\LFanny 2.91 :
\N1 MADAM,
IF I have delay'd the sequel of my history, it has been purely
to afford 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.
\SFanny 2.91 :
\N8 I imagined indeed, that you would have been cloy'd and tired
with the uniformity of adventures and expressions, inseparable
from a subject of this sort, whose bottom or ground-work
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 {practise of pleasure},
flatten, and lose much of their due spirit and energy, by the
frequency they indispensibly recur with, in a narrative of which
that {practise} 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
task 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.
\SFanny 2.91 :
\N28 What you say besides, by way of encouragement concerning
the extreme difficulty of continuing so long in one strain, in a
mean temper'd 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-natur'd, that you greatly justify me to myself for my
compliance with a curiosity that is to be satisfied so extremely at
my expence.
\SFanny 2.91 :
\N36 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 arriv'd
at my new lodgings, and Mrs#. {Cole}, after helping me to range,
and secure my things, spent the whole evening with me in my
\PFanny 2.92 :
\N1 apartment, where we supped together, in giving me the best
advice and instruction with regard to this 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
observ'd, as I was a kind of new face upon the town, that it was
an establish'd rule, and mystery 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 maiden-head, I should reap all the advantages of a
native one.
\SFanny 2.92 :
\N18 As a great delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong to
my character at that time, I confess, against myself, that I
perhaps to 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
abandon'd the direction of all my steps. For Mrs#. {Cole} had, I do
not know how, unless by one of those unaccountable invincible
simpathies, that nevertheless form the strongest links, especially
of female friendship, one and got intire 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 as slender motives of attachments,
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 tho' I had no other
acquaintance with her, than seeing her at my lodgings, when I
liv'd with Mr#. {H#-#-#-#-}, where she had made errands to sell me
some millinary 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 experienc'd 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 unreserv'd agreement; and the next
\PFanny 2.93 :
\N1 morning Mrs#. {Cole} came, and took me with her to her house,
for the first time.
\SFanny 2.93 :
\N3 Here, at first sight of things, I found every thing breath an
air of decency, modesty, and order.
\SFanny 2.93 :
\N5 In the outer-parlour, or rather shop, sat three young women
very demurely employ'd on millinary 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
sparkling eyes, and perfect harmony of features, and shapes, 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, and domestic flock,
which my governess train'd 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 untractable,
or unwilling to comply with the rules of it. Thus had she
insensibly formed a little family of love, in which the members
found so sensibly their account in a rare alliance of pleasure
with interest, and of a necessary outward decency, with
unbounded secret liberty, that Mrs#. {Cole}, who had pick'd them
as much for their temper as their beauty, govern'd them with
ease to herself, and them too.
\SFanny 2.93 :
\N27 To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepar'd, 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 pleas'd 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 consider'd me as
a partner, that was bringing no despicable stock of goods into
the trade of the house: they gather'd round me, view'd 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.
\SFanny 2.93 :
\N41 The sameness of our sex, age, profession, and views, soon
created as unreserv'd a freedom and intimacy as if we had been
\PFanny 2.94 :
\N1 for years acquainted. They took and shew'd me the house, their
respective apartments, which were furnish'd with every article
of conveniency 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 liberty of the
golden age, and its simplicity of pleasures, before their innocence
became so unjustly branded with the names of guilt, and
shame.
\SFanny 2.94 :
\N17 As soon then as the evening began, and the shew of a shop
was shut, the academy open'd, the mask of mock-modesty was
compleatly taken off, and all the girls deliver'd over to their
respective calls of pleasure, or interest, with their men: and
none of that sex were promiscuously admitted, but only such as
Mrs#. {Cole} was previously satisfied of 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.
\SFanny 2.94 :
\N31 After having consum'd the morning in the indearments and
instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner, when
Mrs#. {Cole}, presiding at the head of her cluck, gave me the first
idea of her management and address, in inspiring these lively
amiable 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, chearful, and easy.
\SFanny 2.94 :
\N38 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 maiden-head, that was to be
occasionally cooked up for the first proper chapman, I was to
\PFanny 2.95 :
\N1 undergo a ceremonial of initiation, they were sure I should not
be displeased with.
\SFanny 2.95 :
\N3 Embark'd 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 so much as hesitate an assent,
which therefore readily giving, in the style of a {chartre blanche},
I receiv'd 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.
\SFanny 2.95 :
\N12 This point thus adjusted, the young ladies left Mrs#. {Cole} to
talk and concert matters, with me, when she explain'd to me,
that I should be introduc'd that very evening to four of her best
friends, one of whom she had, according to the custom of the
house, favour'd 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 humour'd 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.
\SFanny 2.95 :
\N30 Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise of
pleasure, for such I conceived it, stir'd up in me, I preserv'd 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 its perhaps
being right for me to go home and dress in favour of my first
impressions.
\SFanny 2.95 :
\N37 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 touch'd with any
glare of dress, or ornaments, such as silly women rather
confound, and overlay, than set off their beauty with; that these
veteran voluptuaries knew better than not to hold them in the
\PFanny 2.96 :
\N1 highest contempt, they with whom the pure native charms
alone could pass current, and who would at any time leave a
sallow, washy, painted dutchess on her own hands, for a ruddy,
healthy, firm-flesh'd country-maid: and as for my part, that
nature had done enough for me, to set me above owning the
least favour to art; concluding withall, that for the instant
occasion, there was no dress like an undress.
\SFanny 2.96 :
\N8 I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters, not
to be easily over-rul'd 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 stil'd 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.
\SFanny 2.96 :
\N15 Whilst I was edifying by these wholesome lessons, tea was
brought in, and the young ladies, returning, join'd company
with us.
\SFanny 2.96 :
\N18 After a great deal of mix'd chat, frolick, and good humour, one of
them, observing that there would be a good deal of time on hand
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 approv'd, with one only
restriction of Mrs#. {Cole}, that she, on the account of her age, and
I on the account of my titular maidenhood, 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.
\SFanny 2.96 :
\N29 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 of shape
required by the nicer judges of beauty: her eyes were blue, and
stream'd inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be prettier
than her mouth, and lips, which closed over a range of the
evenest, whitest teeth.(--)Thus she began.
\SFanny 2.96 :
\N36 Neither my extraction, nor the most critical adventure of my
life, are 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 ought 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 only they vouchsafed to
bestow their tenderness, had a thousand times determined me
\PFanny 2.97 :
\N1 to fly their house, and throw myself on the wide world; but at
length an accident forced me on this desperate step, at the age of
fifteen. I had broken a China-bowl, 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 and timidity of those
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 god-mother's, a few shillings,
silver shoe-buckles, and thimble. Thus equipp'd, with no
more cloaths than the ordinary ones I had on my back, and
frighten'd at every foot, or noise I heard behind me, I hurried
on: and I dare swear, walked a dozen miles before I stopp'd
thro' mere weariness and fatigue. I sat down on a stile, where I
wept bitterly, and yet was still rather under encreased
impressions of fear on the account of my escape; which made
me dread worse than death, the going back to face my unnatural
parents. Refresh'd 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 featur'd enough,
with uncomb'd flaxen hair, a little flapp'd hat, a 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 walk'd by one another for some time
without speaking, at length we join'd 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 question'd:
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 once dream'd of
consequences. We came presently, after having agreed on this
notable expedient, 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, call'd for what the house afforded, and we supp'd
together as man and wife, which considering our figures, and
\PFanmy 2.98 :
\N1 ages, could not have past 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 seem'd as perplex'd
as I was, how to evade the lying together, which was so natural
for the state we had pretended to: whilst we were in this
quandary, the landlady takes the candle, 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 suffer'd 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 in course. For my
part, I was so incredibly innocent, as not even then 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 get into bed: slipping then my
cloaths off, I crept under the bed-cloaths, where I found the
young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm flesh
rather pleased than alarmed me. I was indeed to much disturb'd
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, and 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. Embolden'd, I suppose, by my
easiness, he ventur'd to kiss me, and I insensibly return'd it,
without knowing the consequences of returning it: for on this
encouragement, he slipp'd his hand all down from my breast, to
that part of me, where the sense of feeling is so exquisitely
critical, as I then experienc'd by its instant taking fire upon the
touch, and glowing with a strange tickling heat: there he pleas'd
himself and me, by feeling, till growing a little too bold, 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 lodg'd and
press'd it, till raising it by degrees, he made me feel the proud
distinction of his sex from mine. I was frighten'd at the novelty,
\PFanny 2.99 :
\N1 and drew back my hand; yet, press'd and spurr'd on by
sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not help asking him,
what was that for? He told me, he would show 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 a-top of me, and inserting one of his thighs between
mine, open'd them so as to make way for himself, and fix'd me
to his purpose; whilst I was so much out of my usual sense, so
subdu'd by the present power of a new one, that, between fear
and desire, I lay utterly passive, till the piercing pain rouz'd,
and made me cry out: but it was too late; he was too firm fix'd
in the saddle for me to compass flinging him, with all the
struggles I could use, some of which only serv'd to further his
point, and at length an omnipotent thrust murther'd at once
my maidenhead, and almost me: I now lay a bleeding witness
of the necessity impos'd on our sex, to gather the first honey
off the thorns.
