell upon? And accordingly her lover still kept on
+her, with an abiding delectation, till compressed, squeezed and
+distilled to the last drop, he took leave with one fervent kiss,
+expressing satisfied desires, but unextinguished love.
+
+As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down on the couch by
+her, rais’d her head, which she declined gently, and hung on my bosom,
+to hide her blushes and confusion at what had passed, till by degrees
+she re-composed herself, and accepted of a restorative glass of wine
+from my spark, who had left me to fetch it to her, whilst her own was
+readjusting his affaire and buttoning up; after which he led her,
+leaning languishingly upon him, to oar stand of view round the couch.
+
+And now Emily’s partner had taken her out for her share in the dance,
+when this transcendently fair and sweet tempered creature readily stood
+up; and if a complexion to put the rose and lily out of countenance,
+extreme pretty features, and that florid health and bloom for which the
+country girls are so lovely, might pass her for a beauty, this she
+certainly was, and one of the most striking of the fair ones.
+
+Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disengage, her breasts, and
+restore them to the liberty of nature, from the easy confinement of no
+more than a pair of jumps; but on their coming out to view, we thought
+a new light was added to the room, so superiourly shining was their
+whiteness; then they rose in so happy a swell as to compose her a well
+horned fullness of bosom, that had such an effect on the eye as to seem
+flash hardened into marble, of which it emulated the polished gloss,
+and far surpassed even the whitest, in the life and lustre of its
+colours, white weined with blue. Who could refrain from such provoking
+enticements in reach? he touched her breasts, first lightly, when the
+glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his hand, and made it slip along
+the surface; he pressed them, and the springy flesh that filled them,
+thus pitted by force, rose again reboundingly with his hand, and on the
+instant defaced the pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of
+all those parts of her body throughout, where the fulness of flesh
+compacts and constitutes all that fine firmness which the touch is so
+highly attached to. When he had thus largely pleased himself with this
+branch of dalliance and delight, he trussed up her petticoat and shift,
+in a wisp to her waist, where being tucked in, she stood fairly naked
+on every side; a blush at this overspread her lovely face, and her eyes
+downcast to the ground, seemed to be for quarter, when she had so great
+a right to triumph in all the treasures of youth and beauty that she
+now so victoriously displayed. Her legs were perfectly well shaped and
+her thighs, which she kept pretty close, shewed so white, so round, so
+substantial and abounding in firm flesh, that nothing could afford a
+stronger recommendation to the luxury of the touch, which he
+accordingly did not fail to indulge in. Then gently removing her hand,
+which in the first emotion of natural modesty, she had carried thither,
+he gave us rather a glimpse than a view of that soft narrow chink
+running its little length downwards, and hiding the remains of it
+between her thighs; but plain was to be seen the fringe of light-brown
+curls, in beauteous growth over it, that with their silk gloss created
+a pleasing variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too, their
+gentle embrowning shade, considerably raised. Her spark then
+endeavoured, as she stood, by disclosing her thighs, to gain us a
+completer sight of that central charm of attraction, but not obtaining
+it so conveniently in that attitude, he led her to the foot of the
+couch, and bringing it to one of the pillows gently inclined her head
+down, so that as she leaned with it over her crossed hands, straddling
+with her thighs wide spread, and jutting her body out, she presented a
+full back view of her person, naked to her waist. Her posteriors,
+plump, smooth, and prominent, formed luxuriant tracts of animated snow,
+that splendidly filled the eye, till it was commanded down the parting
+or separation of those exquisitely white cliffs, by their narrow vale,
+and was there stopt, and attracted by the embowered bottom-savity, that
+terminated this delightful vista and stood moderately gaping from the
+influence of her bended posture, so that the agreeable interior red of
+the sides of the orifice came into view, and with respect to the white
+that dazzled round it, gave somewhat the idea of a pink slash in the
+glossiest white satin. Her gallant, who was a gentleman about thirty,
+somewhat inclined to a fatness that was in no sort displeasing,
+improving the hint thus tendered him of this mode of enjoyment, after
+setting her well in this posture, and encouraging her with kisses and
+caresses to stand him thro’, drew out his affair ready erected, and
+whose extreme length, rather disproportioned to its breadth, was the
+more surprising, as that excess is not often the case with those of his
+corpulent habit; making then the right and direct application, he drove
+it up to the guard, whilst the round bulge of those Turkish beauties of
+her’s, tallying with the hollow made with the bent of his belly and
+thighs, as he curved inwards, brought all those parts, surely not
+un-delightfully, into warm touch, and close conjunction; his hands he
+kept passing round her body, and employed in toying with her enchanting
+breasts. As soon too as she felt him at home as he could reach, she
+lifted her head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck, without
+much straining, but her cheeks glowing with the deepest scarlet, and a
+smile of the tenderest satisfaction, met the kiss he pressed forward to
+give her as they were thus close joined together: when leaving him to
+pursue his delights, she hid again her face and blushes with her hands
+and pillow, and thus stood passively and as favourably too as she
+could, whilst he kept laying at her with repeated thrusts and making
+the meeting flesh on both sides resound again with the violence of
+them; then ever as he backened from her, we could see between them part
+of his long white staff foamingly in motion, till, as he went on again
+and closed with her, the interposing hillocks took it out of sight.
+Sometimes he took his hands from the semi-globes of her bosom, and
+transferred the pressure of them to those large ones, the present
+subjects of his soft blockade, which he squeezed, grasped and played
+with, till at length in pursuit of driving, so hotly urged, brought on
+the height of the fit, with such overpowering pleasure, that his fair
+partner became now necessary to support him, panting, fainting and
+dying as he discharged; which she no sooner felt the killing sweetness
+of, than unable to keep her legs, and yielding to the mighty
+intoxication, she reeld, and falling forward on the couch, made it a
+necessity for him, if he would preserve the warm-pleasure hold, to fall
+upon her, where they perfected, in a continued conjunction of body and
+ecstatic flow, their scheme of joys for that time.
+
+As soon as he had disengaged, the charming Emily got up, and we crowded
+round her with congratulations and other officious little services; for
+it is to be noted, that though all modesty and reserve were banished
+from the transaction of these pleasures, good manners and politeness
+were inviolably observed: there was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or
+rude behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their
+compliance with the humours and desires of the men. On the contrary,
+nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of their
+condition to them. Men know not in general how much they destroy of
+their own pleasure, when they break through the respect and tenderness
+due to our sex, and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them.
+And this was a maxim perfectly well understood by these polite
+voluptuaries, these profound adepts in the great art and science of
+pleasure, who never shewed these votaries of theirs a more tender
+respect than at the time of those exercises of their complaisance, when
+they unlocked their treasures of concealed beauty, and shewed out in
+the pride of their native charms, ever more touching surely than when
+they parade it in the artificial ones of dress and ornament.
+
+The frolic was now come round to me, and it being my turn of
+subscription to the will and pleasure of my particular elect, as well
+as to that of the company, he came to me, and saluting me very
+tenderly, with a flattering eagerness, put me in mind of the
+compliances my presence there authorized the hopes of, and at the same
+time repeated to me, “that if all this force of example had not
+surmounted any repugnance I might have to concur with the humours and
+desires of the company, that though the play was bespoke for my
+benefit, and great as his own private disappointment might be, he would
+suffer any thing, sooner than be the instrument of imposing a
+disagreeable task.”
+
+To this I answered, without the least hesitation, or mincing grimace,
+“that had I not even contracted a kind of engagement to be at his
+disposal without the least reserve, the example of such agreeable
+companions would alone determine me, and that I was in no pain about
+any thing but my appearing to so great a disadvantage after such
+superior beauties.” And take notice that I thought, as I spoke. The
+frankness of the answer pleased them all; my particular was
+complimented on his acquisition, and, by way of indirect flattery to
+me, openly envied me.
+
+Mrs. Cole, by the way, could not have given me a greater mark of her
+regard than in managing for me the choice of this young gentleman for
+my master of the ceremonies: for, independent of his noble birth and
+the great fortune he was heir to, his person was even uncommonly
+pleasing, well shaped and tall; his face marked with the small-pox, but
+no more than what added a grace of more manliness to features rather
+turned to softness and delicacy, was marvellously enlivened by eyes
+which were of the clearest sparkling black; in short he was one whom
+any woman would, in the familiar style, ready call a very pretty
+fellow.
+
+I was now handed by him to the cockpit of our match, where, as I was
+dressed in nothing but a white morning gown, he vouchsafed to play the
+male Abigail on this occasion, and spared me the confusion that would
+have attended the forwardness of undressing myself: my gown then was
+loosen’d in a trice, and I divested of it; my stays next offered an
+obstacle which readily gave way, Louisa very readily furnished a pair
+of scissors to cut the lace; off went that shell and dropping my
+uppercoat, I was reduced to my under one and my shift, the open bosom
+of which gave the hands and eyes all the liberty they could wish. Here
+I imagined the stripping was to stop, but I reckon short; my spark, at
+the desire of the rest, tenderly begged, that I would not suffer the
+small remains of a covering to rob them of a full view of my whole
+person; and for me, who was too flexibly obsequious to dispute any
+point with them, and who considered the little more that remained as
+very immaterial, I readily assented to whatever he pleased-In an
+instant, then, my under petticoat was untied and at my feet, and my
+shift drawn over my head, so that my cap, slightly fastened, came off
+with it, and brought all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered
+without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly
+ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to the no unfavourable set-off of
+my skin.
+
+I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature, to whom I
+could not appear a very disagreeable figure, if you please to recollect
+what I have beforesaid of my person, which time, that at certain
+periods of life robs use every instant of our charms, had, at that of
+mine, then greatly improved into full and open, bloom, for I wanted
+some months of eighteen. My breasts, which in the state of nudity are
+ever capital points, now in no more than in graceful plenitude,
+maintained a firmness and steady independence of any stay or support,
+that dared and invited the test of the touch. Then I was as tall, as
+slim-shaped as could be consistent with all that juicy plumpness of
+flesh, ever the most grateful to the senses of sight and touch, which I
+owed to the health and youth of my constitution. I had not, however, so
+thoroughly renounced all innate shame, as not to suffer great confusion
+at the state I saw myself in; but the whole troop round me, men and
+women, relieved me with every mark of applause and satisfaction, even
+flattering attention to raise and inspire me with even sentiments of
+pride on the figure I made, which my friend gallantly protested,
+infinitely outshone all other birthday finery whatever; so that had I
+leave to set down, for sincere, all the compliments these connoisseurs
+overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter myself with
+having passed my examination with the approbation of the learned.
+
+My friend, however, who for this time had alone the disposal of me,
+humoured their curiosity, and perhaps his own, so far, that he placed
+me in all the variety of postures and lights imaginable, pointing out
+every beauty under every aspect of it, not without such parentheses, of
+kisses, such inflammatory liberties of his roving hands, as made all
+shame fly before them, and a blushing glow give place to a warmer one
+of desire, which led me even to find some relish in the present scene.
+
+But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most material spot of
+me was not excused the strictest visitation; nor was it but agreed,
+that I had not the least reason to be diffident of passing even for a
+maid, on occasion; so inconsiderable a flaw had my preceding adventures
+created there, and so soon had the blemish of an over-stretch been
+repaired and worn out at any age, and in my naturally small make in
+that part.
+
+Now, whether my partner had exhausted all the modes of regaling the
+touch or sight, or whether he was now ungovernably wound up to strike,
+I know not; but briskly throwing off his clothes, the prodigious heat
+bred by a close room, a great fire, numerous candles, and even the
+inflammatory warmth of these scenes, induced him to lay aside his shirt
+too, when his breeches, before loosened, now gave up their contents to
+view, and shew’d in front the enemy I had to engage with, stiffly
+bearing up the port of its head unhooded, and glowing red. Then I
+plainly saw what I had to trust to: it was one of those just true-sized
+instruments, of which the masters have a better command than the more
+unwieldy, inordinate sized one are generally under. Straining me then
+close to his bosom, as he stood up foreright against me, and applying
+to the obvious niche its peculiar idol, he aimed at inserting it,
+which, as I forwardly favoured, he effected at once, by canting up my
+thighs over his naked hips, and made me receive every inch, and close
+home; so-that stuck upon the pleasure-pivot, add clinging round his
+neck, in which and in his hair I hid my face, burn-ingly flushing with
+present feeling as much as with shame, my bosom glued to him; he
+carried me once round the couch, on which he then, without quitting the
+middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid me down, and began with
+pleasure-grist. But so provokingly predisposed and primed as we were,
+by all the moving sights of the night, our imagination was too much
+heated not to melt us of the soonest; and accordingly I no sooner felt
+the warm spray darted up my inwards from him, but I was punctually on
+flow, to share the momentary extasy; but I had yet greater reason to
+boast of our harmony: for finding that all the flames of desire were
+not yet quenched within me, but that rather, like wetted coals, I
+glowed the fiercer for this sprinkling, my hot-mettled spark,
+sympathizing with me, and loaded for a double fire, recontinued the
+sweet battery with undying vigour; greatly encouraged to accommodate
+all my motions to his best advantage and delight; kisses, squeezes,
+tender murmurs, all came into play, till our joys growing more
+turbulent and riotous, threw us into a fond disorder, and as they raged
+to a point, bore us far from our selves into an ocean of boundless
+pleasures, into which we both plunged together in a transport of taste.
+Now all the impressions of burning desire, from the lively scenes I had
+been spectatress of, ripened the heat of this exercise, and collecting
+to a head, throbbed and agitated me with insupportable irritations: I
+perfectly fevered and maddened with their excess. I bid not now enjoy a
+calm of reason enough to perceive, but I ecstatically, indeed, felt the
+power of such rare and exquisite provocatives, as the examples of the
+night had proved towards thus exalting our pleasures: which, with great
+joy, I sensibly found my gallant shared in, by his nervous and home
+expressions of it: his eyes flashing eloquent flames, his action
+infuriated with the stings of it, all conspiring to raise my delight,
+by assuring me of his. Lifted then to the utmost pitch of joy that
+human life can bear, undestroyed by excess, I touched that sweetly
+critical point, whence scarce prevented by the injection from my
+partner, I dissolved, and breaking out into a deep drawn sigh, sent my
+whole sensitive soul down to that passage where escape was denied it,
+by its being so deliciously plugged and choked up. Thus we lay a few
+blissful instants, overpowered, still, and languid; till, as the sense
+of pleasure stagnated, we recovered from our trance, and he slipt out
+of me, not however before he had protested his extreme satisfaction by
+the tenderest kiss and embrace, as well as by the most cordial
+expressions.
+
+The company, who had stood round us in a profound silence, when all was
+over, helped me to hurry on my clothes in an instant, and complimented
+me on the sincere homage they could not escape observing had been done
+as they termed it—to the sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving a
+double payment of tribute at one juncture. But my partner, now dressed
+again, signalized, above all, a fondness unbated by the circumstance of
+recent enjoyment; the girls too kissed and embraced me, assuring me
+that for that time, or indeed any other, unless I pleased, I was to go
+through no farther public trials, and that I was now consummatedly
+initiated, and one of them.
+
+As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to his partner,
+for the night especially, and even till he relinquished possession over
+to the community, in order to preserve a pleasing property, and to
+avoid the disgusts and indelicacy of another arrangement, the company,
+after a short refection of biscuits and wine, tea and chocolate, served
+in at now about one in the morning, broke up, and went off in pairs.
+Mrs. Cole had prepared my spark and me an occasion field-bed, to which
+we retired, and there ended the night in one continued strain of
+pleasure, sprightly and uncloyed enough for us not to have formed one
+wish for its ever knowing an end. In the morning, after a restorative
+breakfast in bed, he got up, and with very tender assurance of a
+particular regard for me, left me to the composure and refreshment of a
+sweet slumber; waking out of which, and getting up to dress before Mrs.
+Cole should come in, I found in one of my pockets a purse of guineas,
+which he had slipt there; and just as I was musing on a liberality I
+had certainly not expected, Mrs. Cole came in, to whom I immediately
+communicated the present, and naturally offered her whatever share she
+pleased: but assuring me that the gentleman had very nobly rewarded
+her, she would on no terms, no entreaties, no shape I could put it in,
+receive any part of it. Her denial, she observed, was no affectation of
+grimace, and proceeded to read me such admirable lessons on the economy
+of my person and my purse, as I became amply paid for my general
+attention and conformity to in the course of my acquaintance with the
+town. After which, changing the discourse, she fell on the pleasures of
+the preceding night, where I learned, without much surprise, as I began
+to enter on her character, that she had seen every thing that had
+passed, from a convenient place managed solely for that purpose, and of
+which she readily made me the confidante.
+
+She had scarce finished this, when the little troop of love girls, my
+companions, broke in, and renewed their compliments and caresses. I
+observed with pleasure, that the fatigues and exercises of the night
+had not usurped in the least on the life of their complexion, or the
+freshness of their bloom: this I found, by their confession, was owing
+to the management and advice of our rare directress. They went down
+then to figure it, as usual, in the shop; whilst I repaired to my
+lodging, where I employed myself till I returned to dinner at Mrs.
+Cole’s.
+
+Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other of these charming
+girls, till about five in the evening; when seized with a sudden drowsy
+fit, I was prevailed on to go up and doze it off on Harriet’s bed, who
+left me on it to my repose. There then I laid down in my clothes, and
+fell fast asleep, and had now enjoyed, by guess, about an hour’s rest,
+when I was pleasingly disturbed by my new and favourite gallant, who,
+enquiring for me, was readily directed where to find me. Coming then
+into my chamber, and seeing me lie alone, with my face turned from the
+light towards the inside of the bed, he, without more ado, just slipped
+off his breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment of the naked
+touch; and softly turning up my petticoats and shift behind, opened the
+prospect of the back avenue to the genial seat of pleasure; where, as I
+lay at my side length, inclining rather face downward, I appeared full
+fair, and liable to be entered. Laying himself gently down by me, he
+invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he
+applied his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of that
+machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in it, to
+make its way good into me. I awaked pretty much startled at first, at
+seeing who it was, disposed myself to turn to him, when he gave me a
+kiss, and desiring me to keep my posture, just lifted up my upper
+thigh, and ascertaining the right opening, soon drove it up to the
+farthest: satisfied with which, and solacing himself with lying so
+close in those parts, he suspended motion, and thus steeped in
+pleasure, kept me lying on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he
+termed it, from the snug indent of the back part of my thighs, and all
+upwards, into the space of the bending between his thighs and belly;
+till, after some time, that restless and turbulent inmate, impatient by
+nature of longer quiet, urged him to action, which now prosecuting with
+all the usual train of toying, kissing, and the like, ended at length
+in the liquid proof on both sides, that we had not exhausted, or at
+less were quickly recruited of last night’s draughts of pleasure in us.
+
+With this noble and agreeable youth lived I in perfect joy and
+constancy. He was full bent on keeping me to himself, for the
+honey-month at least; but his stay in London was not even so long, his
+father, who had a post in Ireland, taking him abruptly with him, on his
+repairing thither. Yet even then I was near keeping hold of his
+affection and person, as he had proposed, and I had consented to follow
+him in order to go to Ireland after him, as soon as he could be settled
+there; but meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in that
+kingdom, he chose the wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but at
+the same time took care that I should receive a very magnificent
+present, which did not however compensate for all my deep regret on my
+loss of him.
+
+This event also created a chasm in our little society, which Mrs. Cole,
+on the foot of her usual caution, was in no haste to fill up; but then
+it redoubled her attention to procure me, in the advantages of a
+traffic for a counterfeit maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of
+widowhood I had been left in; and this was a scheme she had never lost
+prospect of, and only waited for a proper person to bring it to bear
+with.
+
+But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I had been
+in my first trial of the market.
+
+I had now passed near a month in the enjoyment of all the pleasures of
+familiarity and society with my companions, whose particular favourites
+(the baronet excepted, who soon after took Harriet home) had all, on
+the terms of community established in the house, solicited the
+gratification of their taste for variety in my embraces; but I had with
+the utmost art and address, on various pretexts, eluded their pursuit,
+without giving them cause to complain; and this reserve I used neither
+out of dislike of them, nor disgust of the thing, but my true reason
+was my attachment to my own, and my tenderness of invading the choice
+of my companions, who outwardly exempt, as they seemed, from jealousy,
+could not but in secret like me the better for the regard I had for,
+without making a merit of it to them. Thus easy, and beloved by the
+whole family, did I get on; when one day, that, about five in the
+afternoon, I stepped over to a fruit shop in Covent Garden, to pick
+some table fruit for myself and the young women, I met with the
+following adventure.
+
+Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observed myself
+followed by a young gentleman, whose rich dress first attracted my
+notice; for the rest, he had nothing remarkable in his person, except
+that he was pale, thin-made, and ventured himself upon legs rather of
+the slenderest. Easy was it to perceive, without seeming to perceive
+it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping his eyes fixed on
+me, till he came to the same basket that I stood at, and cheapening, or
+rather giving the first price asked for the fruit, began his
+approaches. Now most certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass
+for a modest girl. I had neither the feathers, nor fumet of a taudry
+town-miss: a straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all, a
+certain natural and easy air of modesty (which the appearances of never
+forsook me, even on those occasions that I most broke in upon it, in
+practice) were all signs that gave him no opening to conjecture my
+condition. He spoke to me; and this address from a stranger throwing a
+blush into my cheeks, that still set him wider of the truth, I answered
+him, with an awkwardness and confusion the more apt to impose, as there
+really was a mixture of the genuine in them. But when proceeding, on
+the foot of having broken the ice, to join discourse, he went into
+other leading questions, I put so much innocence, simplicity, and even
+childishness, into my answers, that on no better foundation, liking my
+person as he did, I will not answer for it, he would have been sworn
+for my modesty. There is, in short, in the men, when once they are
+caught, by the eye especially, a fund of cullibility that their lordly
+wisdom little dreams of, and in virtue of which the most sagacious of
+them are seen so often our dupes. Amongst other queries he put to me,
+one was, whether I was married? I replied, that I was too young to
+think of that this many a year. To that of my age, I answered, and sunk
+a year upon him, passing myself for not above seventeen. As to my way
+of life, I told him I had served an apprenticeship to a milliner in
+Preston, and was come to town after a relation, that I had found, on my
+arrival, was dead, and now lived journey-woman to a milliner in town.
+That last article, indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended
+to pass for; but it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I had
+inspired him with. After he had next got out of me, very dexterously as
+he thought, what I had no sort of design to make reserve of, my own, my
+mistress’s name, and place of abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the
+rarest and dearest he could pick out and sent me home, pondering on
+what might be the consequence of this adventure.
+
+As soon then as I came to Mrs. Cole’s, I related to her all that
+passed, on which she very judiciously concluded, that if he did not
+come after me there was no harm done, and that, if he did, as her
+presage suggested to her he would, his character and his views should
+be well sifted, so as to know whether the game was worth the springes;
+that in the mean time nothing was easier than my part in it, since no
+more rested on me than to follow her cue and promptership throughout,
+till the last act.
+
+The next morning, after an evening spent on his side, as we afterwards
+learnt, in perquisitions into Mrs. Cole’s character in the
+neighbourhood (than which nothing could be more favourable to her
+designs upon him), my gentleman came in his chariot to the shop, where
+Mrs. Cole alone had an inkling of his errand. Asking then for her, he
+easily made a beginning of acquaintance by bespeaking some millinery
+ware; when, as I sat without lifting my eyes, and pursuing the hem of a
+ruffle with the utmost composure and simplicity of industry, Mrs. Cole
+took notice, that the first impressions I made on him ran no risk of
+being destroyed by those of Louisa and Emily, who were then sitting at
+work by me. After vainly endeavouring to catch my eyes in rencounter
+with him (I held my head down, affecting a kind of consciousness of
+guilt for having, by speaking to him given him encouragement and means
+of following me), and after giving Mrs. Cole direction when to bring
+the things home herself, and the time he should expect them, he went
+out, taking with him some goods, that he paid for liberally, for the
+better grace of his introduction.
+
+The girls all this time did not in the least smoak the mystery of this
+new customer; but Mrs. Cole, as soon as we were conveniently alone,
+insured me, in virtue of her long experience in these matters, “that
+for this bout my charms had not missed fire; for by his eagerness, his
+manner and looks, she was sure he had it: the only point now in doubt
+was his character and circumstances, which her knowledge of the town
+would soon gain her the sufficient acquaintance with, to take measure
+upon.”
+
+And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence served her so well,
+that she learned that this conquest of mine was no other than Mr.
+Norbert, a gentleman originally of great fortune, which, with a
+constitution naturally not the best, he had vastly impaired by his
+over-violent pursuit of the vices of the town; in the course of which,
+having worn out and staled all the more common modes of debauchery, he
+had fallen into a taste of maiden-hunting; in which chase he had ruined
+a number of girls, sparing no expense to compass his ends, and
+generally using them well till tired, or cooled by enjoying, or
+springing a new face, he could with more ease disembarrass himself of
+the old ones, and resign them to their fate, as his sphere of
+achievements of that sort lay only amongst such as he could proceed
+with by way of bargain and sale.
+
+Concluding from these premises, Mrs. Cole observed, that a character of
+this sort was ever a lawful prize; that the sin would be, not to make
+the best of our market of him; and that she thought such a girl as I
+only too good for him at any rate, and on any terms.
+
+She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in one of our
+inns of court, which were furnished in a taste of grandeur that had a
+special eye to all the conveniences of luxury and pleasure. Here she
+found him in ready waiting; and after finishing her business of
+pretence, and a long conduit of discussions concerning her trade, which
+she said was very bad, the qualities of her servants, apprentices,
+journey-women, the discourse naturally landed at length on me, when
+Mrs. Cole, acting admirably the good old prating gossip, who lets every
+thing escape her when her tongue is set in motion, cooked him up a
+story so plausible of me, throwing in every now and then such strokes
+of art, with all the simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and
+temper, as finished him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing could be
+better counterfeited than her innocence of his. But when now fired and
+on edge, he proceeded to drop hints of his design and views upon me,
+after he had with much confusion and pains brought her to the point
+(she kept as long aloof from it as she thought proper) of understanding
+him, without now affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying
+out into those violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck with the
+better grace and effect to the character of a plain, good sort of
+woman, that knew no harm, and that getting her bread in an honest way,
+was made of stuff easy and flexible enough to be wrought to his ends,
+by his superior skill and address; but, however, she managed so
+artfully that three or four meetings took place, before he could obtain
+the least favourable hope of her assistance; without which, he had, by
+a number of fruitless messages, letters, and other direct trials of my
+disposition, convinced himself there was no coming at me, all which too
+raised at once my character and price with him.
+
+Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties to such a length
+as might afford time for starting discoveries, or incidents,
+unfavourable to her plan, she at last pretended to be won over by mere
+dint of entreaties, promises, and, above all, by the dazzling sum she
+took care to wind him up to the specification of, when it was now even
+a piece of art to feign, at once, a yielding to the allurements of a
+great interest, as a pretext for her yielding at all, and the manner of
+it such as might persuade him she had never dipped her virtuous fingers
+in an affair of that sort.
+
+Thus she led him through all the gradations of difficulty, and
+obstacles, necessary to enhance the value of the prize he aimed at; and
+in conclusion, he was so struck with the little beauty I was mistress
+of, and so eagerly bent on gaining his ends of me, that he left her no
+room to boast of her management in bringing him up to her mark, he
+drove so plump of himself into every thing tending to make him swallow
+the bait. Not but, in other respects, Mr. Norbert was not clear sighted
+enough, or that he did not perfectly know the town, and even by
+experience, the very branch of imposition now in practice upon him: but
+we had his passion our friend so much, he was so blinded and hurried on
+by it, that he would have thought any undeception a very ill office
+done to his pleasure. Thus concurring, even precipitately, to the point
+she wanted him at, Mrs. Cole brought him at last to hug himself on the
+cheap bargain he considered the purchase of my imaginary jewel was to
+him, at no more than three hundred guineas to myself, and a hundred to
+the brokers: being a slender recompense for all her pains, and all the
+scruples of conscience she had now sacrificed to him for this first
+time of her life; which sums were to be paid down on the nail, upon
+delivery of my person, exclusive of some no inconsiderable presents
+that had been made in the course of the negociation: during which I had
+occasionally, but sparingly been introduced into his company, at proper
+times and hours; in which it is incredible how little it seemed
+necessary to strain my natural disposition to modesty higher, in order
+to pass it upon him for that a very maid: all my looks and gestures
+ever breathing nothing but that innocence which the men so ardently
+require in us, for no other end than to feast themselves with the
+pleasure of destroying it, and which they are so grievously, with all
+their skill, subject to mistakes in.
+
+When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed on, the
+stipulated payments duly secured, and nothing now remained but the
+execution of the main point, which centered in the surrender of my
+person up to his free disposal and use, Mrs. Cole managed her
+objections, especially to his lodgings, and insinuations so nicely,
+that it became his own mere notion and urgent request, that this copy
+of a wedding should be finished at her house: “At first, indeed, she
+did not care, not she, to have such doings in it... she would not for a
+thousand pounds have any of the servants or apprentices know it... her
+precious good name would be gone for ever...,” with the like excuses.
+However, on superior objections to all other expedients, whilst she
+took care to start none but those which were most liable to them it
+came round at last to the necessity of her obliging him in that
+conveniency, and of doing a little more where she had already done so
+much.
+
+The night then was fixed, with all possible respect to the eagerness of
+his impatience, and in the mean time Mrs. Cole had omitted no
+instructions, nor even neglected any preparation, that might enable me
+to come off with honour, in regard to the appearance of my virginity,
+except that, favoured as I was by nature with all the narrowness of
+stricture in that part requisite to conduct my designs, I had no
+occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that create a momentary
+one, easily discovered by the test of a warm bath; and as to the usual
+sanguinary symptoms of defloration, which, if not always, are generally
+attendants on it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of
+her own, which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in its
+place.
+
+Every thing then being disposed and fixed for Mr. Norbert’s reception,
+he was, at the hour of eleven at night, with all the mysteries of
+silence and secrecy, let in by Mrs. Cole herself, and introduced into
+her bedchamber, where, in an old-fashioned bed of her’s, I lay, fully
+undressed, and panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least
+with those perhaps greater of a dissembled one which gave me an air of
+confusion and bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all the honour of,
+and was indeed scarce distinguishable from it, even by less partial
+eyes than those of my lover: so let me call him, for I ever thought the
+term “cully” too cruel a reproach to the men, for their abused weakness
+for us.
+
+As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these occasions, used
+to young women abandoned for the first time to the will of man, had
+left us alone in her room, which, by the bye was well lighted up, at
+his previous desire, that seemed to bode a stricter examination than he
+afterwards made, Mr. Norbert, still dressed, sprung towards the bed,
+where I got my head under the clothes, and defended them a good while
+before he could even get at my lips, to kiss them: so true it is, that
+a false virtue, on this occasion, even makes & greater rout and
+resistance than a true one. From thence he descended to my breasts, the
+feel I disputed tooth and nail with him till tired with my resistance,
+and thinking probable to give a better account to me, he hurried his
+clothes off in an instant, and came into bed.
+
+Mean while by the glimpse I stole of him, I could easily discover a
+person far from promising any such doughty performances as the storming
+of maidenheads generally requires, and whose flimsy consumptive texture
+gave him more the air of an invalid that was pressed, than of a
+volunteer, on such hot service.
+
+At scarce thirty he had already reduced his strength of appetite down
+to a wretched dependance on forced provocatives, very little seconded
+by the natural power of a body jaded, and racked off to the less by
+constant repeated over draughts of pleasure, which had done the work of
+sixty winters on his springs of live: leaving him at the same time all
+the fire and head of youth in his imagination, which served at once to
+torment and spur him down the precipice.
+
+As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bedclothes, which I suffered
+him to force from my hold, and I now lay as exposed as he could wish,
+not only to his attacks, but his visitation of the sheets; where in the
+various agitations of the body, through my endeavours to defend myself,
+he could easily assure himself there was no preparation, though, to do
+him justice, he seemed a less strict examinant than I had apprehended
+from so experienced a practitioner. My shift then he fairly tore open,
+finding I made too much use of it to barricade my breasts, as well as
+the more important avenue: yet in every thing else he proceeded with
+all the marks of tenderness and regard to me, whilst the art of my play
+was to shew none for him, I acted them all the niceties, apprehensions,
+and terrors, supposable for a girl perfectly innocent to feel, at so
+great a novelty as a naked man in bed with her for the first time. He
+scarce even obtained a kiss but what he ravished; I put his hand away
+twenty times from my breasts, where he had satisfied himself of their
+hardness and consistence, with passing for hitherto unhandled goods.
+But when grown impatient upon the main point, he now threw himself upon
+me, and first trying to examine me with his finger, sought to make
+himself further way, I complained of his usage bitterly: “I thought he
+would not have served a body so... I was ruined... I did not know what
+I had done..., I would get up, so I would...;” and at the same time
+kept my thighs so fast locked, that it was not for strength like his to
+force them open, or do any good. Finding thus my advantages, and that I
+had both my own and his motions at command, the deceiving him came so
+easy, that it was perfectly playing upon velvet. In the mean time his
+machine, which was one of those sizes that slip in and out without
+being minded, kept pretty stiffly bearing against that part, which the
+shutting my thighs barred access to; but finding, at length he could do
+no good by mere dint of bodily strength, he resorted to entreaties and
+arguments: to which I only answered, with a tone of shame and timidity,
+“that I was afraid he would kill me... Lord!..., would not be served
+so... I was never so used in all my born days..., I wondered he was not
+ashamed of himself, so I did...,” with such silly infantine moods of
+repulse and complaint as I judged best adapted to express the character
+of innocence, and affright. Pretending, however, to yield at length to
+the vehemence of his insistence, in action and words, I sparing
+disclosed my thighs, so that he could just touch the cloven inlet with
+the tip of his instrument: but as he fatigued and toiled to get in, a
+twist of my body, so as to receive it obliquely, not only thwarted his
+admission, but giving a scream, as if he had pierced me to the heart, I
+shook him off me, with such violence that he could not with all his
+might to it, keep the saddle: vexed indeed at this he seemed, but not
+in the style of displeasure with me for my skittishness; on the
+contrary, I dare swear he held me the dearer, and hugged himself for
+the difficulties that even hurt his instant pleasure. Fired, however,
+now beyond all bearance of delay, he remounts, and begged of me to have
+patience, stroking and soothing me to it by all the tenderest
+endearments and protestations of what he would moreover do for me; at
+which, feigning to be somewhat softened, and abating of the anger that
+I had shewn at his hurting me so prodigiously, I suffered him to lay my
+thighs aside, and make way for a new trial; but I watched the
+directions and management of his point so well, that no sooner was the
+orifice in the least open to it, but I gave such a timely jerk as
+seemed to proceed not from the evasion of his entry, but from the pain
+his efforts at it put me to: a circumstance too that I did not fail to
+accompany with proper gestures, sighs and cries of complaint, of which,
+“that he had hurt me... he killed me... I should die...,” were the most
+frequent interjections. But now, after repeated attempts, in which he
+had not made the least impression towards gaining his point, at least
+for that time, the pleasure rose so fast upon him, that he could not
+check or delay it, and in the vigour and fury which the approaches of
+the height of it inspired him, he made one fierce-thrust, that had
+almost put me by my guard, and lodged it so far that I could feel the
+warm inspersion just within the exterior orifice, which I had the
+cruelty not to let him finish there, but threw him out again, not
+without a most piercing loud exclamation, as if the pain had put me
+beyond all regard of being overheard. It was then easy to observe that
+he was more satisfied, more highly pleased with the supposed motives of
+his baulk of consummation, than he would have-been at the full
+attainment of it. It was on this foot that I solved to myself all the
+falsity I employed to procure him that blissful pleasure in it, which
+most certainly he would not have tasted in the truth of things. Eased,
+however, and relieved by one discharge, he now applied himself to
+sooth, encourage, and to put me into humour and patience to bear his
+next attempt, which he began to prepare and gather force for, from all
+the incentives of the touch and sight which he could think of, by
+examining every individual part of my whole body, which he declared his
+satisfaction with, in raptures of applause, kisses universally
+imprinted, and sparing no part of me, in all the eagerest wantonness of
+feeling, seeing, and toying. His vigour, however, did not return so
+soon, and I felt him more than once pushing at the door, but so little
+in a condition to break in, that I question whether he had the power to
+enter, had I held it ever so open; but this he then thought me too
+little acquainted with the nature of things, to have any regret or
+confusion about, and he kept fatiguing himself and me for a long time,
+before he was in any state to resume his attacks with any prospect of
+success and then I breathed him so warmly, and kept him so at bay, that
+before he had made any sensible progress in point of penetration, he
+was deliciously sweated, and wearied out indeed: so that it was deep in
+the morning before he achieved his second let-go, about half way of
+entrance, I all the while crying and complaining of his prodigious
+vigour, and the immensity of what I appeared to suffer splitting up
+with. Tired, however, at length, with such athletic drudgery, my
+champion began now to give out, and to gladly embrace the refreshment
+of some rest. Kissing me then with much affection, and recommending me
+to my repose, he presently fell fast asleep, which, as soon as I had
+well satisfied myself of, I with much composure of body, so as not to
+wake him by any motion, with much ease and safety too, played of Mrs.