\SFanny 2.99 :
\N18 But the pleasure rising, as the pain subsided, I was soon
reconcil'd 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, in
which I had been long ago batter'd and torn to pieces before I
came to this age, as much through my easiness, as through my
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.
\SFanny 2.99 :
\N29 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 simmetry of her small, but exactly
fashion'd limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was, appear'd yet
more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the brilliancy of
which gave her face more vivacity than belong'd 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 mignature features join'd to finish the extreme sweetness
of it, which was not belied by that of a temper turn'd to
indolence, languor, and the pleasures of love. Press'd to subscribe
\PFanny 2.100:
\N1 her contingent, she smil'd, blush'd a little, and thus
complied with our desires.
\SFanny 2.100:
\N3 My father was neither better nor worse than a miller, near the
city of {York}; but both he and my mother dying whilst I was an
infant, I fell under the care of a widow, and childless aunt,
house-keeper 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
the account of my person purely, (for fortune I had notoriously
none) several advantageous proposals: but whether nature was
slow in making me sensible of her favourite passion, or that I
had not seen any of the other sex who had stirr'd up the least
emotion or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had till
that age preserv'd a perfect innocence even of thought: whilst
my fears of I did not well know what, made me no more
desirous of marrying than of dying. My aunt, good woman,
favour'd my timorousness, which she look'd on as a childish
affection, that her own experience might probably assure her
would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper answers for
me.
\SFanny 2.100:
\N21 The family had not been down at this seat for years, so that it
was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two
more old domestics, to take care of it.
\SFanny 2.100:
\N24 Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house, and
gardens, situate at above half a mile distance from any other
habitation, except perhaps a straggling cottage, or so.
\SFanny 2.100:
\N27 Here, in tranquility, and innocence, I grew up, without any
memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done
before, left my aunt fast asleep, and secure for some hours, after
dinner: and resorting to a kind of ancient summer-house, at
some distance from the house, I carry'd my work with me, and
sat over a rivulet, which its door and window fac'd 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-basket for a pillow,
were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon
awak'd and alarm'd 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
stray'd that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and the
sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness of the
\PFanny 2.101:
\N1 clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jump'd into it on the
other side which border'd on a wood, some trees whereof,
inclin'd down to the water, form'd a pleasing, shady recess,
commodious to undress, and leave his cloaths under.
\SFanny 2.101:
\N5 My first emotions, at the sight of this youth naked in the
water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of
surprize 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 asham'd and confounded was I at having
seen him. Condemn'd then to stay till his departure should
release me, I was greatly embarrass'd how to dispose of myself:
I kept sometime, betwixt terror and modesty, even from
looking through the window, which being an old fashion'd
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 any violence, or my own consent, there was no
opening it, from without.
\SFanny 2.101:
\N21 But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that
objects which afright 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, compell'd me towards it: enbolden'd too by
my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I ventur'd by
degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and alarming to
my virgin modesty as a naked man: But as I snatch'd 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 lineaments 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 polish'd limbs, as they
appear'd above the surface, in the course of his swimming, or
wantoning with the water, amus'd and insensibly delighted me:
sometimes he lay motionless on his back, water-born, 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
\PFanny 2.102:
\N1 appear'd to emerge a round, softish, limber, white, something,
that play'd every way, with every the least motion or whirling
eddy. I cannot say but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural
instinct, attracted, detain'd, 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
sensibly look'd 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
conceal'd, began to break out, and make me feel my sex for the
first time. He had now chang'd his posture, and swam prone on
his belly, striking out with his legs and arms, finer modell'd than
which could not have been cast, whilst his floating locks play'd
o'er 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
sent off, perfectly dazzl'd one with its watery glistening gloss.
\SFanny 2.102:
\N18 By this time I was so affected by this inward revolution of
sentiments, so soften'd by this sight, that now, betray'd 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 seem'd 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, dash'd my
desires, and turn'd 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
drown'd; and imagining this so sudden eclipse to be owing to it:
the inconceivable fondness this unknown had given birth to,
distracted me with the most killing terrors, insomuch, that my
concern giving me wings, I flew to the door, open'd it, ran down
to the banks of 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
water-piece, where wildly looking round for the young man,
\PFanny 2.103:
\N1 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 rouz'd out of it by a sense of pain that
pierced me to the vitals, and awak'd me to the most surprising
circumstances of finding myself not only in the arms of this very
same young gentleman I had been so sollicitous to save; but
taken at such an advantage in my unresisting condition that he
had actually completed his entrance into my body so far, that
weakened as I was by all the preceding conflicts of mind I had
suffer'd, and struck dumb by the violence of my surprize, 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 into me, and completely triumph'd over
my virginity, as he might now as well see by the streams of
blood that follow'd his drawing out, as he had felt by the
difficulties he had met with in 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 appeas'd, now wrought so far on him,
that at all risques, 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 discompos'd in bleeding ruin, palpitating,
speechless, unable to get off, and frighten'd, and fluttering
like a poor wounded partrige, 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 call'd out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I
would not have 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.
\SFanny 2.103:
\N34 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 hand 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 shock'd
as I should have otherwise been with appearances only: in
short, my anger ebb'd so fast, and the tide of love return'd so
\PFanny 2.104:
\N1 strong upon me, that I felt it a point of my own happiness to
forgive him: the reproaches I made him were murmur'd 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, or resented: but on my
mild expostulations with him upon the barbarity of his treatment,
he explain'd 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 to, the mention of; and he was so long-breath'd 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 frolick or
diversion with him, for he knew I could not have fallen a-sleep
there without his having seen me before; agreeable to which
notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without
sign of life, and still perplex'd 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 stiled them, super-humane
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
return'd 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
\PFanny 2.105:
\N1 put me to, rouzed me just 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 discern'd the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened
looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips,
press'd 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-discover'd 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 seeking his, and rather
declin'd them, I had a glimpse of that instrument of the 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 encrease of
size, as he bore it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff, against
one of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employ'd 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 yielded at length to 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.
\SFanny 2.105:
\N32 Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop; but I am
so much in motion, 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 lov'd, and who,
though not of age to claim a small but independent fortune,
would have married me; but as the accidents that prevented it,
and their consequences which threw me on the publick, contain
matter too moving and serious to introduce at present, I cut
short here.
\SFanny 2.105:
\N42 {Louisa}, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her
\PFanny 2.106:
\N1 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.
\SFanny 2.106:
\N8 According to my 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
her 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 at a poor relation's 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
compleat 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 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 eye 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 complexion, 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 of me which she wanted so much to keep
out of harms 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 flatter'd, and I might also say, grown under my constant
touch, and visitation: so pleas'd 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 conceiv'd were annex'd to it: and now the
growing importance of that part to me, and the new sensations
in it, demolish'd at once all my girlish play-things and amusements:
\PFanny 2.107:
\N1 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
play-fellow in.
\SFanny 2.107:
\N5 I now shun'd 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 pleasures, I
strongly perceiv'd the overture of, in feeling and examining
what nature assur'd me must be the chosen avenue, the gates for
the unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted after.