+Cole’s device for perfecting the signs of my virginity. In each of the
+head bed-posts, just above where the bedsteads are inserted into them,
+there was a small drawer, so artfully adapted to the mouldings of the
+timber-work, that it might have escaped even the most curious search:
+which drawers were easily opened or shut by the touch of a spring, and
+were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a prepared fluid
+blood, in which lay soaked, for ready use, a sponge, that required no
+more than gently reaching the hand to it, taking it out and properly
+squeezing between the thighs, when it yelded a great deal more of the
+red liquid than would save a girl’s honour; after which, replacing it,
+and touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of
+suspicion, was taken away; and this was not the work of the fourth part
+of a minute, and of which ever side one lay, the thing was equally easy
+and practicable, by the double care taken to have each bed-post
+provided alike. True it is, that had he waked and caught me in the act,
+it would at least have covered me with shame and confusion; but them,
+that he did not, was, with the precautions I took, a risk of a thousand
+to one in my favour.
+
+At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or suspicion on his side,
+I addressed myself in good earnest to my repose, but could obtain none;
+and in about half an hour’s time my gentleman waked again, and turning
+towards me, I feigned a sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but
+girding himself again to renew the onset, he began to kiss and caress
+me, when now making as if I just waked, I complained of the
+disturbance, and of the cruel pain that this little rest had stole my
+senses from. Eager, however, for the pleasure, as well of consummating
+an entire triumph over my virginity, he said every thing that could
+overcome my resistance, and bribe my patience to the end, which now I
+was ready to listen to, from being secure of the bloody proofs I had
+prepared of his victorious violence, though I still thought it good
+policy not to let him in yet a while. I answered then only to his
+importunities in sighs and moans, “that I was so hurt, I could not bear
+it... I was sure he had done me a mischief; that he had... he was such
+a bad man!” At this, turning down the clothes, and viewing the field of
+battle by the glimmer of a dying taper, he saw plainly my thighs,
+shift, and sheet, all stained with what he readily took for a virgin
+effusion, proceeding from his last half penetration: convinced, and
+transported at which, nothing could equal his joy and exultation. The
+illusion was complete, no other conception entered his head, but that
+of his having been at work upon an unopened mine; which idea, upon so
+strong an evidence, redoubled at once his tenderness for me, and his
+ardour for breaking it wholly up. Kissing me then with the utmost
+rapture, he comforted me, and begged my pardon for the pain he had put
+me to: observing withal, that it was only a thing in course; but the
+worst was certainly past, and that with a little courage and constancy,
+I should get it once well over, and never after experience any thing
+but the greatest pleasure. By little and little I suffered myself to be
+prevailed on, and giving, as it were, up to the point of him, I made my
+thighs, insensibly spreading them, yield him liberty of access, which
+improving, he got a little within me, when by a well managed reception
+I worked the female screw so nicely, that I kept him from the easy
+mid-channel direction, and by dexterous wreathing and contortions,
+creating an artificial difficulty of entrance, made him win it inch by
+inch, with the most laborious struggles, I all the while sorely
+complaining: till at length, with might and main, winding his way in,
+he got it completely home, and giving my virginity, as he thought, the
+coup le grace, furnished me with the cue of setting up a terrible
+outcry, whilst he, triumphant and like a cock clapping his wings over
+his down-trod mistress, pursued his pleasure: which presently rose, in
+virtue of this idea of a complete victory, to a pitch that made me soon
+sensible of his melting period; whilst I now lay acting the deep
+wounded, breathless, frightened, undone, no longer maid.
+
+You would ask me, perhaps, whether all this time I enjoyed any
+perception of pleasure? I assure you, little or none, till just towards
+the latter end, a faintish sense of it came on mechanically, from so
+long a struggle and frequent fret in that ever sensible part; but, in
+the first place, I had no taste for the person I was suffering the
+embraces of, on a pure mercenary account; and then, I was not entirely
+delighted with myself for the jade’s part I was playing, whatever
+excuses I might plead for my being brought into it; but then this
+insensibility kept me so much the mistress of my mind and motions, that
+I could the better manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole
+scene of deception.
+
+Recovered at length to a more shew of life, by his tender condolences,
+kisses and embraces, I upbraided him, and reproached him with my ruin,
+in such natural terms, as added to his satisfaction with himself, for
+having accomplished it; and guessing, by certain observations of mine,
+that it would be rather favourable to him, to spare him, when he some
+time after, feebly enough, came on again to the assault, I resolutely
+withstood any further endeavours, on a pretext that flattered his
+prowess, of my being so violently hurt and sore, that I could not
+possibly endure a fresh trial. He then graciously granted me a respite,
+and the next morning soon after advancing, I got rid of further
+importunity, till Mrs. Cole, being rung for by him, came in and was
+made acquainted, in terms of the utmost joy and rapture, with his
+triumphant certainty of my virtue, and the finishing stroke he had
+given it, in the course of the night: of which, he added, she would see
+proof enough in bloody characters, on the sheets.
+
+You may guess how a woman of her turn of address and experience
+humoured the jest, and played him off with mixed exclamations of shame,
+danger, compassion for me, and of her being pleased that all was so
+well over: in which last, I believe, she was certainly sincere. And
+now, as the objection which she had represented as an invincible one,
+to me lying the first night at his lodgings (which were studiously
+calculated for freedom of intrigues), on the account of my maiden fears
+and terrors, at the thought of going to a gentleman’s chambers, and
+being alone with him in bed, was surmounted, she pretended to persuade
+me, in favour to him, that I should go there to him, whenever he
+pleased, and still keep up all the necessary appearances of working
+with her, that I might not lose, with my character, the prospect of
+getting a good husband, and at the same time her house would be kept
+safer from scandal. All this seemed so reasonable, so considerate to
+Mr. Norbert, that he never once perceived that she did not want him to
+resort to her house, lest he might in time discover certain
+inconsistencies with the character she had set out with to him: besides
+that this plan greatly flattered his own ease, and views of liberty.
+
+Leaving me then to my much wanted rest, he got up, and Mrs. Cole, after
+settling with him all points relating to me, got him undiscovered out
+of the house. After which, as I was awake, she came in, and gave me due
+praises for my success. Behaving too with her usual moderation and
+disinterestedness, she refused any share of the sum I had thus earned,
+and put me into such a secure and easy way of disposing of my affairs,
+which now amounted to a kind of little fortune, that a child of ten
+years old might have kept the account and property of them safe in its
+hands.
+
+I was now restored again to my former state of a kept mistress, and
+used punctually to wait on Mr. Norbert at his chambers whenever he sent
+a messenger for me, which I constantly took care to be in the way of,
+and managed with so much caution, that he never once penetrated the
+nature of my connections with Mrs. Cole; but indolently given up to
+ease and the town dissipations, the perpetual hurry of them hindered
+him from looking into his own affairs, much less to mine.
+
+In the mean time, if I may judge from my own experience, none are
+better paid, or better treated, during their reign, than the mistress
+of those who, enervate by nature, debaucheries, or age, have the least
+employment for the sex: sensible that a woman must be satisfied some
+way, they ply her with a thousand little tender attentions, presents,
+caresses, confidences, and exhaust their inventions in means and
+devices to make up for the capital deficiency; and even towards
+lessening that, what arts, what modes, what refinements of pleasure
+have they not recourse to, to raise their languid powers, and press
+nature into the service of their sensuality? But here is their
+misfortune, that when by a course of teasing, worrying, handling,
+wanton postures, lascivious motions, they have at length accomplished a
+flashy enervate enjoyment, they at the same time light up a flame in
+the object of their passion, that, not having the means themselves to
+quench, drives her for relief into the next person’s arms, who can
+finish their work; and thus they become bawds to some favourite, tried
+and approved of, for a more vigorous and satisfactory execution; for
+with women, of our turn especially, however well our hearts may be
+disposed, there is a controlling part, or queen-seat in us, that
+governs itself by its own maxims of state, amongst which not one is
+stronger, in practice with it, than, in the matter of is dues, never to
+accept the will for the deed.
+
+Mr. Norbert, who was much in this ungracious case, though he professed
+to like me extremely, could but seldom consummate the main-joy itself
+with me, without such a length and variety of preparations, as were at
+once wearisome and inflammatory.
+
+Sometimes he would strip me stark naked on a carpet, by a good fire,
+when he would contemplate me almost by the hour, disposing me in all
+the figures and attitudes of body that it was susceptible of being
+viewed in; kissing me in every part, the most secret and critical one
+so far from excepted that it received most of that branch of homage.
+Then his touches were so exquisitely wanton, so luxuriously diffused
+and penetrative at times, that he had made me perfectly rage with
+titillating fires, when, after all, and much ado, he had gained a
+short-lived erection, he would perhaps melt it away in a washy sweat,
+or a premature abortive effusion, that provokingly mocked my eager
+desires: or, if carried home, how faultered and unnervous the
+execution! how insufficient the sprinkle of a few heat-drops to
+extinguish all the flames he had kindled!
+
+One evening, I cannot help remembering, that returning home from him,
+with a spirit he had raised in a circle his wand had proved too weak to
+lay, as I turned the corner of a street, I was overtaken by a young
+sailor, I was then in that spruce, neat, plain dress, which I ever
+affected and perhaps might have, in my trip, a certain air of
+restlessness unknown to the composure of cooler thoughts. However, he
+seized me as a prize, and without farther ceremony threw his arms round
+my neck, and kissed me boisterously and sweetly. I looked at him with a
+beginning of anger and indignation at his rudeness, that softened away
+into other sentiments as I viewed him: for he was tall, manly
+carriaged, handsome of body and face, so that I ended my stare, with
+asking him, in a tone turned to tenderness, what he meant; at which,
+with the same frankness and vivacity as he had begun with me, he
+proposed treating me with a glass of wine. Now, certain it is, that had
+I been in a calmer state of blood than I was, had I not been under the
+dominion of unappeased irritation; but I do not know how it was, my
+pressing calls, his figure, the occasion, and if you will, the powerful
+combination of all these, with a start of curiosity to see the end of
+an adventure, so novel too as being treated like a common street-plyer,
+made me give a silent consent; in short, it was not my head that I now
+obeyed, I suffered myself to be towed along as it were by this
+man-of-war, who took me under his arm as familialry as if he had known
+me all his lifetime, and led me into the next convenient tavern, where
+we were shown into a little room on one side of the passage. Here,
+scarce allowing himself patient till the drawer brought in the wine
+called for, he fell directly on board me: when, untucking my
+handkerchief, and giving me a snatching buss, he laid my breasts bare
+at once, which he handled with that keenness of gust that abridges a
+ceremonial evermore tiresome than pleasing on such pressing occasions;
+and now, hurrying towards the main point, we found no conveniency to
+our purpose, two or three disabled chairs, and a rickety table,
+composing the whole furniture of the room. Without more ado, he plans
+me with my back standing against the wall, and my petticoats up; and
+coming out with a splitter indeed, made it shine, as he brandished it,
+in my eyes; and going to work with an impetuosity and eagerness, bred
+very likely by a long fast at seat, went to give me a taste of it. I
+straddled, I humoured my posture, and did my best in short to buckle to
+it; I took part of it in, but still things did not go to his thorough
+liking; changing them in a trice his system of battery, he leads me to
+the table and with a master-hand lays my head down on the edge of it,
+and, with the other canting up my petticoats and shift, bares my naked
+posteriors to his blind and furious guide; it forces its way between
+them, and I feeling pretty sensibly that it was not going by the right
+door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him of
+it:—“Pooh!” says he, “my dear, any port in a storm.” Altering, however,
+directly his course, and lowering his point, he fixed it right, and
+driving it up with a delicious stiffness, made all foam again, and gave
+me the tout with such fire and spirit, that in the fine disposition I
+was in when I submitted to him and stirred up so fiercely as I was, I
+got the start of him, and went away into the melting swoon, and
+squeezing him, whilst in the convulsive grasp of it, drew from him such
+a plenteous bedewal, as pointed to my own effusion, perfectly floated
+those parts, and drowned in a deluge all my raging conflagration of
+desire.
+
+When this was over, how to make my retreat was my concern; for, though
+I had been so extremely pleased with the difficult between this warm
+broadside, poured so briskly into me, and the tiresome pawing and
+toying to which I had owed the unappeased flames that had driven me
+into this step, now I was cooler, I began to apprehend the danger of
+contracting an acquaintance with this, however agreeable stranger; who,
+on his side, spoke of passing the evening with me and continuing our
+intimacy, with an air of determination that made me afraid of its being
+not so easy to get away from him as I could wish. In the mean time I
+carefully concealed my uneasiness, and readily pretended to consent to
+stay with him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave a
+necessary direction, and then instantly return. This he very glibly
+swallowed, on the notion of my being one of those unhappy
+street-errants, who devote themselves to the pleasure of the first
+ruffian that will stoop to pick them up, and of course, that I would
+scarce bilk myself of the hire, by not returning make the most of the
+job. Thus he parted with me, not before, however, he had ordered in my
+hearing a supper, which I had the barbarity to disappoint him of my
+company too.
+
+But when I got home, and told Mrs. Cole my adventure, she represented
+so strongly to me the nature and dangerous consequences of my folly,
+particularly the risks to my health, in being so openlegged and free,
+that I not only took resolutions never to venture so rashly again,
+which I inviolably preserved, but passed a good many days in continual
+uneasiness, lest I should have met with other reasons, besides the
+pleasure of that rencounter, to remember it; but these fears wronged my
+pretty sailor, for which I gladly make him this reparation.
+
+I had now lived with Mr. Norbert near a quarter of a year, in which
+space I circulated my time very pleasantly, between my amusements at
+Mrs. Cole’s, and a proper attendance on that gentleman, who paid me
+profusely for the unlimited complaisance with which I passively
+humoured every caprice of pleasure, and which had won upon him so
+greatly, that finding, as he said, all that variety in me alone, which
+he had sought for in a number of women, I had made him lose his taste
+for inconstancy, and new faces. But what was yet at least agreeable, as
+well as more flattering, the love I had inspired him with, bred a
+deference to me, that was of great service to his health: for having by
+degrees, and with much pathetic representations brought him to some
+husbandry of it, and to insure the duration of his pleasures by
+moderating their use, and correcting those excesses in them he was so
+addicted to, and which had shattered his constitution and destroyed his
+powers of life in the very point for which he seemed desirous to live,
+he was grown more delicate, more temperate, and in course more healthy;
+his gratitude for which was taking a turn very favourable for my
+fortune, when once more the caprice of it dashed the cup from my lips.
+
+His sister, lady L..., for whom he had a great affection, desiring him
+to accompany her down to Bath for her health, he could not refuse her
+such a favour; and accordingly, though he counted on staying away from
+me no more than a week at farthest, he took his leave of me with an
+ominous heaviness of heart, and left me a sum far above the state of
+his fortune, and very inconsistent with the intended shortness of his
+journey; but it ended in the longest that can be, and is never but once
+taken: for, arrived at Bath, he was not there two days before he fell
+into a debauch of drinking with some gentlemen, that threw him into a
+high fever, and carried him off in four days’ time, never once out of a
+delirium. Had he been in his senses to make a will, perhaps he might
+have made favourable mention of me in it. Thus, however, I lost him;
+and as no condition of life is more subject to revolutions than that of
+a woman of pleasure, I soon recovered my cheerfulness, and now beheld
+myself once more struck off the list of kept mistresses, and returned
+into the bosom of the community, from which I had been in some manner
+taken.
+
+Mrs. Cole still continued her friendship, and offered me her assistance
+and advice towards another choice; but I was now in ease and affluence
+enough to look about me at leisure; and as to any constitutional calls
+of pleasure, their pressure, or sensibility, was greatly lessened by a
+consciousness of the ease with which they were to be satisfied at Mrs.
+Cole’s house, where Louisa and Emily still continued in the old way;
+and my great favourite Harriet used often to come and see me, and
+entertain me, with her head and heart full of the happiness she enjoyed
+with her dear baronet, whom she loved with a tenderness and constancy,
+even though he was her keeper, and what is yet more, had made her
+independent, by a handsome provision for her and hers. I was then in
+this vacancy from any regular employ of my person in my way of
+business, when one day, Mrs. Cole, in the course of the constant
+confidence we lived in, acquainted me that there was one Mr. Barville,
+who used her house, just come to town, whom she was not a little
+perplexed about providing a suitable companion for; which was indeed a
+point of difficulty, as he was under the tyranny of a cruel taste: that
+of an ardent desire, not only of being unmercifully whipped himself,
+but of whipping others, in such sort, that though he paid extravagantly
+those who had the courage and complaisance to submit to his humour,
+there were few, delicate as he was in the choice of his subjects, who
+would exchange turns with him so terribly at the expense of their skin.
+But, what yet increased the oddity of this strange fancy was the
+gentleman being young; whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as
+are, through age, obliged to have recourse to this experiment, for
+quickening the circulation of their sluggish juices, and determining a
+conflux of the spirits of pleasure towards those flagging shrivelly
+parts, that rise to life only by virtue of those titillating ardours
+created by the discipline of their opposites, with which they have so
+surprising a consent.
+
+This Mrs. Cole could not well acquaint me with, in any expectation of
+my offering for service: for, sufficiently easy as I was in my
+circumstances, it must have been the temptation of an immense interest
+indeed, that could have induced me to embrace such a job, neither had I
+ever expressed, nor indeed, felt the least impulse or curiosity to know
+more of a taste, that promised so much more pain than pleasure to those
+that stood in no need of such violent goads: what then should move me
+to subscribe myself voluntarily to a party of pain, foreknowing it
+such? Why, to tell the plain truth, it was a sudden caprice, a gust of
+fancy for trying a new experiment, mixed with the vanity of approving
+my personal courage to Mrs. Cole, that determined me, at all risks, to
+propose myself to her and relieve her from any further look-out.
+Accordingly, I at once pleased and surprised her, with a frank and
+unreserved tender of my person to her and her friend’s absolute
+disposal on this occasion.
+
+My good temporal mother was, however, so kind as to use all the
+arguments she could imagine to dissuade me: but, as I found they only
+turned on a motive of tenderness to me, I persisted in my resolution,
+and thereby acquitted my offer of any suspicion of its not having been
+sincerely made, or out of compliment only. Acquiescing then thankfully
+in it, Mrs. Cole assured me “that bating the pain I should be put to,
+she had no scruple to engage me to this party, which she assured me I
+should be liberally paid for, and which, the secrecy of the transaction
+preserved safe from the ridicule that otherwise vulgarly attended it;
+that for her part, she considered pleasure, of one sort or other, as
+the universal port of destination, and every wind that blew thither a
+good one, provided it blew nobody any harm; that she rather
+compassionated, than blamed those unhappy persons, who are under a
+subjection they cannot shake off, to those arbitrary tastes that rule
+their appetites of pleasures with an unaccountable control: tastes too,
+as infinitely diversified, as superior to, and independent of all
+reasoning as the different relishes or palates of mankind in their
+viands, some delicate stomach nauseating plain meats, and finding no
+savour but in highseasoned, luxurious dishes, whilst others again pique
+themselves upon detesting them.”
+
+I stood now in no need of this preamble of encouragement, or
+justification: my word was given, and I was determined to fulfill my
+engagements. Accordingly the night was set, and I had all the necessary
+previous instructions how to act and conduct myself. The dining room
+was duly prepared and lighted up, and the young gentleman posted there
+in waiting, for my introduction to him.
+
+I was then, by Mrs. Cole, brought in, and presented to him, in a loose
+dishabille fitted, by her direction, to the exercise I was to go
+through, all in the finest linen and a thorough white uniform: gown,
+petticoat, stocking, and satin slippers, like a victim led to
+sacrifice; whilst my dark auburn hair, falling in drop-curls over my
+neck, created a pleasing distinction of colour from the rest of my
+dress.
+
+As soon as Mr. Barville saw me, he got up, with a visible air of
+pleasure and surprise, and saluting me, asked Mrs. Cole, if so fine and
+delicate a creature would voluntarily submit to such sufferings and
+rigours, as were the subject of his assignation. She answered him
+properly, and now, reading in his eyes that she could not too soon
+leave us together, she went out, after recommending to him to use
+moderation with so tender a novice.
+
+But whilst she was employing his attention, mine had been taken up with
+examining the figure and person of this unhappy young gentleman, who
+was thus unaccountably condemned to have his pleasure lashed into him,
+as boys have their learning.
+
+He was exceedingly fair, and, smooth complexioned, and appeared to me
+no more than twenty at most, though he was three years older than what
+my conjectures gave him; but then he owed this favourable mistake to a
+habit of fatness, which spread through a short, squab stature; and a
+round, plump, fresh coloured face gave him greatly the look of a
+Bacchus, had not an air of austerity, not to say sternness, very
+unsuitable even to his shape of face, dashed that character of joy,
+necessary to complete the resemblance. His dress was extremely neat,
+but plain, and far inferior to the ample fortune he was in full
+possession of; this too was a taste in him, and not avarice.
+
+As soon as Mrs. Cole was gone, he seated me near him, when now his face
+changed upon me, into an expression of the most pleasing sweetness and
+good humour, the most remarkable for its sudden shift from the other
+extreme, which I found afterwards, when I knew more of his character,
+was owing to a habitual state of conflict with, and dislike of himself,
+for being enslaved to so peculiar a lust, by the fatality of a
+constitutional ascendant, that rendered him incapable of receiving any
+pleasure, till he submitted to these extraordinary means of procuring
+it at the hands of pain, whilst the constancy of this repining
+consciousness stamped at length that cast of sourness and severity on
+his features: which was, in fact, very foreign to the natural sweetness
+of his temper.
+
+After a competent preparation by apologies, and encouragement to go
+through my part with spirit and constancy, he stood up near the fire,
+whilst I went to fetch the instruments of discipline out of a closet
+hard by: these were several rods, made each of two or three strong
+twigs of birch tied together, which he took, handled, and viewed with
+as much pleasure, as I did with a kind of shuddering presage.
+
+Next we took from the side of the room a long broad bench, made easy to
+lie at length on by a soft cushion in a callico-cover; and everything
+being now ready, he took his coat and waistcoat off; and at his motion
+and desire, I unbuttoned his breeches, and rolling up his shirt rather
+above his waist, tucked it on securely there; when directing naturally
+my eyes to that humoursone master-movement, in whose favour all these
+dispositions were making, it seemed almost shrunk into his body, scarce
+showing its tip above the sprout of hairy curls that clothed those
+parts, as you may have-seen a wren peeping its head out of the grass.
+
+Stooping them to untie his garters, he gave them to me for the use of
+tying him down to the legs of the bench: a circumstance no farther
+necessary than, as I suppose, it made part of the humour of the thing,
+since he prescribed it to himself, amongst the rest of the ceremonial.
+
+I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, played at forcing
+him to lie down: which, after-some little show of reluctance, for
+form-sake, he submitted to; he was straightway extended flat upon his:
+belly, on the bench, with a pillow under his face; and as he thus
+tamely lay, I tied him slightly hand and feet, to the legs of it; which
+done, his shirt remaining trussed up over the small of his back, I drew
+his breeches quite down to his knees; and now he lay, in all the
+fairest, broadest display of that part of the back-view; in which a
+pair of chubby, smooth-cheeked and passing white posteriors rose
+cushioning upwards from two stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their
+cleft, or separation by an union at the small of the back, presented a
+bold mark, that swelled, as it were, to meet the scourge.
+
+Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, and according to his
+direction, gave him in one breath, ten lashes with much good-will, and
+the utmost nerve and vigour of arm that I could put to them, so as to
+make those fleshy orbs quiver again under them; whilst he himself
+seemed no more concerned, or to mind them, than a lobster would a
+flea-bite. In the mean time, I view intently the effect of them, which
+to me at last appeared surprisingly cruel: every lash had skimmed the
+surface of those white cliffs, which they deeply reddened, and lapping
+round the side of the furthermost from me, cut specially, into the
+dimple of it, such livid weals, as the blood either spun out from, or
+stood in large drops on; and, from some of the cuts, I picked out even
+the splinters of the rod that had stuck in the skin. Nor was this raw
+work to be wondered at, considering the greenness of the twigs and the
+severity of the infliction, whilst the whole surface of the skin was so
+smooth-stretched over the hard and firm pulp of flesh that filled it,
+as to yield no play, or elusive swagging under the stroke: which
+thereby took place the more plump, and cut into the quick.
+
+I was however already so moved at the piteous sight, that I from my
+heart repented the undertaking, and would willing had given over,
+thinking he had full enough; but, he encouraging and beseeching me
+earnestly to proceed, I gave him ten more lashes; and then resting,
+surveyed the increase of bloody appearances. And at length, steeled to
+the height, by his stoutness in suffering, I continued the discipline,
+by intervals, till I observed him wreathing and twisting his body, in a
+way that I could plainly perceive was not the effect of pain, but of
+some new and powerful sensation: curious to dive into the meaning of
+which, in one of my pauses of intermission, I approached, as he still
+kept working, and grinding his belly against the cushion under him: and
+first stroking the untouched and unhurt side of the flesh-mount next
+me, then softly insinuating my hand under his thigh, felt the posture
+things were in forwards, which was indeed surprising: for that machine
+of him, which I had, by its appearance, taken for an impalpable, or at
+least a very diminutive subject, was now, in virtue of all that smart
+and havoc of his skin behind, grown not only to a prodigious stiffness
+of erection, but to a size that frighted even me: a non-pareil
+thickness indeed! the head of it alone filled the utmost capacity of my
+grasp. And when, as he heaved and wriggled to and fro, in the agitation
+of his strange pleasure, it came into view, it had something of the air
+of a round fillet of veal, and like its owner, squab, and short in
+proportion to its breadth; but when he felt my hand there, he begged I
+would go on briskly with my jerking, or he should never arrive at the
+last stage of pleasure.
+
+Resuming then the rode and the exercise of it, I had fairly worn out
+three bundles, when, after an increase of struggles and motion, and a
+deep sigh or two, I saw him lie still and motionless; and now he
+desired me to desist, which I instantly did; and proceeding to untie
+him, I could not but be amazed at his passive fortitude, on viewing the
+skin of his butchered, mangled posteriors, late so white, smooth and
+polished, now all one side of them a confused cut-work of weals, livid
+flesh, gashes and gore, insomuch that when he stood up, he could scarce
+walk; in short, he was in sweet-briars.
+
+Then I plainly perceived, on the cushion, the marks of a plenteous
+effusion, and already had his sluggard member run up to its old
+nestling-place, and enforced itself again, as if ashamed to shew its
+head; which nothing, it seems, could raise but stripes inflicted on its
+opposite neighbours, who were thus constantly obliged to suffer for his
+caprice.
+
+My gentleman had now put on his clothes and recomposed himself, when
+giving me a kiss, and placing me by him, he sat himself down as
+gingerly as possible, with one side off the cushion, which was too sore
+for him to bear resting any part of his weight on.
+
+Here he thanked me for the extreme pleasure I had procured him, and
+seeing, perhaps, some marks in my countenance of terror and
+apprehension of retaliation on my own skin, for what I had been the
+instrument of his suffering in his, he assured me, “he was ready to
+give up to me any engagement I might deem myself under to stand him, as
+he had done me, but that if I proceeding in my consent to it, he would
+consider the difference of my sex, its greater delicacy and incapacity
+to undergo pain.” Reheartened at which, and piqued in honour, as I
+thought, not to flinch so near the trial, especially as I well knew
+Mrs. Cole was an eye-witness, from her stand of espial, to the whole of
+our transaction, I was now less afraid of my skin, than of his not
+furnishing me with an opportunity of signalizing my resolution.
+
+Consonant to this disposition was my answer, but my courage was still
+more in my head, than in my heart; and as cowards rush into danger they
+fear, in order to be the sooner rid of the pain of that sensation, I
+was entirely pleased with his hastening matters into execution.
+
+He had then little to do, but to unloose the strings of my petticoats,
+and lift them, together with my shift, navel-high, where he just tucked
+them up loosely, and might be slipt up higher at pleasure. Then viewing
+me round with great seeming delight, he laid me at length on my face
+upon the bench, and when I expected he would tie me, as I had done him,
+and held out my hands, not without fear and a little trembling, he told
+me, “he would by no means terrify me unnecessarily with such a
+confinement; for that though he meant to put my constancy to a trial,
+the standing it was to be completely voluntary on my side, and
+therefore I might be at full liberty to get up whenever I found the
+pain too much for me.” You cannot imagine how much I thought myself
+bound, by being thus allowed to remain loose, and how much spirit this
+confidence in me gave me, so that I was even from my heart careless how
+much my flesh might suffer in honour of it.
+
+All my back parts, naked half way up, were now fully at his mercy: and
+first, he stood at a convenient distance, delighting himself with a
+gloating survey of the attitude I lay in, and of all the secret stores
+I thus exposed to him in fair display. Then, springing eagerly towards
+me, he covered all those naked parts with a fond profusion of kisses;
+and now, taking hold of the rod, rather wantoned with me, in gentle
+inflictions on those tender trembling masses of my flesh behind, than
+in any way hurt them, till by degrees, he began to tingle them with
+smarter lashes, so as to provoke a red colour into them, which I knew,
+as well by the flagrant glow I felt there, as by his telling me, they
+now emulated the native roses of my other cheeks. When he had thus
+amused himself with admiring, and toying with them, he went on to
+strike harder, and more hard, so that I needed all my patience not to
+cry out, or complain at least. At last, he twigged me so smartly as to
+fetch blood in more than one lash: at sight of which he flung down the
+rod, flew to me, kissed away the starting drops, and sucking the wounds
+eased a good deal of my pain. But now raising me on my knees, and
+making me kneel with them straddling wide, that tender part of me,
+naturally the province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share
+of suffering: for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the rod so that
+the sharp ends of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I could
+not help wincing, and writhing my limbs with smart; so that my
+contortions of body must necessarily throw it into infinite variety of
+postures and points of view, fit to feast the luxury of the eye. But
+still I bore every thing without crying out: when presently giving me
+another pause, he rushed, as it were, on that part whose lips, and
+round about, had felt this cruelty, and by way of reparation, glued his
+own to them; then he opened, shut, squeezed them, plucked softly the
+overgrowing moss, and all this in a style of wild passionate rapture
+and enthusiasm, that expressed excess of pleasure; till betaking
+himself to the rod again, encouraged by my passiveness, and infuriated
+with this strange taste of delight, he made my poor posteriors pay for
+the ungovernableness of it; for now showing them no quarter, the
+traitor cut me so, that I wanted but little of fainting away, when he
+gave over. And yet I did not utter one groan, or angry expostulation;
+but in my heart I resolved nothing so seriously, as never to expose
+myself again to the like severities.
+
+You may guess then in what a curious pickle those soft flesh-cushions
+of mine were, all so red, raw, and in fine, terribly clawed off; but so
+far from feeling any pleasure in it, that the recent smart made me pout
+a little, and not with the greatest air of satisfaction receive the
+compliments, and after-caresses of the author of my pain.
+
+As soon as my clothes were huddled on in a little decency, a supper was
+brought in by the discreet Mrs. Cole herself, which might have piqued
+the sensuality of a cardinal, accompanied with a choice of the richest
+wines: all which she set before us, and went out again, without having,
+by a word or even by a smile, given us the least interruption or
+confusion, in those moments of secrecy, that we were not yet ripe to
+the admission of a third too.
+
+I sat down then, still scarce in charity with my butcher, for such I
+could not help considering him, and was moreover not a little piqued at
+the gay, satisfied air of his countenance, which I thought myself
+insulted by. But when the now necessary refreshment to me of a glass of
+wine, and a little eating (all the time observing a profound silence)
+had somewhat cheered and restored me to spirits, and as the smart began
+to go off, my good humour returned accordingly: which alteration not
+escaping him, he said and did every thing that could confirm me in, and
+indeed exalt it.
+
+But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible was
+wrought in me, such violent, yet pleasingly irksome sensations took
+possession of me that I scarce knew how to contain myself; the smart of
+the lashes was now converted into such a prickly heat, such fiery
+tinglings, as made me sigh, squeeze my thighs together, shift and
+wriggle about my seat, with a furious restlessness; whilst these
+itching ardours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of
+discipline had principally fallen, detached legions of burning,
+subtile, stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of
+assemblage, where their titillation raged so furiously, that I was even
+stinging made with them. No wonder then that in such a taking, and
+devoured by flames that licked up all modesty and reserve, my eyes, now
+charged brimful of the most intense desire, fired on my companion very
+intelligible signal of distress: my companion, I say, who grew in them
+every instant more amiable, and more necessary to my urgent wishes and
+hopes of immediate ease.
+
+Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations, soon
+knew the pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme disorder; in
+favour of which, removing the table out of the way, he began a prelude
+that flattered me with instant relief, to which I was not, however, so
+near as I imagined: for as he was unbuttoned to me, and tried to
+provoke and rouse to action his unactive torpid machine, he blushingly
+owned that no good was to be expected from it, unless I took it in hand
+to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just refreshing the smart
+of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more than a boy’s
+top, keep up without lashing. Sensible then that I should work as much
+for my own profit as his, I hurried my compliance with his desire, and
+abridging the ceremonial, whilst he leaned his head against the back of
+a chair, I had scarce gently made him feel the lash, before I saw the
+object of my wishes give signs of life, and presently, as it were with
+a magic touch, is started up into a noble size and distinction indeed.
+Hastening then to give me the benefit of it, he threw me down on the
+bench; but such was the refreshed soreness of those parts behind, on my
+leaning so hard on them, as became me to compass the admission of that
+stupendous head of his machine, that I could not possibly bear it. I
+got up then, and tried, by leaning forwards, and turning the crupper on
+my assailant, to let him at the back avenue: but here it was likewise
+impossible to stand his bearing so fiercely against me, in his
+agitations and endeavours to enter that way, whilst his belly battered
+directly against the recent sore. What should we do now? both
+intolerably heated: both in a fury; but pleasure is ever inventive for
+its own ends: he strips me in a trice stark naked, and placing a broad
+settee-cushion on the carpet before the fire, oversets me gently, topsy
+turvy, on it; and handling me only at the waist, whilst you may be sure
+I favoured all my dispositions, brought my legs round his neck; so that
+my head was kept from the floor only by my hands and the velvet
+cushion, which was now bespread with my flowing hair: thus I stood on
+my head and hands, supported by him in such manner, that whilst my
+thighs clung round him, so as to expose to his sight all my back
+figure, including the theatre of his bloody pleasure, the centre of my
+fore pair fairly bearded the object of its rage, that now stood in
+fine condition to give me satisfaction for the injuries of its
+neighbours. But as this posture was certainly not the easiest, and our
+imaginations, wound up to the height, could suffer no delay, he first,
+with the utmost eagerness and effort, just lip-lodged that broad
+acorn-fashioned head of his instrument; and still befriended by the
+fury with which he had made that impression, he soon stuffed in the
+rest; when now, with a pursuit of thrusts, fiercely urged, he
+absolutely overpowered and absorbed all sense of pain and uneasiness,
+whether from my wounds behind, my most untoward posture, or the
+oversize of his stretcher, in an infinitely predominant delight; when
+now all my whole spirits of life and sensation rushing, impetuously to
+the cock-pit, where the prize of pleasure was hotly in dispute and
+clustering to a point there, I soon received the dear relief of nature
+from these over-violent strains and provocations of it; harmonizing
+with which, my gallant spouted into me such a potent overflow of the
+balsamic injection, as softened and unedged all those irritating stings
+of a new species of titillation, which I had been so intolerably
+maddened with, and restored the ferment of my senses to some degree of
+composure.