\SFanny 2.107:
\N11 But these meditations only encreased my disorder, and blew
the fire that consum'd me. It was yet worse when yeilding at
length to the insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm
that tormented me; I searched it with my fingers, teazing it to
no end. Sometimes, in the furious excitations of desire, I threw
myself on my bed, spread my thighs abroad, and lay as it were
expecting the long'd-for relief, till finding my illusion, I shut
and squeez'd them together again, burning and fretting. In
short, this dev'lish 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 for one of them with great agitation and delight; yet not
without pain too did I deflour 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.
\SFanny 2.107:
\N29 But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon began to
perceive that this finger-work was but a paultry shallow
expedient, that went but a little way to relieve me, and rather
rais'd more flame than its dry insignificant titilation could
rightly appease.
\SFanny 2.107:
\N34 Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by what I
had industriously picked up at weddings and christenings, was
possess'd of the only very remedy that could reduce this
rebellious disorder; but watch'd, and overlook'd 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 mother's vigilance, and procure myself
the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity, and longings for this
mighty and untasted pleasure. At length, however, a singular
\PFanny 2.108:
\N1 chance did at once the work of a long course of alertness. One
day that we had dined at an acquaintance's over the way,
together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first
floor of our house, there started an indispensible necessity for
my mother's going down to {Greenwich} to accompany her: the
party was settled, when I do not know what genius wispered me
to plead a head-ach that 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 consign'd me into the hands
of an old trusty maid-servant who served in the shop, for we
had not a male creature in the house.
\SFanny 2.108:
\N14 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 bed-chamber, I unlaced my
stays, and threw myself on the out-side of the bed cloaths in all
the loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to the old insipid
privy shifts of 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 me 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 fingers for representing it so ill.
After then wearying and fatiguing myself with grasping of
shadows, whilst that more sensible part of me disdain'd 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 us'd to come at it, had wearied and
thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep, for if I toss'd and threw
about my limbs in proportion to the distraction of my dreams,
as I had reason to believe I did, a by-stander could not have
help'd seeing all for love: and one there was, it seems; for
waking out of my very short slumber, I found my hand lock'd
in that of a young man, who was kneeling at my bed-side, and
begging my pardon for his boldness, but that being son to the
lady to whom this bed-chamber, he knew, belong'd, he had
slipp'd by the servant of the shop, as he suppos'd, unperceiv'd;
when finding me asleep, his first ideas were to withdraw; but
\PFanny 2.109:
\N1 that he had been fix'd and detain'd there by a power he could
better account for, than resist. What shall I say? my emotions of
fear and surprize were instantly subdu'd by those of the
pleasure I bespoke in great presence of mind from the turn this
adventure might take: he seem'd 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 ask'd 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 ease; it
was not now with his thoughts, but his actions, that my
business immediately lay. I rais'd then my head, and told him in
a soft tone that tended to prescribe the same key to him, that his
mama was gone out, and would not return till late at night:
which I thought no bad hint; but, as it prov'd, I had nothing of a
novice to deal with: the impressions I had made on him, from
the discoveries I had betray'd of my person in the disorder'd
motions of it, during his view of me asleep, had, as he afterwards
told me, so fix'd, and charmingly prepar'd him, that, had I
known his dispositions, I had more to hope for 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 serv'd 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
untimely ceremony, or dalliance, my youth proceeds immediately
to those extremities, which all my looks, flushings, and
palpitations had assur'd him he might attempt without the fear
of 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 petty-coat and shift,
whilst my thighs were by an instinct of nature unfolded to their
best; and my desires had so thoroughly destroy'd all modesty in
\PFanny 2.110:
\N1 me, that even their being now naked, and all laid open to him,
was part of the prelude that pleasure deepen'd my blushes at,
more than shame; 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 unbutton'd, and the
confinement of the breeches burst through, when out starting
to view the amazing, pleasing object of all my wishes, all my
dreams, all my love, the king member indeed! I gaz'd at, I
devour'd it, length and breadth with my eyes intently directed
to it, till his getting upon me, and placing it 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 follow'd: I thought nothing too
dear to pay for this the richest treat of the senses; so that, split
up, torn, bleeding, mangled, I was still superiourly pleas'd, and
hugg'd the author of all this delicious ruin: but when soon after
he made his second attack, sore, and red-raw as every thing was,
the smart was soon put away by the sovereign cordial; all my
soft complainings were silenc'd, and the pain melting fast away
into pleasure, I abandon'd 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 liv'd but in what I felt only:
and who could describe those feelings, those agitations, yet
exalted by the charm of their novelty, and surprize? when that
part of me which had so long hunger'd and thirsted for the dear
morsel that now so delightfully cramm'd it, forc'd all my vital
sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my new
and belov'd 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 liquefy'd pearl, and
ravishingly pour'd into me, where now myself too much melted
to give it a dry reception, I hail'd it with the warmest confluence
of sweets on my side, amidst all those extatic raptures, not
unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus however, I
arriv'd at the very top of all my wishes, by an accident
unexpected indeed, but not so wonderful: for this young
gentleman was just arriv'd in town from college, and came
\PFanny 2.111:
\N1 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 hear-say only, and finding me
stretch'd 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, undiscover'd; but the warmth
of my constitution that made the pleasures of love a kind of
necessary of life to me, having betray'd me into indiscretions
fatal to my private fortune, I fell at length to the publick,
whence 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.
\SFanny 2.111:
\N14 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.
\SFanny 2.111:
\N18 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.
\SFanny 2.111:
\N22 On the landing-place of the first pair of stairs, we were met by
a young gentleman, extremely well dress'd, 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 study'd luxury; now too it
was by means of a profuse illumination, enliven'd by a light
scarce inferior to, and perhaps even more favourable to joy, more
tenderly pleasing, than that of broad sun-shine.
\SFanny 2.111:
\N32 On my entrance into the room, I had the satisfaction to hear a
buz 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 dishabil, the mistress of
the academy, and myself. I was welcom'd 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.
\SFanny 2.111:
\N40 Aw'd, and confounded as I was, at seeing myself surrounded,
caress'd, and made court to by so many strangers, I could not
immediately familiarize myself to all that air of gaiety, and joy,
\PFanny 2.112:
\N1 which dictated their compliments, and animated their caresses.
They assur'd me that I was so perfectly their taste, as to have but
one fault against me, which I might easily be cur'd of: and that
was my modesty: this, they observ'd, might pass for a beauty
the more with those who wanted it for a hightener; but their
maxim was, that it was an impertinent mixture, and dash'd the
cup so as to spoil the sincere draught of pleasure: they consider'd
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 ensu'd.
\SFanny 2.112:
\N11 In the midst of all the frolic and wantonnesses, which this
joyous band had presently and all naturally run into, an elegant
supper was serv'd 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 banish'd
all reserve; the conversation grew as lively as could be wish'd,
without taking too loose a turn: these professors of pleasure
knew too well, to stale the impressions of it, or evaporate the
imagination in words, before the time of action. Kisses however
were snatch'd at times, or where a handkerchief round the neck
interpos'd its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected: the
hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till
the provocations on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my
particular's proposal for beginning the country-dances was
receiv'd 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.
\SFanny 2.112:
\N31 As soon as she was gone, the table was remov'd from the
middle, and became a side-board; a couch was brought into its
place, of which when I whisperingly enquired the reason of my
particular, he told me, that as it was chiefly on my account that
this convention was met, the parties intended at once to humour
their taste of variety in pleasures, and by an open publick
enjoyment, to see me broke of any taint of reserve or modesty,
which they look'd 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 its missionaries, and only
indulg'd themselves in the delights of a practical instruction of
all the pretty women they lik'd well enough to bestow it upon,
\PFanny 2.113:
\N1 and fell properly in the way of it; but that as such a proposal
might be too violent, too shocking for a young beginner; the
older standers were to set an example, which he hop'd I would
not be averse to follow, since it was to him I was devolv'd 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, suppos'd an exclusion of all force, or constraint.