+
+I had now achieved this rare adventure ultimately much more to my
+satisfaction than I had bespoken the nature of it to turn out; nor was
+it much lessened, you may think, by spark’s lavish praises of my
+constancy and complaisance, which he gave weight to by a present that
+greatly surpassed my utmost expectation, besides his gratification to
+Mrs. Cole.
+
+I was not, however, at any time re-enticed to renew with him, or resort
+again to the violent expedient of lashing nature into more haste than
+good speed: which, by the way, I conceive acts somewhat in the manner
+of a dose of Spanish flies; with more pain perhaps, but less danger;
+and might be necessary to him, but was nothing less so than to me,
+whose appetite wanted the bridle more than the spur.
+
+Mrs. Cole, to whom this adventurous exploit had more and more endeared
+me, looked on me now as a girl after her own heart, afraid of nothing,
+and, on a good account, hardly enough to fight all the weapons of
+pleasure through. Attentive then, in consequence of these favourable
+conceptions, to promote either my profit or pleasure, she had special
+regard for the first, in a new gallant of a very singular turn, that
+she procured for and introduced to me.
+
+This was a grave staid, solemn, elderly gentleman, whose peculiar
+humour was a delight in combing fine tresses of hair; and as I was
+perfectly headed to his taste, he used to come constantly at my toilet
+hours, when I let down my hair as loose as nature, and abandoned it to
+him to do what he pleased with it; and accordingly he would keep me an
+hour or more in play with it, drawing the comb through it, winding the
+curls round his fingers, even kissing it as he smoothed it; and all
+this led to no other use of my person, or any other liberties whatever,
+any more than if a distinction of sexes had not existed.
+
+Another peculiarity of taste he had, which was to present me with a
+dozen pairs of the whitest kid gloves at a time: these he would divert
+himself with drawing on me, and then biting off their finger ends; all
+which fooleries of a silly appetite, the old gentleman paid more
+liberally for, than most others did for more essential favours. This
+lasted till a violent cough, seizing and laying him up, delivered me
+from this most innocent and insipid trifler, for I never heard more of
+him after his first retreat.
+
+You may be sure a by-job of this sort interfered with no other pursuit,
+or plan of life; which I led, in truth, with a modesty and reserve that
+was less the work of virtue than of exhausted novelty, a glut of
+pleasure, and easy circumstances, that made me indifferent to any
+engagements in which pleasure and profit were not eminently united; and
+such I could, with the less impatience, wait for at the hands of time
+and fortune, as I was satisfied I could never mend my pennyworths,
+having evidently been served at the top of the market, and even been
+pampered with dainties: besides that, in the sacrifice of a few
+momentary impulses, I found a secret satisfaction in respecting myself,
+as well as preserving the life and freshness of my complexion. Louisa
+and Emily did not carry indeed their reserve so high as I did; but
+still they were far from cheap or abandoned, though two of their
+adventures seemed to contradict this general character, which, for
+their singularity, I shall give you in course, beginning first with
+Emily’s:
+
+Louisa and she went one night to a ball, the first in the habit of a
+shepherdess, Emily in that of a shepherd: I saw them in their dresses
+before they went, and nothing in nature could represent a prettier boy
+than this last did, being so fair and well limbed. They had kept
+together for some time, when Louisa, meeting an old acquaintance of
+hers, very cordially gives her companion the slip, and leaves her under
+the protection of her boy’s habit, which was not much, and of her
+discretion, which was, it seems, still less. Emily, finding herself
+deserted, sauntered thoughtless about a while, and, as much for
+coolness and air as any thing else, at length pulled off her mask and
+went to the sideboard; where, eyed and marked out by a gentleman in a
+very handsome domino, she was accosted by, and fell into chat with him.
+The domino, after a little discourse, in which Emily doubtless
+distinguished her good nature and easiness more than her wit, began to
+make violent love to her, and drawing her insensibly to some benches at
+the lower end of the masquerade room, got her to sit by him, where he
+squeezed her hands, pinched her cheeks, praised and played with her
+fine hair, admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship
+dashed with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of,
+poor Emily attributed to his falling in with the humour of her
+disguise; and being naturally not the cruellest of her profession,
+began to incline to a parley on those essentials. But here was the
+stress of the joke: he took her really for what she appeared to be, a
+smock-faced boy; and she, forgetting her dress, and of course ranging
+quite wide of his ideas, took all those address to be paid to herself
+as a woman, which she precisely owed to his not thinking her one.
+However, this double error was pushed to such a height on both sides,
+that Emily, who saw nothing in him but a gentleman of distinction by
+those points of dress to which his disguise did not extend, warmed too
+by the wine he had plyed her with, and the caresses he had lavished
+upon her, suffered herself to be persuaded to go to a bagnio with him;
+and thus, losing sight of Mrs. Cole’s cautions, with a blind
+confidence, put herself into his hands, to be carried wherever he
+pleased. For his part, equally blinded by his wishes, whilst here
+gregious simplicity favoured his deception more than the most exquisite
+art could have done, he supposed, no doubt, that he had lighted on some
+soft simpleton, fit for his; purpose, or some kept minion broken to his
+hand, who understood him perfectly well, and entered into his designs.
+But, be that as it would, he led her to a coach, went into it with her,
+and brought her to a very handsome apartment, with a bed in it; but
+whether it was a bagnio or not, she could not tell, having spoken to
+nobody but himself. But when they were alone together, and her
+inamorato began to proceed to those extremities which instantly
+discover the sex, she remarked, that no description could paint up to
+the life, the mixture of pique, confusion and disappointment, that
+appeared in his countenance, joined to the mournful exclamation: “By
+heavens, a woman!” This at once opened her eyes, which had been shut in
+downright stupidity. However, as if he had meant to retrieve that
+escape, he still continued to toy with and fondle her, but with so
+staring an alteration from extreme warmth into a chill and forced
+civility, that even Emily herself could not but take notice of it, and
+now began to wish she had paid more regard to Mrs. Cole’s premonitions
+against ever engaging with a stranger. And now an excess of timidity
+succeeded to an excess of confidence, and she thought herself so much
+at his mercy and discretion, that she stood passive throughout the
+whole progress of his prelude: for now, whether the impressions of so
+great a beauty had even made him forgive her sex, or whether her
+appearance or figure in that dress still humoured his first illusion,
+he recovered by degrees a good part of his first warmth, and keeping
+Emily with her breeches still unbuttoned, stript them down to her
+knees, and gently impelling her to lean down, with her face against the
+bed-side, placed her so, that the double way, between the double rising
+behind, presented the choice fair to him, and he was so fairly set on a
+mis-direction, as to give the girl no small alarms for fear of losing a
+maidenhead she had not dreamt of. However, her complaints, and a
+resistance, gentle, but firm, checked and brought him to himself again;
+so that turning his steed’s head, he drove him at length in the right
+road, in which his imagination having probably made the most of those
+resemblances that flattered his taste, he got, with much ado, to his
+journey’s end: after which, he led her out himself, and walking with
+her two or three streets length, got her a chair, when making her a
+present not any thing inferior to what she could have expected, he left
+her, well recommended to the chairmen, who, on her directions, brought
+her home.
+
+This she related to Mrs. Cole and me the same morning, not without the
+visible remains of the fear and confusion she had been in, still
+stamped on her countenance. Mrs. Cole’s remark was, that her
+indiscretion proceeding from a constitutional facility, there were
+little hopes of any thing curing her of it, but repeated severe
+experience. Mine was, that I could not conceive how it was possible for
+mankind to run into a taste, not only universally odious, but absurd,
+and impossible to gratify; since, according to the notions and
+experience I had of things, it was not in nature to force such immense
+disproportions. Mrs. Cole only smiled at my ignorance, and said nothing
+towards my undeception, which was not affected but by ocular
+demonstration, some months after, which a most singular accident
+furnished me, and which I will here set down, that I may not return
+again to so disagreeable a subject.
+
+I had, on a visit intended to Harriet, who had taken lodgings at
+Hampton-court, hired a chariot to go out thither, Mrs. Cole having,
+promised to accompany me; but some indispensable business intervening,
+to detain her, I was obliged to set out alone; and scarce had I got a
+third of my way, before the axle-tree broke down, and I was well off to
+get out, safe and unhurt, into a public-house, of a tolerable handsome
+appearance, on the road. Here the people told me that the stage would
+come by in a couple of hours at farthest, upon; which, determining to
+wait for it, sooner than lose the jaunt I had got so far forward on, I
+was carried into a very clean decent room, up one pair of stairs, which
+I took possession of for the time I had to stay, in right of calling
+for sufficient to do the house justice.
+
+Here, whilst I was amusing myself with looking out of the window, a
+single horse-chaise stopt at the door, out of which lightly leaped two
+young’ gentlemen, for so they seemed, who came in only as it were to
+bait and refresh a little, for they gave their horse to be held in
+readiness against they came out. And presently I heard the door of the
+next room, where they were let in, and called about them briskly; and
+as soon as they were served, I could just hear that they shut and
+fastened the door on the inside.
+
+A spirit of curiosity, far from sudden, since I do not know when I was
+without it, prompted me, without any particular suspicion, or other
+drift or view, to see what they were, and examine their persons and
+behaviour. The partition of our rooms was one of those moveable ones
+that, when taken down, served occasionally to lay them into one, for
+the conveniency of as larger company; and now, my nicest search could
+not shew me the shadow of a peep-hole, a circumstance which probably
+had not escaped the review of the parties on the other side, whom much
+it stood upon not to be deceived in it; but at length I observed a
+paper patch of the same colour as the wainscot, which I took to conceal
+some flaw; but then it was so high, that I was obliged to stand upon a
+chair to reach it, which I did as soft as possible, and, with a point
+of a bodkin, soon pierced it, and opened myself espial room sufficient.
+And now, applying my eye close, I commanded the room perfectly, and
+could see my two young sparks romping and pulling one another about,
+entirely, to my imagination, in frolic and innocent play.
+
+The eldest might be, on my nearest guess, towards nineteen, a tall
+comely young man, in a white fustian frock, with a green velvet cape,
+and cut bob-wig.
+
+The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy, completely well
+made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty stripling: he was too, I
+fancy, a country lad, by his dress, which was a green plush frock, and
+breeches of the same, white waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with
+his yellowish hair, long and loose, in natural curls.
+
+But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the eldest cast every
+way round the room, probably in too much hurry and heat not to overlook
+the very small opening I was posted at, especially at the height it
+was, whilst my eye close to it kept the light from shining through and
+betraying it, he said something to his companion that presently changed
+the face of things.
+
+For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the younger, to
+put his hands into his bosom, and give him such manifest signs of an
+amorous intention, as made me conclude the other to be a girl in
+disguise: a mistake that nature kept me in countenance for, for she had
+certainly made one, when she gave him the male stamp.
+
+In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to accomplish
+their project of preposterous pleasure, at the risk of the very worst
+of consequences, where a discovery was nothing less than improbable,
+they now proceeded to such lengths as soon satisfied me what they were.
+
+For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other’s breeches, and removing
+the linen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft, middle sized, and
+scarce fledged, when after handling and playing with it a little, with
+other dalliance, all received by the boy without other opposition than
+certain wayward coyness, ten times-more alluring than repulsive, he got
+him so turned round, with his face from him, to a chair that stood hard
+by; when knowing, I suppose, his office, the Ganymede now obsequiously
+leaned his head against the back of it, and projecting his body, made a
+fair mark, still covered with his shirt. As he thus stood in a side
+view to me, but fronting his companion, who, presently unmasking his
+battery, produced an engine that certainly deserved to be put to a
+better use, and very fit to confirm me in my disbelief of the
+possibility of things; being pushed to odious extremities, which I had
+built on the disproportion of parts; but this disbelief I was now cured
+of, as by my consent all young men should likewise be, that their
+innocence may not be betrayed into such snares, for want of knowing the
+extent of their danger: for nothing is more certain than that ignorance
+of advice is by no means a guard against it.
+
+Slipping, then, aside the young lad’s shirt, and tucking it up under
+his clothes behind, he shewed to the open air those globular fleshy
+eminences that compose the Mount Peasants of Rome, and which now, with
+all the narrow vale that intersects them, stood displayed and exposed
+to his attack; nor could I without a shudder behold the dispositions he
+made for it. First, then, moistening well with spittle his instrument,
+obviously to make it glib, he pointed, he introduced it, as I could
+plainly discern, not only from its direction and my losing sight of it,
+but by the writhing, twisting and soft murmured complaints of the young
+sufferer; but at length, the first straits of entrance being pretty
+well go through, every thing seemed to move and go pretty currently on,
+as on a carpet road, without much rub or resistance; and now, passing
+one hand round his minions’ hips, he got hold of his red-topped ivory
+toy, that stood perfectly stiff, and shewed, that if he was like his
+mother behind, he was like his father before; this he diverted himself
+with, whilst, with the other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning
+forward over his back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the
+loose curls that fell over it, in the posture he stood him in, and
+brought him towards his, so as to receive a long breathed kiss; after
+which, renewing his driving, and thus continuing to harass his rear,
+the height of the fist came on with its usual symptoms, and dismissed
+the action.
+
+The criminal scene they acted, I had the patience to see to an end,
+purely that I might gather more facts and certainty against them in my
+design to do their deserts instant justice; and accordingly, when they
+had re-adjusted themselves; and were preparing to go out, burning as I
+was with rage and indignation, I jumped down from the chair, in order
+to raise the house upon them, but with such an unlucky impetuosity,
+that some nail or ruggedness in the floor caught my foot, and flung me
+on my face with such violence, that I fell senseless on the ground, and
+lay there some time before any one came to my relief: so that they,
+alarmed, I suppose, by the noise of my fall, had more than the
+necessary time to make a safe retreat. This they effected, as I learnt,
+with a precipitation nobody could account for, until, when come to
+myself, and composed enough to speak, I acquainted those of the house
+with the whole transaction I had been evidence to.
+
+When I came home again, and told Mrs. Cole this adventure, she very
+sensibly observed to me, that “there was no doubt of the due vengeance
+one time or other overtaking these miscreants, however they might
+escape for the present; and that, had I been the temporal instrument of
+it, I should have been put to a great deal more trouble and confusion
+than I imagined; that, as to the thing itself, the less said of it was
+the better; but that though she might be suspected of partiality, from
+its being the common cause of womankind, out of whose mouths this
+practice tended to take something more than bread, yet she protested
+against any mixture of passion, with a declaration extorted from her by
+pure regard to truth; which was, that whatever effect this infamous
+passion had in other ages and other countries, it seemed a peculiar
+blessing on our air and climate, that there was a plaguespot visibly
+imprinted on all that are tainted with it, in this nation at least, for
+that among numbers of that stamp whom she had known, or at least were
+universally under the scandalous suspicion of it, she would not name an
+exception hardly to one of them, whose character was not, in all other
+respects, the most worthless and despicable that could be; stript of
+all the manly virtues of their own sex, and filled up with only the
+worst vices and follies of ours; that, in fine, they were scarce less
+execrable than ridiculous in their monstrous inconsistence, of loathing
+and contemning women, and at the same time apeing all their manners,
+airs, lisps, scuttle, and, in general, all their little modes of
+affectation, which become them at least better, than they do these
+unsexed, male misses.”
+
+But here, washing my hands of them, I re-plunge into the stream of my
+history, which I may very properly ingraft a terrible sally of
+Louisa’s, since I had some share in it myself, and have besides engaged
+myself to relate it, in point of countenance to poor Emily. It will
+add, too, one more example to thousands, in confirmation of the maxim,
+that women get once out of compass, there are no lengths of
+licentiousness, that they are not capable of running.
+
+One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone out for the
+day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the house-maid) were left in
+charge of the house, whilst we were loitering away the time, in looking
+through the shop windows, the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard
+bread indeed by mending of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood,
+offered us some nosegays, ranged round a small basket; by selling of
+which the poor boy eked out his mother’s maintenance of them both: nor
+was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he was not only a
+perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammered so that there was no
+understanding even those sounds his half-dozen animals ideas, at most,
+prompted him to utter.
+
+The boys and servants in the neighbourhood had given him the nick-name
+of good-natured Dick, from the soft simpleton’s doing every thing he
+was bid at the first word, and from his naturally having no turn to
+mischief; then, by the way, he was perfectly well made, stout,
+clean-limbed, tall of his age, as strong as a horse, and, withal,
+pretty featured; so that he was not, absolutely, such a figure to be
+snuffled at neither, if your nicety could, in favour of such
+essentials, have dispensed with a face unwashed, hair tangled for want
+of combing, and so ragged a plight, that he might have disputed points
+of shew with any heathen philosopher of them all.
+
+This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out of pure
+compassion, and nothing more; but just at this time as he stood
+presenting us his basket, a sudden whim, a start of wayward fancy,
+seized Louisa; and, without consulting me, she calls him in, and
+beginning to examine his nosegays, culls out two, one for herself,
+another for me, and pulling out half a crown, very currently gives it
+him to change, as if she had really expected he could have changed it:
+but the boy, scratching his head, made his signs explain his inability
+in place of words, which he could not, with all his struggles,
+articulate.
+
+Louisa, at this, says: “Well, my lad, come up stairs with me, and I
+will give you your due,” winking at the same time to me, and beckoning
+me to accompany her, which I did, securing first the street-door, that
+by this means, together with the shop, became wholly the care of the
+faithful house-maid.
+
+As we went up, Louisa whispered me “that she had conceived a strange
+longing to be satisfied, whether the general rule held good with regard
+to this changeling, and how far nature had made him amends, in her best
+bodily gifts, for her denial of the sublimer intellectual ones; begin,
+at the same time, my assistance in procuring her this satisfaction.” A
+want of complaisance was never my vice, and I was so far from opposing
+this extravagant frolic, that now, bit with the same maggot, and my
+curiosity conspiring with hers, I entered plump into it, on my own
+account.
+
+Consequently, soon as we came into Louisa’s bed-chamber, whilst she was
+amusing him with picking out his nosegays, I undertook the lead, and
+began the attack. As it was not then very material to keep much
+measures with a mere natural, I made presently free with him, though at
+my first motion of meddling, his surprise and confusion made him
+receive my advances but awkwardly: nay, insomuch that he bashfully
+shied, and shied back a little; till encouraging him with my eyes,
+plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking his cheeks, and forwarding
+my point by a number of little wantonnesses, I soon turned him
+familiar, and gave nature her sweetest alarm: so that aroused, and
+beginning to feel himself, we could, amidst all the innocent laugh and
+grin I had provoked him into, perceive the fire lighting in his eyes,
+and, diffusing over his cheeks, blend its glow with that of his
+blushes. The emotion in short of animal pleasure glared distinctly in
+the simpleton’s countenance; yet struck with the novelty of the scene,
+he did not know which way to look or move; but tame, passive,
+simpering, with his mouth half open, in stupid rapture, stood and
+tractably suffered me to do what I pleased with him. His basket was
+dropt out of his hands, which Louisa took care of.
+
+I had now, through more than one rent, discovered and felt his thighs,
+the skin of which seemed the smoother and fairer for the coarseness,
+and even the dirt of his dress, as the teeth of negroes seem the whiter
+for the surrounded black; and poor indeed of habit, poor of
+understanding, he was, however, abundantly rich in personal treasures,
+such as flesh, firm, plump, and replete with the juices of youth, and
+robust well-knit limbs. My fingers too had now got within reach of the
+true, the genuine sensitive plant, which, instead of shrinking from the
+touch, joys to meet it, and swells and vegetates under it: mine
+pleasingly informed me that matters were so ripe for the discovery we
+meditated, that they were too mighty for the confinement they were
+ready to break. A waistband that I unskewered, and a rag of a shirt
+that I removed, and which could not have covered a quarter of it,
+revealed the whole of the idiot’s standard of distinction, erect, in
+full pride and display: but such a one! it was positively of so
+tremendous a size, that prepared as we were to see something
+extraordinary, it still, out of measure, surpassed our expectation, and
+astonished even me, who had not been used to trade in trifles. In fine,
+it might have answered very well the making a skew of; its enormous
+head seemed, in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep’s heart; then
+you might have trolled dice securely along the broad back of the body
+of it; the length of it too was prodigious; then the rich appendage of
+the treasure-bag beneath, large in proportion, gathered and crisped up
+round in shallow furrows, helped to fill the eye, and complete the
+proof of his being a natural, not quite in vain; since it was full
+manifest that he inherited, and largely too, the prerogative of majesty
+which distinguishes that otherwise most unfortunate condition, and gave
+rise to the vulgar saying “That a fool’s bauble is a lady’s
+playfellow.” Not wholly without reason: for, generally speaking, it is
+in love as it is in war, where the longest weapon carries it. Nature,
+in short, had done so much for him in those parts, that she perhaps
+held herself acquitted in doing so little for his head.
+
+For my part, who had sincerely no intention to push the joke further
+than simply satisfying my curiosity with the sight of it alone, I was
+content, in spite of the temptation that stared me in the face, with
+having raised a May-pole for another to hang a garland on: for, by this
+time, easily reading Louisa’s desires in her wishful eyes, I acted the
+commodious part, and made her, who sought no better sport, significant
+terms of encouragement to go through stitch with her adventure;
+intimating too that I would stay and see fair play: in which, indeed, I
+had in view to humour a new born curiosity, to observe what appearances
+active nature would put on in a natural, in the course of this her
+darling operation.
+
+Louisa, whose appetite was up, and who, like the industrious bee, was,
+it seems, not above gathering the sweet of so rare a flower, though she
+found it planted on a dunghill, was but too readily disposed to take
+the benefit of my cession. Urged then strongly by her own desires, and
+emboldened by me, she presently determined to risk a trial of parts
+with the idiot, who was by this time nobly inflamed for her purpose, by
+all the irritation we had used to put the principles of pleasure
+effectually into motion, and to wind up the springs of its organ to
+their supreme pitch; and it stood accordingly stiff and straining,
+ready to burst with the blood and spirits that swelled it... to a bulk!
+No! I shall never forget it.
+
+Louisa then, taking and holding the fine handle that so invitingly
+offered itself, led the ductile youth, by that mastertool of his, as
+she stept backward towards the bed; which he joyfully gave way to,
+under the incitations of instinct, and palpably delivered up to the
+goad of desire.
+
+Stopped then by the bed, she took the fall she loved, and leaned to the
+most, gently backward upon it, still holding fast what she held, and
+taking care to give her clothes a convenient toss up, so that her
+thighs duly disclosed, and elevated, laid open all the outward prospect
+of the treasury of love: the rose-lipt overture presenting the cockpit
+so fair, that it was not in nature even for a natural to miss it. Nor
+did he: for Louisa, fully bent on grappling with it, and impatient of
+dalliance or delay, directed faithfully the point of the
+battering-piece, and bounded up with a rage of so voracious appetite,
+to meet and favour the thrust of insertion, that the fierce activity on
+both sides effected it with such pain of distention, that Louisa cried
+out violently, that she was hurt beyond bearing, that she was killed.
+But it was too late: the storm was up, and force was on her to give way
+to it; for now the man-machine, strongly worked upon by the sensual
+passion, felt so manfully his advantages and superiority, felt withal
+the sting of pleasure so intolerable, that maddening with it, his joys
+began to assume a character of furiousness, which made me tremble for
+the too tender Louisa. He seemed, at this juncture, greater than
+himself; his countenance, before so void of meaning, or expression, now
+grew big with the importance of the act he was upon. In short, it was
+not now that he was to be played the fool with. But, what is pleasant
+enough, I myself was awed into a sort of respect for him, by the comely
+terrors his motions dressed him in: his eyes shooting sparks of fire;
+his face glowing with ardours that gave another life to it; his teeth
+churning; his whole frame agitated with a raging ungovernable
+impetuosity: all sensibly betraying the formidable fierceness with
+which the genial instinct acted upon him. Butting then and goring all
+before him, and mad and wild like an ower-driven steer, he ploughs up
+the tender furrow all insensible to Louisa’s complaints; nothing can
+stop, nothing can keep out a fury like his: with which, having once got
+its head in, its blind rage soon made way for the rest, piercing,
+rending, and breaking open all obstruction. The torn, split, wounded
+girl cries, struggles, invokes me to her rescue, and endeavours to get
+from under the young savage, or shake him off, but alas! in vain: her
+breath, might as soon have strength to have quelled his rough assault,
+or put him out of his course. And indeed, all her efforts and struggles
+were managed with such disorder, that they served rather to entangle,
+and fold her the faster in the twine of his boisterous arms; so that
+she was tied to the stake, and obliged to fight the match out, if she
+died for it. For his part, instinct-ridden as he was, the expressions
+of his animal passion, partaking something of ferocity, were rather
+worrying than kisses, intermixed with ravenous love-bites on her cheeks
+and necks, the prints of which did not wear out for some days after.
+
+Poor Louisa, however, bore up at length better than could have been
+expected: and though she suffered, and greatly too, yet, ever true to
+the good old cause, she suffered with pleasure and enjoyed her pain.
+And soon now, by dint of an enraged enforcement, the brute-machine,
+driven like a whirlwind, made all smoke again, and wedging its way up,
+to the utmost extremity, left her, in point of penetration, nothing to
+fear or to desire: and now,
+
+“Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,”
+(Shakespeare.)
+
+
+Louisa lay, pleased to the heart, pleased to her utmost capacity of
+being so, with every fibre in those parts, stretched almost to
+breaking, on a rack of joy, whilst the instrument of all this
+over-fullness searched her senses with its sweet excess, till the
+pleasure gained upon her so, its point stung her so home, that catching
+at length the rage from her furious driver and sharing the riot of his
+wild rapture, she went wholly out of her mind into that favourite part
+of her body, the whole intenseness of which was so fervously filled,
+and employed: there alone she existed, all lost in those delirious
+transports, those extasies of the senses, which her winking eyes, the
+brightened vermilion of her lips and cheeks, and sighs of pleasure
+deeply fetched, so pathetically expressed. In short, she was now as
+mere a machine as much wrought on, and had her motions as little at her
+own command, as the natural himself, who, thus broke in upon her, made
+her feel with a vengeance his tempestuous mettle he battered with;
+their active loins quivered again with the violence of their conflict,
+till the surge of pleasure, foaming and raging to a height, drew down
+the pearly shower that was, to allay this hurricane. The purely
+sensitive idiot then first shed those tears of joy that attend its last
+moments, not without an agony of delight, and even almost a roar of
+rapture, as the gush escaped him; so sensibly too for Louisa, that she
+kept him faithful company, going off, in consent, with the old
+symptoms: a delicious delirium, a tremendous convulsive shudder, and
+the critical dying: Oh! And now, on his getting off she lay
+pleasure-drenched, and regorging its essential sweets; but quite spent,
+and gasping for breath, without other sensation of life than in those
+exquisite vibrations that trembled still on the strings of delight;
+which had been too intensively touched, and which nature had so
+ravishingly stirred with, for the senses to be quickly at peace from.
+
+As for the changeling, whose curious engine had been thus successfully
+played off, his shift of countenance and gesture had even something
+droll, or rather tragi-comic in it: there was now an air of sad
+repining foolishness, superadded to his natural one of no meaning and
+idiotism, as he stood with his label of manhood, now lank, unstiffened,
+becalmed, and flapping against his thighs, down which it reached half
+way, terrible even in its fall, whilst under the dejection of spirit
+and flesh, which naturally followed his eyes, by turns, cast down
+towards his struck standard, or piteously lifted to Louisa, seemed to
+require at her hands what he had so sensibly parted from to her, and
+now ruefully missed. But the vigour of nature, soon returning,
+dissipated the blast of faintness which the common law of enjoyment had
+subjected him to; and now his basket re-became his main concern, which
+I looked for, and brought him, whilst Louisa restored his dress to its
+usual condition, and afterwards pleased him perhaps more by taking all
+his flowers off his hands, and paying him, at his rate, for them, than
+if she had embarrassed him by a present, that he would have been
+puzzled to account for, and might have put others on tracing the
+motives of.
+
+Whether she ever returned to the attack I know not, and, to say truth,
+I believe not. She had had her freak out, and had pretty plentifully
+drowned her curiosity in a glut of pleasure, which, as it happened, had
+no other consequence than that the lad, who retained only a confused
+memory of the transaction, would, when he saw her, forget her in favour
+of the next woman, tempted, on the report of his parts, to take him in.
+Louisa herself did not long outstay this adventure at Mrs. Cole’s (to
+whom, by the bye, we took care not to boast of our exploit, till all
+fear of consequences were clearly over): for an occasion presenting
+itself of proving her passion for a young fellow, at the expense of her
+discretion, proceeding all in character, she packed up her toilet, at
+half a day’s warning, and went with him abroad, since which I entirely
+lost sight of her, and it never fell in my way to hear what became of
+her.
+
+But a few days after she had left us, two very occasion, not to wrong
+our training at Mrs. Cole’s, especially favourites, and free of her
+academy, easily obtained her consent for Emily’s and my acceptance of a
+party of pleasure, at a little but agreeable house, belonging to one of
+them situated not far up the river Thames, on the Surrey side.
+
+Every thing being settled, and it being a fine summer day, but rather
+of the warmest, we set out after dinner, and got to our rendezvous
+about four in the afternoon; where, landing at the foot of a neat,
+joyous pavilion, Emily and I were handed into it by our esquires, and
+there drank tea with a cheerfulness and gaiety, that the beauty of the
+prospect, the serenity of the weather, and the tender politeness of our
+sprightly gallants, naturally led us into.
+
+After tea, and taking a turn in the garden, my particular, who was the
+master of the house, and had in no sense schemed this party of pleasure
+for a dry one, proposed to us, with that frankness which his
+familiarity at Mrs. Cole’s entitled him to, as the weather was
+excessively hot, to bathe together, under a commodious shelter that he
+had prepared expressly for that purpose, in a creek of the river, with
+which a side-door of the pavilion immediately communicated, and where
+we might be sure of having our diversion out, safe from interruption,
+and with the utmost privacy.
+
+Emily, who never refused anything, and I, who ever delighted in
+bathing, and had no exception to the person who proposed it, or to
+those pleasure it was easy to guess it implied, took care, on this
+occasion, not to wrong our training at Mrs. Cole’s, and agreed to it
+with as good a grace as we could. Upon which, without loss of time, we
+returned instantly to the pavilion, one door of which opened into a
+tent, pitched before it, that with its marquise, formed a pleasing
+defense again the sun, or the weather, and was besides as private as we
+could wish. The lining of it, embossed cloth, represented a wild forest
+foliage, from the top, down to the sides, which, in the same stuff,
+were figured with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between filled
+with flower vases, the whole having a pay effect croon the eye,
+wherever you turned it.
+
+Then it reached sufficiently into the water, yet contained convenient
+benches round it, on the dry ground, either to keep our clothes, or...,
+or..., in short for more uses than resting upon. There was a side-table
+too, loaded with sweetmeats, jellies, and other eatables, and bottles
+of wine and cordials, by way of occasional relief from any rawness, or
+chill of the water, or from any faintness from whatever cause; and in
+fact, my gallant, who understood _chère entiêre_ perfectly, and who,
+for taste (even if you would not approve this specimen of it) might
+have been comptroller of pleasures to a Roman emperor, had left no
+requisite towards convenience or luxury unprovided.
+
+As soon as we had looked round this inviting spot, and every
+preliminary of privacy was duly settled, strip was the word: when the
+young gentlemen soon dispatched the undressing each his partner and
+reduced us to the naked confession of all those secrets of person which
+dress generally hides, and which the discovery of was, naturally
+speaking, not to our disadvantage. Our hands, indeed, mechanically
+carried towards the most interesting part of us, screened, at first,
+all from the tufted cliff downwards, till we took them away at their
+desire, and employed them in doing them the same office, of helping off
+with their clothes; in the process of which, there passed all the
+little wantonnesses and frolics that you may easily imagine.
+
+As for my spark, he was presently undressed, all to his shirt, the
+fore-lappet of which as he leaned languishingly on me, he smilingly
+pointed to me to observe, as it bellied out, or rose and fell,
+according to the unruly starts of the motion behind it; but it was soon
+fixed, for now taking off his shirt, and naked as a Cupid, he shewed it
+me at so upright a stand, as prepared me indeed for his application to
+me for instant ease; but, though the sight of its fine size was fit
+enough to fire me, the cooling air, as I stood in this state of nature,
+joined to the desire I had of bathing-first, enabled me to put him off,
+and tranquillize him, with the remark, that a little suspense would
+only set a keener edge on the pleasure. Leading them the way, and
+shewing our friends an example of continency, which they were giving
+signs of losing respect to, we went hand in hand into the stream, till
+it took us up to our necks, where the no more than grateful coolness of
+the water gave my senses a delicious refreshment from the sultriness of
+the season, and made more alive, more happy in myself, and, in course,
+more alert, and open to voluptuous impressions.
+
+Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively played with my
+companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at discretion. Mine, at
+length, not content with making me take the plunge over head and ears,
+kept splashing me, and provoking me with all the little playful tricks
+he could devise, and which I strove not to remain in his debt for. We
+gave, in short, a loose to mirth; and now, nothing would serve him but
+giving his hand the regale of going over every part of me, neck,
+breast, belly, thighs, and all the _et cætera_, so dear to the
+imagination, under the pretext of washing and rubbing them; as we both
+stood in the water, no higher now than the pit of our stomachs, and
+which did not hinder him from feeling, and toying with that leak that
+distinguishes our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for his
+fingers, in vain dilating and opening it, only let more flame than
+water into it, be it said without a figure. At the same time he made me
+feel his own engine, which was so well wound up, as to stand even the
+working in water, and he accordingly threw one arm round my neck, and
+was endeavouring to get the better of that harsher construction bred by
+the surrounding fluid; and had in effect one his way so far as to make
+me sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether lips, from the
+in-driving machine; when, independent of my not liking that awkward
+mode of enjoyment, I could not help interrupting him, in order to
+become joint spectators of a plan of joy, in hot operation between
+Emily and her partner; who impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of
+the bath, had led his nymph to one of the benches on the green bank,
+where he was very cordially proceeding to teach her the difference
+betwixt jest and earnest.
+
+There, setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over the surface
+of that smooth polished snow-white skin of hers, which now doubly shone
+with a dew-bright lustre, and presented to the touch something like
+what one would imagine of animated ivory, especially in those
+ruby-nippled globes, which the touch is so fond of and delights to make
+love to, with the other he was lusciously exploring the sweet secret of
+nature, in order to make room for a stately piece of machinery, that
+stood up-reared, between her thighs, as she continued sitting on his
+lap, and pressed hard for instant intromission, which the tender Emily,
+in a fit of humour deliciously protracted, affected to decline, and
+elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in a style of waywardness,
+so prettily put on, and managed, as to render it ten times more
+poignant; then her eyes, all amidst the softest dying languishment,
+expressed, ait once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her
+sweetness was zested with a coyness so pleasingly provoking, her moods
+of keeping him off were so attractive, that they redoubled the
+impetuous rage with, which, he covered her with kisses: and kisses
+that, whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for, the cunning wanton
+contrived such sly returns, of, as were, doubtless the sweeter for the
+gust she gave them, of being stolen ravished.
+
+Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in favour of
+her principal end, pleasure, had inspired her with, the art of
+yielding, coy’d it indeed, but coy’d it to the purpose; for with all
+her straining, her wrestling, and striving to break from the clasp of
+his arms, she was so far wiser yet than to mean it, that in her
+struggles, it was visible she aimed at nothing more than multiplying
+points of touch with him, and drawing yet closer the folds that held
+them every where entwined, like two tendrils of a vine intercurling:
+together: so that the same effect, as when Louisa strove in good
+earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now produced by different
+motives.