\SFanny 2.113:
\N8 My countenance expressed, no doubt, my surprise, as my
silence did my acquiescence. I was now embark'd, and
thoroughly determined on any voyage the company would take
me on.
\SFanny 2.113:
\N12 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 her length with an air of
roughness and vigour, relishing high of amourous eagerness
and impatience. The girl spreading herself to the best advantage,
with her head upon the pillow, was so concenter'd in what she
was about, that our presence seem'd the least of her care or
concern. Her petticoats thrown up with her shift, discover'd to
the company the finest turn'd legs and thighs that could be
imagin'd, and in a broad display, that gave us a full view of that
delicious cleft of flesh, into which the pleasingly hair-grown
mount over it parted, and presented a most inviting entrance,
between two close ledges, delicately soft and pouting. Her
gallant was now ready, having disincumbered himself from his
cloaths overloaded with lace, and presently his shirt remov'd,
shew'd us his forces in high plight, bandied, and ready for
action: but giving us no time to consider dimensions, and
proving the stiffness of his weapon, by his impatience of delay,
he threw himself instantly over his charming antagonist, who
receiv'd him as he push'd 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 the pleasure lighten
in her eyes as he introduc'd its plenipotentiary instrument into
her, till at length, having indulg'd her 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 retorted his thrusts
with a just concert of springy heaves, keeping time so exactly
with the most pathetic sighs, that one might have number'd the
\PFanny 2.114:
\N1 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
love-bites, which they both exchang'd 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, cry'd out: "[Oh Sir!(--)Good Sir!(--)pray do not spare
me! ah! ah(--)I can no more."] And all her accents now faultering
into heart-fetch'd sighs, she clos'd her eyes in the sweet death,
in the instant of which she was deliciously embalm'd by an
injection, of which we could easily see the signs, in the quiet,
dying, languid posture of her late so furious driver, who was
stopp'd of a sudden, breathing short, panting; and for that time,
giving up the spirit of pleasure.
\SFanny 2.114:
\N15 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, that of "[the
miraculous thing which wets where it tickles, and tickles where
it wets"].
\SFanny 2.114:
\N22 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.
\SFanny 2.114:
\N26 And surely, never did one of her profession accompany her
dispositions for the bare-fac'd part she was engag'd to play,
with such a peculiar grace of sweetness, modesty, and yeilding
coyness as she did. All her air and motions breath'd only
unreserv'd, 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 publick
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 in establishing.
\SFanny 2.114:
\N38 {Harriet} then was led to the vacant couch by her gallant,
blushing as she look'd 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.
\SFanny 2.114:
\N42 Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the
\PFanny 2.115:
\N1 couch, and passing his arms 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 kiss'd, he gently
inclin'd his head, till it fell back on a pillow dispos'd to receive
it, and leaning himself down all the way with her, at once
countenanc'd and endear'd her fall to her: there as if he had
guess'd our wishes, or meant to gratify at once his pleasure and
his pride, in being the master, by title of present possession, of
beauties delicate beyond imagination, he discover'd her breasts,
to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what delicious
manuals of love-devotion! how inimitably fine-moulded!
small, round, firm, and excellently white: then the grain of their
skin so soothing, so flattering to the touch! and their nipples,
that crown'd them the sweetest buds of beauty! when he had
feasted his eyes with the touch and perusal, feasted his lips with
kisses of the highest relish imprinted in those all-delicious twin
orbs, he proceeded downwards.
\SFanny 2.115:
\N18 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 roll'd up her petticoats, at which, as if
a signal had been given, {Louisa} and {Emily} took hold of her legs,
in pure wantoness, and yet in ease too, to her, kept them
stretch'd wide abroad. Then lay expo'd, or to speak more
properly, display'd the greatest parade in nature of female
charms. The whole company, who, except myself, had often
seen them, seem'd as much dazzled, surpris'd, and delighted, as
any one could be who had now beheld them for the first time.
Beauties so excessive could not but enjoy the priviledges of
eternal novelty. Her thighs were so exquisitely fashion'd, that
either more in, or more out of flesh than they were, they would
have declin'd from that point of perfection they presented. But
what infinitely enrich'd and adorn'd them, was the sweet
intersection, form'd 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 simmetry of
delicacy and mignature with the rest of her frame: no! nothing
in nature could be of a beautifuller cut: then the dark umbrage
of the downy sprig-moss that over-arch'd it, bestow'd on the
luxury of the landscape, a touching warmth, a tender finishing,
beyond the expression of words, or even the paint of thought.
\SFanny 2.115:
\N42 Her truly enamour'd gallant, who had stood absorb'd and
\PFanny 2.116:
\N1 engross'd 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 linnen veil
that hung between us and his master-member of the revels,
exhibited one whose eminent size proclaim'd the owner a true
woman's hero. He was besides, in every other respect, an
accomplish'd 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 disclos'd the lips of that luscious mouth of nature, whilst
with the other, he stoop'd his mighty machine to its lure, from
the heighth of its stiff stand-up towards his belly; the lips kept
open by his fingers, receiv'd its broad shelving head of coral
hue; and when he had nestled it in, he hover'd there a little, and
the girls then deliver'd 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 pass'd up his
instrument so slow, that we lost sight of it inch by inch, till at
length it was wholly taken into the soft labaratory 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 heighten'd her pleasure. Her
countenance, and whole frame, grew more animated; the faint
blush of her cheeks gaining ground on the white, deepen'd into
a florid vivid vermilion glow: her naturally brilliant eyes now
sparkled with tenfold lustre: her languor was vanish'd, and she
appear'd quick-spirited, and alive all over. He had now fix'd,
nail'd, this tender creature with his home driven wedge, so that
she lay passive per force, and unable to stir, till beginning to
play a strain of arms against this vein of delicacy, as he urg'd the
to-and-fro confriction; he awaken'd, rouz'd, and touch'd 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 again declar'd itself by
quicker, eagerer thrusts, convulsive gasps, burning sighs, swift
laborious breathings, 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
\PFanny 2.117:
\N1 critically join'd in, as she felt the melting symptoms from him,
in the nick of which, glewing more ardently than ever his lips
to hers, with eyes lifted up in a trance, he shew'd all the signs of
that agony of bliss being strong upon him, in which he sent his
soul distil'd in liquid sweets, up the body of that charming
creature, and gave her the finishing titillation: inly thril'd with
which, we saw plainly, that she answer'd it down with all the
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
of, and lay motionless, breathless, dying with dear delight;
and in the heighth of its expression, showing through the nearly
clos'd lids of her eyes, just the edges of their black, the rest being
roll'd strongly upward in her extasy: then her sweet mouth
appear'd languishingly open, with the tip of her tongue leaning
negligently towards the lower range of her white teeth, whilst
the natural ruby-colour of her lips glow'd with heighten'd life;
was this a subject not to dwell upon? and accordingly her lover
still kept on her, with an abiding delectation, till compress'd,
squeez'd, and distill'd to the last drop, he slipp'd out at last, and
took leave with one fervent kiss, expressing satisfy'd desires,
but unextinguish'd love.
\SFanny 2.117:
\N22 As soon as he was off, I ran to her, and sitting down on the
couch by her, rais'd her head, which she declin'd gently, and
hung in my bosom to hide her blushes and confusion at what
had past, till by degrees she recompos'd herself, and accepted of
a restorative glass of wine from my spark, who had left me to
fetch it her, whilst her own was re-adjusting his affairs, and
buttoning up, after which he led her, leaning languishingly
upon him, to our stand of view round the couch.
\SFanny 2.117:
\N30 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 lilly out of countenance, extreme pretty features, and the
florid health and bloom for which the country-girls are so
lovely, might pass her for a beauty, she certainly was one, and
one of the most striking of the fair ones.