+
+Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had caused a general
+glow, a tender suffusion of heightened carnation over their bodies;
+both equally white and smooth-skinned; so that as their limbs were thus
+amorously interwoven, in sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to
+distinguish who they respectively belonged to, but for the brawnier,
+bolder muscles of the stronger sex.
+
+In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her, and had
+tied at all points the true lover’s knot; when now, adieu all the
+little refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the friendly feint!
+She was presently driven forcibly out of the power of using any art;
+and indeed, what art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with
+her assailant, invaded in the heart of her capital and carried by
+storm, lay at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry
+triumphantly and completely? Soon, however, to become a tributary: for
+the engagement growing hotter and hotter, at close quarters, she
+presently brought him to the pass of paying down the dear debt to
+nature; which she had no sooner collected in, but, like a duellist who
+has laid his antagonist at his feet, when he has himself received a
+mortal wound, Emily had scarce time to plume herself upon her victory,
+but, shot with the same discharge, she, in a loud expiring sigh, in the
+closure of her eyes, the stretch-out of her limbs, and a remission of
+her whole frame, gave manifest signs that all was as it should be.
+
+For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in the water
+all this time, to view this warm action, I leaned tenderly on my
+gallant, and at the close of it, seemed to ask him with my eyes, what
+he thought of it; but he, more eager to satisfy me by his actions than
+by words or looks, as we shoaled the water towards the shore, showed me
+the staff of love so intensely set up, that had not even charity,
+beginning at home in this case, urged me to our mutual relief, it would
+have been cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to burst with
+straining, when the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand.
+
+Accordingly we took a bench, whilst Emily and her spark, who belonged
+it seems to the sea, stood at the side-board, drinking to our good
+voyage: for, as the last observed, we were well under weigh, with a
+fair wind up channel, and full-freighted; nor indeed were we long
+before we finished our trip to Cythera, and unloaded in the old haven;
+but, as the circumstances did not admit of much variation, I shall
+spare you the description.
+
+At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am conscious
+of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much affected the figurative
+style; though surely, it can pass nowhere more allowable than in a
+subject which is so properly the province of poetry, nay, is poetry
+itself, pregnant with every flower of imagination and loving metaphors,
+even were not the natural expressions, for respects of fashion and
+sound, necessarily forbidden.
+
+Resuming now my history, you may please to know, that what with a
+competent number of repetitions, all in the same strain (and, by the
+bye, we have a certain natural sense that those repetitions are very
+much to the taste), what with a circle of pleasures delicately varied,
+there was not a moment lost to joy all the time we staid there, till
+late in the night we were re-escorted home by our esquires, who
+delivered us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks for our company.
+
+This too was Emily’s last adventure in our way: for scarce a week
+after, she was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you the
+particulars, found out by her parents, who were in good circumstances,
+and who had been punished for their partiality to their son, in the
+loss of him, occasioned by a circumstance of their over indulgence to
+his appetite; upon which the so long engrossed stream of fondness,
+running violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly abandoned child
+whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long before
+have recovered, they were now so over-joyed at the retrieval of her,
+that, I presume, it made them much less strict in examining the bottom
+of things: for they seemed very glad to take for granted, in the lump,
+every thing that the grave and decent Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass
+upon them; and soon afterwards sent her, from the country, handsome
+acknowledgment.
+
+But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet
+a member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those
+mild, pliant characters, that if one does not entirely esteem, one can
+scarce help loving, which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing
+all her weaknesses to good nature, and an indolent facility that kept
+her too much at the mercy of first impressions, she had just sense
+enough to know that she wanted leading strings, and thought herself so
+much obliged to any who would take the pains to think for her, and
+guide her, that with a very little management, she was capable of being
+made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is
+probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been
+for occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself
+than upon her circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards
+verified: for presently meeting with a match, that was ready cut and
+dry for her, with a neighbour’s son of her own rank, and a young man of
+sense and order, who took as the widow of one lost at sea (for so it
+seems one of her gallants, whose name she had made free with, really
+was), she naturally struck into all the duties of her domestic life,
+with as much simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and
+regularity, as if she had never swerved from a state of undebauched
+innocence from her youth.
+
+These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole’s cluck
+that she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but though
+she was earnestly entreated and encouraged to recruit her crops, her
+growing infirmities, and, above all, the tortures, of a stubborn hip
+gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determined her to break
+up her business, and retire with a decent pittance into the country,
+where I promised myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with
+her, as soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improved my small
+matters into a competency that would create in me an independence on
+the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that
+essential in view.
+
+Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the
+philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession. For besides
+that she never ransacked her customers, whose tastes too she ever
+studiously consulted, she never racked her pupils with unconscionable
+extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she called them, under
+the contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the seduction
+for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those
+unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster
+objects of compassion: among these, indeed, she picked out such as
+suited her views and taking them under her protection, rescued them
+from the danger of the public sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or
+for them, well or ill, in the manner you have seen. Having then settled
+her affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most tender
+leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instructions,
+recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal. In
+short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently reconciled to
+myself for suffering her at any rate to go without me; but fate had, it
+seems, otherwise disposed of me.
+
+I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant convenient
+house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from its smallness,
+which I furnished neatly and modestly. There, with a reserve of eight
+hundred pounds, the fruit of my deference to Mrs. Cole’s counsels,
+exclusive of clothes, some jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in
+purse for a long time, to wait without impatience for what the chapter
+of accidents might produce in my favour.
+
+Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose husband was
+gone to sea, I had marked me out such lines of life and conduct, as
+leaving me a competent liberty to pursue my views either out of
+pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless strictly within the rules
+of decency and discretion: a disposition, in which you cannot escape
+observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.
+
+I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when going out one
+morning pretty early to enjoy the freshness of it, in the pleasing
+outlet of the fields, accompanied only by a maid, whom I had newly
+hired, as we were carelessly walking among the trees, we were alarmed
+with the noise of a violent coughing: turning our heads towards which,
+we distinguished a plain well dressed elderly gentleman, who, attacked
+with a sudden fit, was so much overcome, as to be forced to give way to
+it and sit down at the foot of a tree, where he seemed suffocating with
+the severity of it, being perfectly black in the face; not less moved
+than frightened with which, I flew on the instant to his relief, and
+using the rote of practice I had observed on the like occasion, I
+loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but whether to any
+purpose, or whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the
+fit immediately went off; and now recovered to his speech and legs, he
+returned me thanks with as much emphasis as if I had saved his life.
+This naturally engaging a conversation, he acquainted me where he
+lived, which was at a considerable distance from where I met him, and
+where he had strayed insensibly on the same intention of a morning
+walk.
+
+He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy which
+this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned of sixty,
+but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five
+and forty, having never racked his constitution by permitting his
+desires to over-tax his ability.
+
+As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed
+mechanics, had, by the best traces he could get of them, left him an
+infant orphan on the parish; so that it was from a charity-school,
+that, by honesty and industry, he made his way into a merchant’s
+counting house, from whence, being sent to a house in Cadiz, he there,
+by his talents and activity, acquired not only a fortune, but an
+immense one, with which he returned to his native country; where he
+could not, however, fish out so much as one single relation out of the
+obscurity he was born in. Taking then a taste for refinement, and
+pleased to enjoy life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his days
+in all the ease of opulence, without the least parade of it; and,
+rather studying the concealment than the shew of a fortune, looked down
+on a world he perfectly knew himself, to his wish, unknown and unmarked
+by.
+
+But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of
+retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever,
+to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no more
+than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my
+history, and to obviate your surprise that one of my blood and relish
+of life, should count a gallant of three score such a catch.
+
+Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
+progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first, insensibly
+changed nature, and run into unplatonic length, as might well be
+expected from one of my condition of life, and above all, from that
+principle of electricity that scarce ever fails of producing fire when
+the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint you, that as age had not
+subdued his tenderness for our sex, neither had it robbed him of the
+power of pleasing, since whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of
+youth, he atoned for, or supplemented with the advantages of
+experience, the sweetness of his manners, and above all, his flattering
+address in touching the heart, by an application to the understanding.
+From him it was I first learned, to any purpose, and not without
+infinite pleasure, that I had such a portion of me worth bestowing some
+regard on; from him I received my first essential encouragement, and
+instructions how to put it in that train of cultivation, which I have
+since pushed to the little degree of improvement you see it at; he it
+was, who first taught me to be sensible that the pleasures of the mind
+were superior to those of the body; at the same time, that they were so
+far from obnoxious to, or, incompatible with each other, that, besides
+the sweetness in the variety and transition, the one served to exalt
+and perfect the taste of the other, to a degree that the senses alone
+can never arrive at.
+
+Himself a rational pleasurist; as being much too wise to be ashamed of
+the pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but loved me with dignity;
+in a mean equally removed from the sourness, of forwardness, by which
+age is unpleasingly characterized, and from that childish silly dotage
+that so often disgraces it, and which he himself used to turn into
+ridicule, and compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a young
+kid.
+
+In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season of
+life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a
+proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the power of age
+to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making just allowance,
+those in that class do not forget, that if must cost them more pains
+and attention, than what youth, the natural spring-time of joy, stands
+in need of: as fruits out of season require proportionally more skill
+and cultivation, to force them.
+
+With this gentleman, who took me home soon after our acquaintance
+commenced, I lived near eight months in which time, my constant
+complaisance and docility, my attention to deserve his confidence and
+love, and a conduct, in general, devoid of the least art and founded on
+my sincere regard and esteem for him, won and attached him so firmly to
+me, that, after having generously trusted me with a genteel,
+independent settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection on me, he
+appointed me, by an authentic will, his sole heiress and executrix: a
+disposition which he did not outlive two months, being taken from me by
+a violent cold that he contracted, as he unadvisedly ran to the window,
+on an alarm of fire at some streets distant, and stood there
+naked-breasted, and exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night
+air.
+
+After acquitting myself of the duty towards my deceased benefactor, and
+paying him a tribute of un-feigned sorrow, which a little time changed
+into a most tender, graceful memory of him, which I shall ever retain,
+I grew somewhat comforted by the prospect that now opened to me, if not
+of happiness, at least of affluence and independence.
+
+I saw myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth (for I was not
+yet nineteen), actually at the head of so large a fortune, as it would
+have been even the height of impudence in me to have raised my wishes,
+much more my hopes to; and that this unexpected elevation did not turn
+my head, I owed to the pains my benefactor had taken to form and
+prepare me for it, as I owed his opinion of my management of the vast
+possessions he left me, to what he had observed of the prudential
+economy I had learned under Mrs. Cole, the reserve of which he saw I
+had made, was a proof and encouragement to him.
+
+But, alas! how easily in the enjoyment of the greatest sweets in life,
+in present possession, poisoned by the regret of an absent one! But my
+regret was a mighty and just one, since it had my only truly beloved
+Charles for its object.
+
+Given him up I had, indeed, completely, having never once heard from
+him since our separation; which, as I found afterwards, had been my
+misfortune, and not his neglect, for he wrote me several letters which
+had all miscarried; but forgotten him I never had. And amidst all my
+personal infidelities, not one had made a pin’s point impression on a
+heart impenetrable to the true love passion, but for him.
+
+As soon, however, as I was mistress of this unexpected fortune, I felt
+more than ever how dear he was to me, from its insufficiency to make me
+happy, whilst he was not to share it with me. My earliest care,
+consequently, was to endeavour at getting some account of him; but all
+my researches produced me no more light, than that his father had been
+dead for some time, not so well as even with the world; and that
+Charles had reached his port of destination in the South Seas, where,
+finding the estate he was sent to recover, dwindled to a trifle, by the
+loss of two ships in which the bulk of his uncle’s fortune lay, he was
+come away with the small remainder, and might, perhaps, according to
+the best advice, in a few months return to England, from whence he had,
+at the time of this my inquiry, been absent two years and seven months.
+A little eternity in love!
+
+You cannot conceive with what joy I embraced the hopes thus given me of
+seeing the delight of my heart again. But, as the term of months was
+assigned it, in order to divert and amuse my impatience for his return,
+after settling my affairs with much ease and security, I set out on a
+journey for Lancashire, with an equipage suitable to my fortune, and
+with a design purely to revisit my place of nativity, for which I could
+not help retaining a great tenderness; and might naturally not be sorry
+to shew myself there, to the advantage I was now in pass to do, after
+the report Esther Davis had spread of my being spirited away to the
+plantations; for on no other supposition could she account for the
+suppression of myself to her, since her leaving me so abruptly at the
+inn. Another favourite intention I had, to look out for my relations,
+though I had none but distant ones, and prove a benefactress to them.
+Then Mrs. Cole’s place of retirement lying in my way, was not amongst
+the least of the pleasures I had proposed to myself in this expedition.
+
+I had taken nobody with me but a discreet decent woman, to figure it as
+my companion, besides my servants; and was scarce got into an inn,
+about twenty miles from London, where I was to sup and pass the night,
+when such a storm of wind and rain come on, as made me congratulate
+myself on having got under shelter before it began.
+
+This had continued a good half an hour, when bethinking me of some
+directions to be given to the coachman, I sent for him, not caring that
+his shoes should soil the very clean parlour, in which the cloth was
+laid, I stept into the hall kitchen, where he was, and where, whilst I
+was talking to him, I slantingly observed two horsemen driven in by the
+weather, and both wringing wet; one of whom was asking if they could
+not be assisted with a change, while their clothes were dried. But,
+heavens! who can express what I felt at the sound of a voice, ever
+present to my heart, and that it now rebounded at! or when pointing my
+eyes towards the person it came from, they confirmed its information,
+in spite of so long an absence, and of a dress one would have studied
+for a disguise: a horseman’s great coat, with a stamp-up cape, and his
+hat flapped... but what could escape the alertness of a sense truly
+guided by love? A transport then like mine was above all consideration,
+or schemes of surprise; and I, that instant, with the rapidity of the
+emotions that I felt the spur of, shot into his arms, crying out, as I
+threw mine round his neck: “My life!... my soul!... my Charles!..” and
+without further power of speech, swooned away, under the pressing
+agitation of joy and surprise.
+
+Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself in my charmer’s arms,
+but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd which this event had gathered
+round us, and which immediately, on a signal from the discreet
+landlady, who currently took him for my husband, cleared the room, and
+desirably left us alone to the raptures of this reunion; my joy at
+which had like to have proved, at the expense of my life, its power
+superior to that of grief at our fatal separation.
+
+The first object then, that my eyes opened on, was their supreme idol,
+and my supreme wish, Charles, on one knee, holding me fast by the hand
+and gazing on me with a transport of fondness. Observing my recovery,
+he attempted to speak, and give vent to his patience of hearing my
+voice again, to satisfy him once more that it was I; but the mightiness
+and suddenness of the surprise continuing to stun him, choked his
+utterance: he could only stammer out a few broken, half-formed,
+filtering accents, which my ears greedily drinking in, spelt, and put
+together, so as to make out their sense: “After so long!... so cruel an
+absence!... my dearest Fanny!... can it?... can it be you?...” stifling
+me at the time with kisses, that, stopping my opening mouth, at once
+prevented the answer that he panted for, and increased the delicious
+disorder in which all my senses were rapturously lost. However, amidst
+this crowd of ideas, and all blissful ones, there obtruded only one
+cruel doubt that poisoned nearly all the transcendant happiness: and
+what was it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real? I
+trembled now with my fear of its being no more than a dream, and of
+waking out of it into the horrors of finding it one. Under this fond
+apprehension, imagining I could not make too much of the present
+prodigious joy, before it would vanish and leave me in the desert
+again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I clung to him, I clasped
+him, as if to hinder him from escaping me again: “Where have you
+been?... how could you... could you leave me?... Say you are still
+mine... that you still love me... and thus! thus!” (kissing him as if I
+would consolidated lips with him) “I forgive you... forgive my hard
+fortune in favour of this restoration.”
+
+All these interjections breaking from me, in that wildness of
+expression that justly passes for eloquence in love, drew from him all
+the returns my fond heart could wish or require. Our caresses, our
+questions, our answers, for some time observed no order; all crossing,
+or interrupting one another in sweet confusion, whilst we exchanged
+hearts at our eyes, and renewed the ratifications of a love unabated by
+time or absence: not a breath, not a motion, not a gesture on either
+side, but what was strongly impressed with it. Our hands, locked in
+each other, repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that their fiery
+thrill went to the heart again.
+
+Thus absorbed, and concentered in this unutterable delight, I had not
+attended to the sweet author of it being thoroughly wet, and in danger
+of catching cold; when, in good time, the landlady, whom the appearance
+of my equipage (which, bye the bye Charles knew nothing of) had gained
+me an interest in, for me and mine interrupted us by bringing in a
+decent shift of linen and clothes; which now, somewhat recovered into a
+calmer composure by the coming in of a third person, I pressed him to
+take the benefit of, with a tender concern and anxiety that made me
+tremble for his health.
+
+The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift; in the act of
+which, though he proceeded with all that modesty which became these
+first solemner instants of our re-meeting, after so long an absence, I
+could not refrain certain snatches of my eyes, lured by the dazzling
+discoveries of his naked skin, that escaped him as he changed his
+linen, and which I could not observe the unfaded life and complexion of
+without emotions of tenderness and joy, that had himself too purely for
+their object, to partake of a loose or mis-timed desire.
+
+He was soon dressed in these temporary clothes, which neither fitted
+him, nor became the light my passion placed him in, to me at least;
+yet, as they were on him, they looked extremely well, in virtue of that
+magic charm which love put into every thing that he touched, or had
+relation to him: and where, indeed, was that dress that a figure like
+his would not give grace to? For now, as I eyed him more in detail, I
+could not but observe the even favourable alteration which the time of
+his absence had produced in his person.