\SFanny 2.117:
\N37 Her gallant began first, as she stood, to disingage 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-form'd fullness
\PFanny 2.118:
\N1 of bosom, that had such an effect on the eye as to seem flesh
hardening into marble, of which it emulated the polish'd glass,
and far surpass'd even the whitest, in the life and lustre of its
colours, white vein'd with blue. Refrain who could from such
provoking enticements to it in reach? He touch'd her breasts
first lightly, when the glossy smoothness of the skin eluded his
hand, and made it slip along the surface: he press'd them, and
the springy flesh that fill'd them, thus pitted by force, rose again
reboundingly with his hand, and on the instant effec'd the dint
of the pressure: and alike indeed was the consistence of all those
parts of her body throughout, where the fullness of flesh
compacts and constitutes all that fine firmness which the touch
is so highly attach'd to. When he had thus largely pleas'd
himself with this branch of dalliance, and delight, he truss'd up
her petticoat and shift, in a wisp to her waist, where being
tuck'd in, she stood fairly naked on every side: a blush at this
overspread her lovely face, and her eyes, downcast to the
ground, seem'd to beg for quarter, when she had so great a right
to triumph in all the treasures of youth and beauty that she now
so victoriously display'd. Her legs were perfectly well shap'd,
and her thighs, which she kept pretty close, showed so white, so
round, so substantial, and abounding in firm flesh, that nothing
could offer a stronger recommendation to the luxury of the
touch, which he accordingly did not fail to indulge himself 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 silky gloss created a
pleasing variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too,
their gentle embrowning shade considerably raised. Her spark
then endeavour'd, as she stood, by disclosing her thighs, to gain
us a compleater 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 to it one of the pillows, gently
inclin'd her head down, so that she lean'd 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, form'd luxuriant tracts of animated snow, that
splendidly fill'd the eye, till it was commanded down the
\PFanny 2.119:
\N1 parting or separation of those exquisitely white cliffs, by their
narrow vale, and was there stopt, and attracted by the
embower'd bottom-cavity, that terminated this delightful
visto, 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
dazzl'd round it, gave somewhat the idea of a pink-slash in the
glossiest white sattin. Her gallant, who was a gentleman about
thirty, of an immense fortune, somewhat inclin'd to a fatness
that was in no sort displeasing, improving the hint thus tender'd
him of this mode of enjoiment, after settling her well in this
posture and encouraging her with kisses and caresses to stand
him through, drew out his affair ready erected, and whose
extreme length, rather disproportion'd to its breadth, was the
more surprising, as that excess is not often the case of 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
by the bent of his belly and thighs, as they curv'd inwards,
brought all those parts, surely not undelightfully, into warm
touch, and close conjunction: his hands he kept pass'd round
her body, and employ'd in toying with her inchanting breasts:
as soon too as she felt him as 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 press'd
forward to give her, as they were thus close join'd 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
backen'd 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 hillocs took it out of sight:
sometimes he took his hands from the semi-globes of her
bosom, and transferr'd the pressure of them to those larger
ones, the present subjects of his soft blockade, which he
squeez'd, grasp'd, and play'd with, till at length a pursuit of
driving so hotly urg'd, brought on the heigth of the fit, with
such symptoms of overpowering pleasure, that his fair partner
became now necessary to support him, panting, fainting, and
\PFanny 2.120:
\N1 dying as he discharg'd, with she no sooner felt the killing
sweetness of, than unable to keep her legs, and yielding to the
mighty intoxication, she reel'd, 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
continu'd conjunction of body, and extatic flow, their scheme
of joys for that time.
\SFanny 2.120:
\N8 As soon as he had disengag'd, the charming {Emily} got up, and
we crouded round her with congratulations, and other officious
little services; for it is to be noted, that though all modesty and
reserve were banish'd the transaction of these pleasures, good
manners and politeness were inviolably observ'd: here 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 sooth, 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 shew'd these votaries of
theirs a more tender respect than at the time of those exercises of
their complaisance, when they unlock'd their treasures of
conceal'd beauty, and show'd 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.
\SFanny 2.120:
\N28 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 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 authoriz'd 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 on me.
\SFanny 2.120:
\N39 To this I answer'd, 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
\PFanny 2.121:
\N1 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 pleas'd them
all: my particular was complimented on his acquisition, and, by
way of indirect flattery to me, openly envied.
\SFanny 2.121:
\N6 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 shap'd and
tall; his face mark'd with the small-pox, but no more than what
added a grace of more manliness to features, rather turn'd to
softness, and delicacy, was marvellously enliven'd by eyes
which were of the clearest sparkling black; in short, he was one
whom any woman would, in the familiar style, readily call a
very pretty fellow.
\SFanny 2.121:
\N17 I was now handed by him to the cock-pit of our match,
where, as I was dress'd in nothing but a white morning gown, he
vouchsafed to play the male-{Abigal} on the occasion, and
spar'd 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 offer'd an obstacle
which quickly gave way, {Louisa} very readily furnishing a pair of
scissars to cut the lace: off went that shell; and dropping my
upper-coat, I was now reduc'd 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 imagin'd the stripping was to stop; but I
reckon'd short: my spark, at the desire of the rest, tenderly
beg'd, 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 consider'd the little more that remain'd as very
immaterial, I readily assented to whatever he pleas'd. 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 fasten'd,
came off with it, and brought all my hair down (of which be it
again remember'd without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in
loose disorderly ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to no
unfavourable set-off of my skin.
\SFanny 2.121:
\N40 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 before said of my person, which
\PFanny 2.122:
\N1 time, that at certain periods of life, robs us every instant of our
charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly improv'd 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 grateful plenitude, maintain'd a firmness and steady
independence on any stay or support, that dared and invited the
test of the touch. Then I was as tall, as slim-shap'd 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 renounc'd 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, reliev'd me with every mark of
applause and satisfaction, every flattering attention to raise, and
inspire me with even sentiments of pride on the figure I made,
which my friend gallantly protested, infinitely out-shone all
other {birth}-day finery whatever, so that I had leave to set
down, for sincere, all the compliments these connoisseurs overwhelm'd
me with upon this occasion, I might flatter myself
with having pass'd my examination, with approbation of the
learned.
\SFanny 2.122:
\N22 My friend however, who for this time had alone the disposal
of me, humour'd their curiosity, and perhaps his own, so far
that he plac'd 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.
\SFanny 2.122:
\N30 But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most material
spot of me was not excus'd 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 repair'd and worn out, at my
age, and in my naturally small make in that part.
\SFanny 2.122:
\N37 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 cloaths the prodigious heat bred by a close room, a great fire,
numerous candles, and even the inflammatory warmth of these
scenes, induc'd him to lay aside his shirt too, when his breeches,
\PFanny 2.123:
\N1 before loosen'd, now gave up their contents to view, and
shewed in front, the enemy I had to engage with, stifly 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-siz'd
instruments of which the masters have a better command,
than the more unweildy, inordinate siz'd ones are generally
under. Straining me then close to his bosom, as he stood up
fore-right against me, and applying to the obvious nich its
peculiar idol, he aim'd at inserting it, which, as I forwardly
favour'd, 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, and clinging round his neck,
in which and his hair, I hid my face burningly flushing with my
present feelings as much as with shame, my bosom glew'd to
his, he carried me once round the couch, on which he then,
without quitting the middle-fastness, or dischannelling, laid me
down, and began the pleasure-grist, but so provokingly predispos'd
and prim'd 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 quench'd within me: but that rather, like wetted
coals, I glow'd the fiercer for this sprinkling: my hot-mettled
spark sympathysing with me, and loaded for a double-fire,
recontinu'd the sweet battery with undying vigour: greatly
pleas'd at which, I gratefully endeavour'd 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 ourselves into an ocean of
boundless pleasures, into which we both plung'd together in a
transport of taste: now all the impressions of burning desire,
from the lively scenes I had been spectatress of, ripen'd by the
heat of this exercise, and collecting to a head, throb'd and
agitated me with insupportable irritations: I perfectly fever'd
and madden'd with their excess: I did not now enjoy a calm of
reason enough to perceive, but I, extatically indeed! {felt} the
policy and 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
\PFanny 2.124:
\N1 shar'd 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
undestroy'd by excess, I touched that sweetly critical point,
when scarce prevented by the spermatic injection from my
partner spurting liquid fire up to my vitals, I dissolv'd, 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 choak'd up. Thus we lay a few
blissful instants, overpower'd, still, and languid; till, as the
sense of pleasure stagnated, we recover'd 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.
\SFanny 2.124:
\N16 The company who had stood round us in a profound silence,
when all was over, help'd me to hurry on my cloaths in an
instant, and complimented me on the sincere homage they
could not escape observing had been done (as they term'd it) to
the sovereignty of my charms, in my receiving a double payment
of tribute at one juncture: but my partner, now dress'd
again, signaliz'd, above all, a fondness unbated by the circumstance
of recent enjoyment: the girls too kiss'd and embrac'd
me, assuring me, that for that time, or indeed any other, unless I
pleas'd, I was to go through no farther publick trials, and that I
was now consummately initiated, and one of them.
\SFanny 2.124:
\N27 As it was an inviolable law for every gallant to keep to his
partner, for the night especially, and even till he relinquish'd
possession over to the community, in order to preserve a
pleasing propriety, and to avoid the disgusts and indelicacy of
another arrangement, the company, after a short refection of
biskets and wine, tea and chocolate, served in at, now, about
one in the morning, broke up, and went off in pairs. Mrs#. {Cole}
had prepar'd my spark and me an occasional field-bed, to
which we retired, and there ended the night in one continued
strain of pleasure, sprightly and uncloy'd enough for us not to
have form'd one wish for its ever knowing an end. In the
morning, after a restorative breakfast in bed, he got up, and with
very tender assurances 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
\PFanny 2.125:
\N1 had slipt there; and just as I was musing on a liberality I had
certainly not expected, Mrs#. {Cole} come in, to whom I immediately
communicated the present, and naturally offer'd her
whatever share she pleas'd; 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 observ'd, was not affection or grimace, and
proceeded to read me such admirable lessons on the #oeconomy
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
learn'd, without much surprise, as I began to enter her character,
that she had seen every thing that had passed, from a
convenient place, manag'd solely for that purpose, and of which
she readily made me the confidante.
\SFanny 2.125:
\N17 She had scarce finish'd with this, when the little troop of love,
the girls my companions, broke in, and renew'd their compliments
and caresses; I observ'd with pleasure, that the fatigues
and exercises of the night, had not usurp'd in the least on the life
of the 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 repair'd to my lodgings; where I
employ'd myself till I return'd to dinner, at Mrs#. {Cole}'s.
\SFanny 2.125:
\N26 Here I staid, in constant amusement, with one or other of
these charming girls, till about five in the evening: when seiz'd
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 lay down in my cloaths, and fell fast asleep, and had now
enjoy'd by guess, about an hour's rest; when I was pleasingly
disturb'd 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 turn'd from
the light towards the inside of the bed, he, without more ado,
just slipp'd off his breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment
of the naked touch; and softly turning up my petticoat and shift
behind, open'd himself 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 appear'd full fair, and liable to
be entered; laying himself then gently down by me, he
invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his
\PFanny 2.126:
\N1 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 wak'd,
pretty much startled at first; but seeing who it was, dispos'd
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
full touch of flesh in those parts, he suspended all motion, and
thus steep'd in pleasure, kept me lying on my side, in to him,
spoon-fashion, as he term'd 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, urg'd 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 been exhausted, or at
least were quickly recruited of last night's draughts of pleasure
on us.
\SFanny 2.126:
\N20 With this noble and agreeable youth, liv'd 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 great 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, for he had
propos'd, and I had consented to follow his order to go to
{Ireland} after him, as soon as he should be settled there; but
meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in that
kingdom, he chose the wiser part, and forbore sending for me,
but at the same time took care that I should receive a magnificent
present, which did not however compensate for all my
deep regret on my loss of him.
\SFanny 2.126:
\N33 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 redoubl'd her attention to procure me in the
advantages of the traffick for a counterfeit maidenhead, some
consolation for the sort of widow-hood 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.
\SFanny 2.126:
\N40 But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I had
been in my first trial of the market.
\SFanny 2.126:
\N42 I had now pass'd near a month in the enjoyment of all the
\PFanny 2.127:
\N1 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 the community
establish'd in the house, sollicited the gratification of their taste
for variety in my embraces; but I had with the utmost art and
address, on various pretexts, eluded their persuit, without
giving them cause to complain: and this reserve I used neither
out of dislike to them, or 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 seem'd, from jealousy, count 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 belov'd by the whole family did I go
on, when one day, that, about five in the afternoon, I stepp'd
over to a fruiterer's shop, in {Covent}-Garden, to pick some
table-fruit for myself and the young women, I met with the
following adventure.
\SFanny 2.127:
\N18 Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observ'd
myself follow'd 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 ventur'd
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, by his making a full set at, and keeping his eyes
fix'd on, me, till he came to the same basket that I stood at, and
cheapening, or rather giving the first price ask'd 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 tawdry town-miss; a straw hat, a white gown, clean
linnen, 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 off the truth, I answer'd him,
with an awkwardness and confusion the more apt to impose, as
there was really, a mixture of the genuine in them. But when
proceeding on the foot of having broke 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
answer for it, that he would have been sworn for my modesty.
\PFanny 2.128:
\N1 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, or no? I replied, that I
was too young, to think of that this many a year. To that of my
age, I answer'd, and sunk a year upon him, passing myself for
not seventeen. As to my way of life, I told him I had serv'd an
apprenticeship to a millener in {Preston}, and was come to town
after a relation that I found on my arrival was dead, and I now
liv'd a journey-woman to a millener in town. That last article
indeed was not much on the side of what I pretended to pass for;
but it did pass, under the favour of the growing passion I had
inspir'd him with. After he had next got out of me, very
dextrously as he thought, what I had no sort of design to make a
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.
\SFanny 2.128:
\N20 As soon then as I came to Mrs#. {Cole}'s I related to her all that
had past, 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, to the last act.
\SFanny 2.128:
\N28 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 millenary ware, when as I sat
without lifting up 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
risque of being destroy'd by those of {Louisa}, and {Emily}, who
were then sitting at work with me. After vainly endeavouring to
catch my eyes in rencounter with his, as I held my head down,
affecting a kind of consciousness of guilt, for having, by
speaking to him, given him encouragement and means of
\PFanny 2.129:
\N1 following me home, and after giving Mrs#. {Cole} direction when
to bring herself the things home, and the time he should expect
them at, he went out, taking with him some goods, that he paid
for liberally, for the better grace of his introduction.
\SFanny 2.129:
\N5 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, insur'd me, in virtue of her long experience in
these matters, that for this bout my charms had not miss'd fire,
for that 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 sufficient acquaintance with, to take her measures
upon.
\SFanny 2.129:
\N14 And effectively, in a few hours, her intelligence serv'd her so
well, that she learn'd 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 greatly
impair'd by his over-violent pursuit of the vices of the town, in
the course of which having worn out and stal'd all the more
common modes of debauchery, he had fallen into a taste of
maiden-hunting, in which chace he had ruin'd a number of girls,
sparing no expence to compass his ends, and generally using
them well till tir'd, or cool'd by enjoyment, or springing a new
face, he could with more ease disembarrass himself of the old
ones, and resign them up to their fate, as his sphere of atchievements
of that sort lay only amongst such as he could proceed
with by way of bargain and sale.
\SFanny 2.129:
\N28 Concluding from these premises, Mrs#. {Cole} observ'd that a
character of this sort was ever 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 me only too good for him at any rate, and
on any terms.
\SFanny 2.129:
\N33 She went then, at the hour appointed to his lodgings in one of
our inns of court, which were furnish'd 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 circuit of discussions
concerning her trade, which she said was very bad, the
qualities of her servants, prentices, 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, cook'd him up a
\PFanny 2.130:
\N1 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 finish'd him finely for her purpose,
whilst nothing could be better counterfeited than her innocence
of his; but when now fir'd, 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 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 a better grace and effect to the character of a plain,
honest, good sort of woman, that knew no harm, and that
getting her bread in an honest way, was made of easy and
flexible stuff enough to be wrought upon 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, convinc'd himself there
was no coming at me, all which too rais'd at once my character
and price with him.
\SFanny 2.130:
\N22 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 meer 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
yeilding to the allurements of a great interest, as a pretext for her
yeilding at all, and the manner of it such, as might perswade him
she had never before dipp'd her virtuous fingers in an affair of
that sort.