+
+There were still the requisite lineaments, still the same vivid
+vermillion and bloom reigning in his face; but now the roses were more
+fully blown; the tan of his travels, and a beard somewhat more
+distinguishable, had, at the expense of no more delicacy than what he
+could well spare, given it an air of becoming manliness and maturity,
+that symmetrized nobly with that air of distinction and empire with
+which nature had stamped it, in a rare mixture with the sweetness of
+it; still nothing had he lost of that smooth plumpness of flesh, which,
+glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the eye, and delicious to the
+touch; then his shoulders were grown more square, his shape more
+formed, more portly, but still free and airy. In short, his figure
+showed riper, greater, and perfecter to the experienced eye, than in
+his tender youth; and now he was not much more than two and twenty.
+
+In this interval, however, I picked out of the broken, often pleasingly
+interrupted account of himself, that he was, at that instant, actually
+on his road to London, in not a very paramount plight or condition,
+having been wrecked on the Irish coast for which he had prematurely
+embarked, and lost the little all he had brought with him from the
+South Seas: so that he had not till after great shifts and hardships,
+in the company of his fellow-traveller, the captain, got so far on his
+journey; that so it was (having heard of his father’s death and
+circumstances,) he had now the world to begin again, on a new account:
+a situation, which he assured me, in a vein of sincerity, that flowing
+from his heart, penetrated mine, gave him to farther pain, than that he
+had not his power to make me as happy as he could wish. My fortune, you
+will please to observe, I had not entered upon any overture of,
+reserving, to feast myself with the surprise of it to him, in calmer
+instants. And, as to my dress, it could give him no idea of the truth,
+not only as it was mourning, but likewise in a style of plainness and
+simplicity that I had ever kept to with studied art. He pressed me
+indeed tenderly to satisfy his ardent curiosity, both with regard to my
+past and present state of life, since his being torn away from me: but
+I found means to elude his questions, by answers that shewing his
+satisfaction at no great distance, won upon him to waive his
+impatience, in favour of the thorough confidence he had in my not
+delaying it, but for respect I should in good time acquaint him with.
+
+Charles, however, thus returned to my longing arms, tender, faithful,
+and in health, was already a blessing too mighty for my conception: but
+Charles in distress!... Charles reduced, and broken down to his naked
+personal merit, was such a circumstance, in favour of the sentiments I
+had for him, as exceeded my utmost desire; and accordingly I seemed so
+visibly charmed, so out of time and measure pleased at his mention of
+his ruined fortune, that he could account for it no way, but that the
+joy of seeing him again had swallowed up every other sense of concern.
+
+In the mean time, my woman had taken, all possible care of Charles’s
+travelling companion; and as supper was coming in, he was introduced to
+me, when I received him as became my regard for all of Charles’s
+acquaintance or friends.
+
+We four then supped together, in the style of joy, congratulation, and
+pleasing disorder that you may guess. For my part, though all these
+agitations had left me not the least stomach, but for that uncloying
+feast, the sight of my adored youth, I endeavoured to force it, by way
+of example for him, who I conjectured must want such a recruit after
+riding; and, indeed, he; ate like a traveller, but gazed at, and
+addressed me all the time like a lover.
+
+After the cloth was taken away, and the hour of repose came on, Charles
+and I were, without further ceremony, in quality of man and wife, shown
+up together to a very handsome apartment, and, all in course, the bed,
+they said, the best in the inn.
+
+And here, Decency, forgive me! if once more I violate thy laws and
+keeping the curtains undrawn, sacrifice thee for the last time to that
+confidence, without reserve, with which I engaged to recount to you the
+most striking circumstances of my youthful disorders.
+
+As soon, then, as we were in the room together, left to ourselves, the
+sight of the bed starving the remembrance of our first joys, and the
+thought of my being instantly to share it with the dear possessor of my
+virgin heart, moved me so strongly, that it was well I leaned upon him,
+or I must have fainted again under the overpowering sweet alarm.
+Charles saw into my confusion, and forgot his own, that was scarce
+less, to apply himself to the removal of mine.
+
+But now the true refining passion had regained throughout possession of
+me, with all its train of symptoms: a sweet sensibility, a tender
+timidity, love-sick yearnings tempered with diffidence and modesty, all
+held me in a subjection of soul, incomparably dearer to me than the
+liberty of heart which I had been long, too long! the mistress of, in
+the course of those grosser gallantries, the consciousness of which now
+made me sigh with a virtuous confusion and regret. No real virgin, in
+short, in view of the nuptial bed, could give more bashful blushes to
+unblemished innocence, than I did to a sense of guilt; and indeed I
+loved Charles too truly not to feel severely that I did not deserve
+him.
+
+As I kept hesitating and disconcerted under this soft distraction,
+Charles, with a fond impatience, took the pains to undress me; and all
+I can remember amidst the nutter and discomposure of my senses, was,
+some flattering exclamation of joy and admiration, more specially at
+the feel of my breasts, now set at liberty from my stays, and which
+panting and rising in tumultous throbs, swelled upon his dear touch,
+and gave it the welcome pleasure of finding them well formed, and
+un-failed in firmness.
+
+I was soon laid in bed, and scarce languished an instant for the
+darling partner of it, before he was undressed and got between the
+sheets, with his arms clasped round me, giving and taking, with gust
+inexpressible, a kiss of welcome, that my heart rising to my lips
+stamped with its warmest impression, concurring to my bliss, with that
+delicate and voluptuous emotion which Charles alone had the secret to
+excite, and which constitutes the very life, the essence of pleasure.
+
+Mean while, two candles lighted on a side-table near us, and a joyous
+wood fire, threw a light into the bed, that took from one sense, of
+great importance to our joys, all pretext for complaining of its being
+shut out of its share of them; and, indeed, the sight of my idolized
+youth was alone, from the ardour with which I had wished for it,
+without other circumstance, a pleasure to die of.
+
+But as action was now a necessity to desires so much on edge as ours,
+Charles, after a very short prelusive dalliance, lifting up my linen
+and his own, laid the broad treasures of his manly chest close to my
+bosom, both beating with the tenderest alarms: when now, the sense of
+his glowing body, in naked touch with mine, took all power over my
+thoughts out of my own disposal, and delivered up every faculty of the
+soul to the sensiblest of joys, that affecting me infinitely more with
+my distinction of the person, than of the sex, now brought my heart
+deliriously into play: my heart, which, eternally constant to Charles,
+had never taken any part in my original sacrifices to the calls of
+constitution, complaisance, or interest. But ah! what became of me,
+when as the powers of solid pleasure thickened upon me, I could not
+help feeling the stiff stake that had been adorned with the trophies of
+my despoiled virginity, bearing hard and inflexible against one of my
+thighs, which I had not yet opened, from a true principle of modesty,
+revived by a passion too sincere to suffer any aiming at the false
+merit of difficulty, or my putting on an impertinent mock coyness.
+
+I have, I believe, somewhere before remarked, that feel of that
+favourite piece of manhood has, in the very nature of it, something
+inimitably pathetic. Nothing can be dearer to the touch, nor can affect
+it with a more delirious sensation. Think then! as a love thinks, what
+must be the consummate transport of that quickest of our senses, in
+their central seat too! when, after so long a deprival, it felt itself
+re-inflamed under the pressure of that peculiar sceptre-member, which
+commands us all: but especially my darling, elect from the face of the
+whole earth. And now, at its mightiest point of stiffness, it felt to
+me something so subduing so active, so solid and agreeable, that I know
+not what name to give its singular impression: but the sentiment of
+consciousness of its belonging to my supremely beloved youth, gave me
+so pleasing an agitation, and worked so strongly on my soul, that it
+sent all its sensitive spirits to that organ of bliss in me, dedicated
+to its reception. There, concentering to a point, like rays in a
+burning glass, they glowed, they burnt with the intensest heat; the
+springs of pleasure were, in short, wound up to such a pitch, I panted
+now with so exquisitely keen an appetite for the eminent enjoyment,
+that I was even sick with desire, and unequal to support the
+combination of two distinct ideas, that delightfully distracted me: for
+all the thought I was capable of, was that I was now in touch, at once,
+with the instrument of pleasure, and the great seal of love. Ideas
+that, mingling streams, poured such an ocean of intoxicating bliss on a
+weak vessel, all too narrow to contain it, that I lay overwhelmed,
+absorbed, lost in an abyss of joy, and dying of nothing but immoderate
+delight.
+
+Charles then roused me somewhat out of this ecstatic distraction, with
+a complaint softly murmured, amidst a crowd of kisses, at the position,
+not so favourable to his desires, in which I received his urgent
+insistance for admission, where that insistance was alone so engrossing
+a pleasure, that it made me inconsistently suffer a much dearer one to
+be kept out; but how sweet to correct such a mistake! My thighs, now
+obedient to the intimations of love and nature, gladly disclose, and
+with a ready submission, resign up the soft gateway to the entrance of
+pleasure: I see, I feel the delicious velvet tip!... he enters me might
+and main, with... oh! my pen drops from here in the extasy now present
+to my faithful memory! Description too deserts me, and delivers over a
+task, above its strength of wing, to the imagination: but it must be an
+imagination exalted by such a flame as mine that can do justice to that
+sweetest, noblest of all sensations, that hailed and accompanied the
+stiff insinuation all the way up, till it was at the end of its
+penetration, sending up, through my eyes, the sparks of the love-fire
+that ran all over me and blazed in every vein and every pore of me; a
+system incarnate of joy all over.
+
+I had now totally taken in love’s true arrow from the point up to the
+feather, in that part, where making no new wound, the lips or the
+original one of nature, which had owed its first breathing to this dear
+instrument, clung, as if sensible of gratitude, in eager suction round
+it, whilst all its inwards embraced it tenderly, with a warmth of gust,
+a compressive energy, that gave it, in its way, the heartiest welcome
+in nature; every fibre there gathering tight round it, and straining
+ambitiously to come in for its share of the blissful touch.
+
+As we were giving them a few moments pause to the the delectations of
+the senses, in dwelling with the highest relish on this intimatest
+point of re-union, and chewing the cud of enjoyment, the impatience
+natural to the pleasure soon drove us into action. Then began the
+driving tumult on his side, and the responsive heaves on mine, which
+kept me up to him; whilst, as our joys grew too great for utterance,
+the organs of our voices, voluptuously intermixing, became organs of
+the touch... how delicious!... how poignantly luscious!... And now! now
+I felt, to the heart of me! I felt the prodigious keen edge, with which
+love, presiding over this act, points the pleasure: love! that may be
+styled the Attic salt of enjoyment; and indeed, without it, the joy,
+great as it is, is still a vulgar one, whether in a king or a beggar;
+for it is, undoubtedly, love alone that refines, ennobles, and exalts
+it.
+
+Thus, happy, then, by the heart, happy by the senses, it was beyond all
+power, even of thought, to form the conception of a greater delight
+than what I now am consummating the fruition of.
+
+Charles, whose whole frame was convulsed with the agitation of his
+rapture, whilst the tenderest fires trembled in his eyes, all assured
+me of a perfect concord of joy, penetrated me so profoundly, touched me
+so vitally, took me so much out of my own possession, whilst he seemed
+himself so much in mine, that in a delicious enthusiasm, I imagined
+such a transfusion of heart and spirit, as that coalescing, and making
+one body and soul with him, I was he, and he me.
+
+But all this pleasure tending, like life from its first instants,
+towards its own dissolution, lived too fast not to bring on upon the
+spur its delicious moment of mortality; for presently the approach of
+the tender agony discovered itself by its usual signals, that were
+quickly followed by my dear lover’s emanation of himself, that spun
+out, and shot, feelingly indeed! up the ravished indraught: where the
+sweetly soothing balmy titillation opened all the juices of joy on my
+side, which ecstatically in flow helped to allay the prurient glow, and
+drowned our pleasure for a while. Soon, however, to be on float again!
+for Charles, true to nature’s laws, in one breath, expiring and
+ejaculating, languished not long in the dissolving trance, but
+recovering spirit again, soon gave me to feel that the true mettle
+spring! of his instrument of pleasure, were, by love, and perhaps, by a
+long vacation, wound up too high to be let down by a single explosion:
+his stiffnesss till stood my friend. Resuming then the action afresh,
+without dislodging, or giving me the trouble of parting from my sweet
+tenant, we played over again the same opera, with the same harmony and
+concert: our ardours, like our love, knew no remission; and all the
+tide serving my lover, lavish of his stores, and pleasure-milked, he
+over-flowed me once more from the fulness of his oval reservoirs of the
+genial emulsion: whilst, on my side, a convulsive grasp, in the instant
+of my giving down the liquid contribution, rendered me sweetly
+subservient at once to the increase of joy, and to its effusions:
+moving me so, as to make me exert all those springs of the compressive
+exsuction, with which the sensitive mechanism of that part thirstily
+draws and drains the nipple of Love; with much such an instinctive
+eagerness and attachment, as to compare great with less, kind nature
+engages infants at the breasts, by the pleasure they find in the motion
+of their little mouths and cheeks, to extract the milky stream prepared
+for their nourishment.
+
+But still there was no end of his vigour: this double discharge had so
+far from extinguished his desires, for that time, that it had not even
+calmed them; and at his age, desires are power. He was proceeding then
+amazingly to push it to a third triumph, still without uncasing, if a
+tenderness, natural to true love, had not inspired me with self-denial
+enough to spare, and not over-strain him: and accordingly, entreating
+him to give himself and me quarter, I obtained, at length, a short
+suspension of arms, but not before he had exultingly satisfied me that
+he gave out standing.
+
+The remainder of the night, with what we borrowed upon the day, we
+employed with unwearied fervour in celebrating thus the festival of our
+remeeting; and got up pretty late in the morning, gay, brisk and alert,
+though rest had been a stranger to us: but the pleasures of love had
+been to us, what the joy of victory is to an army: repose, refreshment,
+every thing.
+
+The journey into the country being now entirely out of the question,
+and orders having been given overnight for turning the horses’ heads
+towards London, we left the inn as soon as we had breakfasted, not
+without a liberal distribution of the tokens of my grateful sense of
+the happiness I had met with in it.
+
+Charles and I were in my coach; the captain and my companion in a
+chaise hired purposely for them, to leave us the conveniency of a
+_tête-à-tête_.
+
+Here, on the road, as the tumult of my senses was tolerably composed, I
+had command enough of head to break properly to his the course of life
+that the consequences of my separation from him had driven me into:
+which, at the same time that he tenderly deplored with me, he was the
+less shocked at; as, on reflecting how he had left me circumstances, he
+could not be entirely unprepared for it.
+
+But when I opened the state of my fortune to him, and with that
+sincerity which, from me to him, was so much a nature in me, I beged of
+him his acceptance of it, on his own terms. I should appear to you
+perhaps too partial to my passion, were I to attempt the doing his
+delicacy justice, I shall content myself then with assuring you, that
+after his flatly refusing the unreserved, unconditional donation that I
+long persecuted him in vain to accept, it was at length, in obedience
+to his serious commands (for I stood out unaffectedly, till he exerted
+the sovereign authority which love had given him over me), that I
+yielded my consent to waive the remonstrance I did not fail of making
+strongly to him, against his degrading himself, and incurring the
+reflection, however unjust, of having, for respects of fortune,
+bartered his honour for infamy and prostitution, in making one his
+wife, who thought herself too much honoured in being but his mistress.
+
+The plea of love then over-ruling all objections, for him, which he
+could not but read the sincerity of in a heart ever open to him,
+obliged me to receive his hand, by which means I was in pass, among
+other innumerable blessings, to bestow a legal parentage on those fine
+children you have seen by this happiest of matches.
+
+Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of virtue, I
+gathered the only uncorrupt sweets: where, looking back on the course
+of vice I had run, and comparing its infamous blandishments with the
+infinitely superior joys of innocence, I could not help pitying, even
+in point of taste, those who, immersed in gross sensuality, are
+insensible to the so delicate charms of VIRTUE, than which even
+PLEASURE has not a greater friend, nor VICE a greater enemy. Thus
+temperance makes men lords over those pleasures that intemperance
+enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour fertility
+cheerfulness, and every other desirable good of life; the other, of
+diseases, debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil
+incident to human nature.
+
+You laugh, perhaps, at this tail-piece of morality, extracted from me
+by the force of truth, resulting from compared experiences: you think
+it, no doubt, out of character; possibly too you may look on it as the
+paultry finesse of one who seeks to mask a devotee to vice under a rag
+of a veil, impudently smuggled from the shrine of Virtue: just as if
+one was to fancy one’s self completely disguised at a masquerade, with
+no other change of dress than turning one’s shoes into slippers; or, as
+if a writer should think to shield a treasonable libel, by concluding
+it with a formal prayer for the King. But, independent of my flattering
+myself that you have a juster opinion of my sense and sincerity, give
+me leave to represent to you, that such a supposition is even more
+injurious to Virtue than to me: since, consistently with candour and
+good nature, it san have no foundation but in the falsest of fears,
+that its pleasures cannot stand in comparison with those of Vice; but
+let truth dare to hold it up in its most alluring light: then mark, how
+spurious, how low of taste, how comparatively inferior its joys are to
+those which Virtue gives sanction to, and whose sentiments are not
+above making even a sauce for the senses, but a sauce of the highest
+relish; whilst Vices are the harpies that infect and foul the feast.
+The paths of Vice are sometimes strewed with roses, but then they are
+for ever infamous for many a thorn, for many a cankerworm: those of
+Virtue are strewed with roses purely, and those eternally unfading
+ones.
+
+If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly consistent in
+the incense I burn to Virtue. If I have painted Vice in all its gayest
+colours, if I have decked it with flowers, it has been solely in order
+to make the worthier, the solemner sacrifice of it to Virtue.
+
+You know Mr. C*** O***, you know his estate, his worth, and good sense:
+can you, will you pronounce it ill meant, at least of him, when anxious
+for his son’s morals, with a view to form him to virtue, and inspire
+him with a fixed, a rational contempt for vice, he condescended to be
+his master of the ceremonies, and led him by the hand through the most
+noted bawdy-houses in town, where he took care he should be
+familiarized with all those scenes of debauchery, so fit to nauseate a
+good taste? The experiment, you will cry, is dangerous. True, on a
+fool: but are fools worth so much attention.
+
+I shall see you soon, and in the mean time think candidly of me, and
+believe me ever,
+
+MADAM,
+Yours, etc., etc., etc.
+X X X
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 25305 ***
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