\SFanny 2.130:
\N32 Thus she led him through all the gradations of difficulty, and
obstacles, necessary to enhance the value of the prize he aim'd
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 even no room to boast of her management in
bringing him up to her mark, he drove so plum of himself into
every thing tending to make him swallow the bait: not that in
other respects, Mr#. {Norbert} was not clear-sighted enough, not
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 to friend so much, he was so
\PFanny 2.131:
\N1 blinded, and hurried on by it, that he would have thought any
undeception a very ill office done to his pleasure. Thus concurring,
even precipitantly, to the point she wanted him at, Mrs#.
{Cole} brought him at last to hug himself on the cheap bargain, he
consider'd the purchase of my imaginary jewel, was to him, at
no more than three hundred guineas to myself, and an hundred
to the brokeress; being a slender recompence for all her pains,
and all the scruples of conscience she had now sacrificed to him
for this the first time of her life; which sums were to be paid
down on the nail, upon livery 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 introduc'd into his company, at proper times and
hours, in which it is incredible how little it seem'd necessary to
strain my natural disposition to modesty higher, in order to
pass it upon him for that of 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.
\SFanny 2.131:
\N21 When the articles of the treaty had been fully agreed on, the
stipulated payments duly secur'd, and nothing now remain'd
but the execution of the main point, which center'd in the
surrender of my person up to his free disposal and use, Mrs#.
{Cole} manag'd her objections, especially to his lodgings, and
insinuations so nicely, that it became his own mere motion, and
urgent request, that this copy of a wedding should be finish'd 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 'prentices 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 that 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.
\SFanny 2.131:
\N37 The night then was fix'd, 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 virginity, except that, favour'd as I was by nature,
with all the narrowness of stricture in that part requisite to
\PFanny 2.132:
\N1 conduct my designs, I had no occasion to borrow those auxiliaries
of art that create a momentary one, easily discover'd by
the test of a warm bath: and as to the usual bloody 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.
\SFanny 2.132:
\N8 Every thing then being dispos'd and fix'd 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
introduc'd into her bed-chamber, where, in an old fashion'd
bed of her's, I lay, fully undress'd, 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 abus'd weakness
for us.
\SFanny 2.132:
\N20 As soon as Mrs#. {Cole}, after the old gossipery, on those
occasions, us'd to young women abandon'd 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 seem'd to
bode a stricter examination than he afterwards made; Mr#.
{Norbert}, still dress'd, sprung towards the bed, where I had got
my head under the cloaths, 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, ever makes a greater rout
and resistance, than a true one! from thence he descended to my
breasts, the feel of which I disputed tooth and nail with him, till
tir'd with my resistance, and thinking probably to give a better
account of me, when got into bed to me; he hurry'd his cloaths
off in an instant, and came into bed.
\SFanny 2.132:
\N34 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 flimzy consumptive texture, gave him more the air
of an invalid that was press'd, than of a volunteer, on such hot
service.
\SFanny 2.132:
\N40 At scarce thirty, he had already reduc'd his strength of
appetite down to a wretched dependance on forc'd provocatives,
very little seconded by the natural powers of a body jaded,
\PFanny 2.133:
\N1 and wrack'd off to the lees by constant repeated over-draughts
of pleasure, which had done the work of sixty winters on his
springs of life; leaving him at the same time all the fire and heat
of youth in his imagination, which serv'd at once to torment and
to spur him down the precipice.
\SFanny 2.133:
\N6 As soon as he was in bed, he threw off the bed-cloaths, which
I suffer'd him to force from my hold, and I now lay as expos'd as
he could wish, not only to his attacks, but his visitation of the
sheets, where, in the various agitations of my body, through my
endeavours to defend myself, he could easily assure himself
there was no preparation, or stain of blood, though to do him
justice, he seem'd less strict an examinant than I had apprehended
from so experienc'd 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 then 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 obtain'd a kiss but what he ravish'd; I put his hand
away twenty times from my breasts, where he had satisfy'd
himself of their hardness and consistence with passing for
hitherto unhandled goods: but when grown impatient for 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 complain'd of his usage bitterly, "[I thought he would not
have serv'd a body so. I was ruin'd,(--)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 lock'd, that it was not for a 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 became so easy, that it was perfect
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 stifly bearing against that part, which the shutting
my thighs barr'd access to; but finding, at length, he could do no
good by mere dint of bodily strength, he resorted to intreaties
and arguments; to which I only answer'd, with a tone of shame
and timidity, "[that I was afraid it would kill me(--)Lard!(--)I
would not be serv'd so.(--)I was never so us'd in all my born
days.(--)I wonder'd he was not asham'd of himself, so I did.(--)"]
\PFanny 2.134:
\N1 With such silly infantine moods of repulse and complaint as I
judg'd best adapted to express the characters of innocence, and
afright. Pretending however to yield at length to the vehemence
of his insistence, in action and words, I sparingly disclos'd my
thighs so, that he could just touch the cloven inlet with the tip of
his instrument, but as he fatigu'd and toil'd to get it in, a twist of
my body, so as to receive it obliquely, not only thwarted his
admission, but giving a skream, 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: vex'd indeed at this he
seem'd, not in the style of any displeasure with me for my
skittishness; on the contrary, I dare swear, he held me the
dearer, and hugg'd himself for the difficulties that even hurt his
instant pleasure: fired, however, now, beyond all bearance of
delay, he remounts, and begg'd of me to have patience, stroaking
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 something soften'd, and abating of the anger that
I had shewn at his hurting me so prodigiously, I suffer'd him to
lay my thighs aside, and make way for a new trial; but I watch'd
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 seem'd 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 kill'd 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 heighth of it inspir'd him, he made one
fierce thrust that had almost put me by my guard, and lodg'd 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 over-heard. It was easy then to observe that he was more
satisfy'd, more highly pleas'd with the suppos'd motives of his
baulk of consummation, than he would have been at the full
attainment of it. It was on this foot that I salv'd to myself all the
falsity I employ'd to procure him that blissful pleasure in it,
\PFanny 2.135:
\N1 which most certainly he would not have tasted in the truth of
things. Eas'd however, and reliev'd by one discharge, he now
aply'd himself to sooth, encourage, and 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 declar'd his satisfaction with,
in raptures of applause, kisses universally imprinted, and sparing
no part of me, in all the eagerest wantonnesses 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 of
stiffness to resume his attempts with any prospect of success!
and then I breath'd 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 weary'd out indeed! so
that it was deep in the morning before he had atchiev'd his
second let-go, about half way of entrance, I all the time crying
and complaining of his prodigious vigour, and the immensity of
what I appear'd to suffer splitting up with. Tir'd 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 satisfy'd myself of, I, with much composure of body, so as
not to take him by any motion, with much ease and safety too,
play'd off Mrs#. {Cole}'s device for perfecting the signs of my
virginity.
\SFanny 2.135:
\N33 In each of the head bed-posts, just above where the bed-steads
are inserted into them, there was a small drawer so
artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it
might have escap'd even the most curious search, which
drawers were easily open'd or shut, by the touch of a spring,
and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a
prepar'd fluid blood; in which lay soak'd, for ready use, a
spunge, that requir'd no more than gently reaching the hand to
it, taking it out, and properly squeezing between the thighs,
when it yielded a great deal more of the red liquid than would
\PFanny 2.136:
\N1 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 all 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 wak'd, and caught me
in the fact, it would at least have cover'd me with shame and
confusion; but then, that he did not, was, with the precautions I
took, a risque of a thousand to one in my favour.
\SFanny 2.136:
\N10 At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or suspicion, on
his side, I address'd myself in good earnest to my repose; but
could obtain none, and in about half an hour's time, my
gentleman wak'd again, and turning toward me, I feign'd 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 wak'd, I complain'd of the disturbance,
and of the cruel pain that this little rest had stolen my senses
from. Eager, however, for the pleasure, as well as honour of
consummating an entire triumph over my virginity; he said, and
did 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 prepar'd of his victorious
violence, though I still thought it good policy not to let
him in yet awhile. I answer'd 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
sad man!"] Turning at this, down the cloaths, and viewing the
field of battle by the glimmer of a dying taper, he saw plainly my
thighs, shifts, all yet wet, and stain'd with what he
readily took for virgin gore, proceeding from his last half-penetration:
convinc'd, and transported at which, nothing
could equal his joy and exultation. The illusion was complete:
no other conception enter'd his head but that of his having been
at work upon an unopen'd 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 begg'd 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 suffer'd myself to be prevail'd on, and giving, as it were,
\PFanny 2.137:
\N1 up the point to 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-manag'd reception, I work'd
the female screw so nicely, that I kept him from the easy mid
channel direction, and by dexterous wreathings and contorsions
creating an artificial difficulty of entrance, made him win
it inch by inch, with the most laborious struggles, I all the time
sorely complaining, till at length, with might and main, winding
his way in, he got it completely home, and giving my virginity,
as the thought, the {coup de grace}, furnish'd me the cue of setting
up a terribly outcry, whilst he, triumphant, and like a cock,
clapping his wings over his down-trod mistress, pursu'd 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, frighten'd, undone, no longer, maid.
\SFanny 2.137:
\N17 You will ask me perhaps, whether all this time I enjoy'd 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 purely mercenary account,
and then I was not entirely delighted with myself for the jade's
part I was playing, whatever excuses I might have to plead for
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.
\SFanny 2.137:
\N29 Recover'd at length to more shew of life, by his tender
condoleances, kisses, and embraces, I upbraided him, and
reproach'd him for my ruin, in such natural terms, as added to
his satisfaction with himself, for having accomplish'd it; and
guessing, by certain observations of mine, that it would be
rather favourable to him, to spare him, when he sometime after,
feebly enough, came on again to the assault, I resolutely
withstood any further endeavours, on a pretext that flatter'd 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 morning soon after advancing, I got rid of
farther importunity, till Mrs#. {Cole}, being rang 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
\PFanny 2.138:
\N1 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.
\SFanny 2.138:
\N4 You may guess how a woman of her turn of address and
experience, humour'd the jest, and play'd him off with mix'd
exclamations of shame, anger, compassion for me, and of her
being pleas'd that all was so well over; in which last, I believe,
she was perfectly sincere. And now, as the objection which she
had represented as an invincible one, to my lying the first night
at his lodgings (which were studiously calculated for a freedom
of intrigues) on the account of my maiden fears and terrors, at
the thoughts 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 pleas'd, 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 the safer from scandal. All
this seem'd so reasonable, so considerate to Mr#. {Norbert}, that
he never once perceiv'd, 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 flatter'd his own ease, and views of liberty.
\SFanny 2.138:
\N24 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
undiscover'd out of the house. After which, and I was awake,
she came in, and gave me due praises on my success; behaving
too with her usual moderation, and disinterestness, she refus'd
any share of the sum I had thus earn'd, 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.
\SFanny 2.138:
\N34 I was now restor'd again to my former state of a kept
mistress, and us'd 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 manag'd with so
much caution that he never once penetrated the nature of my
connexions with Mrs#. {Cole}, but indolently given up to ease, and
the town dissipations, the perpetual hurry to them hinder'd him
from looking into his own affairs, much less into mine.
\SFanny 2.138:
\N42 In the mean time, if I may judge from my own experience,
\PFanny 2.139:
\N1 none are better paid, or better treated, during their reign, than
the mistresses of those who, enervate by nature, debaucheries,
or age, have the least employment for the sex: sensible that a
woman must be satisfy'd some way, they ply her with a
thousand little tender attentions, presents, caresses, confidences,
and exhaust their invention 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 teazing, worrying, handling,
wanton postures, lacivious motions, they have at length
accomplished a flashy enervate enjoyment, they have at the
same time lighted 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 secret favourite, tried, and
approv'd of for a more vigorous, and satisfactory execution; for
with women, of our turn especially, however well our hearts
may be dispos'd, there is a controuling part, or queen-seat in us,
that governs itself by its own maxims of state, amongst which
not one is stronger in practise with it, than, in matter of its dues,
never to accept the will for the deed.
\SFanny 2.139:
\N24 Mr#. {Norbert}, who was much in this ungracious case, though
he profess'd and shew'd 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.
\SFanny 2.139:
\N29 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 view'd in: kissing me in every part, the
most secret and critical one so far from excepted, that it receiv'd
most of that branch of homage, then his touches were so
exquisitely wanton, and luxuriously diffus'd, and penetrative at
times, that he made me perfectly rage with titillating fires,
when, after all, and when with much ado, he had gain'd a short-liv'd
erection, he would perhaps melt it away in a washy sweat,
or a premature abortive effusion, that provokingly mock'd my
eager desires; or, if carried home, how faulter'd and unnervous
the execution! how insufficient the sprinkle of a few heat-drops
to extinguish all the flames he had kindled.
\PFanny 2.140:
\SFanny 2.140:
\N1 One evening I cannot help remembering, that returning home
from him with a spirit he had rais'd in a circle his wand had
prov'd too weak to lay, as I turn'd the corner of a street, I was
overtaken by a young sailor. I was then in that spruce, neat, and
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 seiz'd me as prize, and, without
ceremony, threw his hands round my neck, and kiss'd me
boisterously, and sweetly. I look'd at him with a beginning of
anger and indignation at his rudeness, that soften'd away into
other sentiments as fast as I view'd him: for he was tall, manly-carriag'd,
handsome of body and face, so that I ended my stare,
with asking him in a tone turn'd to tenderness, what he meant:
at which, with the same frankness, and vivacity as he had begun
with me, he propos'd 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 been less under the domination of unappeas'd irritations
and desires, I should have refus'd him without hesitation: 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
to me as being thus treated like a common street-plyer, made
me give a silent consent: in short, it was not my head that I now
obey'd. I suffer'd myself then to be tow'd along as it were by
this man-of-war, who took me under his arm as familiarly as if
he had known me all his life-time, 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 patience
till the drawer brought in the wine call'd for, he fell directly on
board me: when untucking my handkerchief, and giving me a
smacking buss, he laid my breasts bare at once, which he
handled with that keenness of gust that abridges a ceremonial
ever more tiresome than pleasing on such pressing occasions;
and now hurrying toward the main-point, we found no
conveniency for our purpose; two or three disabled chairs, and
a ricketty table composing the whole furniture of the room.
\SFanny 2.140:
\N37 Without more ado, he plants me with my back standing
against the wall, and my petticoats up; and coming out with a
splitter indeed, made it shine, as he brandish'd it, in my eyes,
and going to work with an impetuosity and eagerness, bred very
likely by a long fast at sea, went to give me the taste of it: I
straddled, and humour'd my posture, and did my best in short
\PFanny 2.141:
\N1 to buckle to it; I took part of it in too; but still things did not
jee to his thorough liking: changing then 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 petticoat and shift, bares my naked posteriours to his blind,
and furious guide: it forces his way between them, and I feeling
pretty sensibly that it was 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 fix'd 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 stirr'd 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 of balmy
sweets, as join'd to my own effusion, perfectly floated those
parts, and drown'd in a deluge all my raging conflagration of
desire.
\SFanny 2.141:
\N20 When this was over, how to make my retreat was my
concern; for though I had been so extremely pleas'd with the
difference between this warm broadside pour'd so briskly into
me, and the tiresome pawing and toying, to which I had ow'd
the unappeas'd flames that had driven me into this step; now I
was grown 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 conceal'd 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 swallow'd, 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 my hire by my not returning, to make the most of the
job. Thus he parted with me, not before, however, he had
order'd, in my hearing, a supper, which I had the barbarity to
disappoint him of my company to.
\SFanny 2.141:
\N41 But when I got home, and told Mrs#. {Cole} my adventure, she
represented so strongly to me the nature and dangerous consequences
\PFanny 2.142:
\N1 of my folly, the risques to my health, in being so open-legg'd,
and free of my flesh, that I not only took resolutions
never to venture so rashly again, which I inviolably preserv'd;
but pass'd 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 wrong'd my pretty
sailor, for which I gladly make him this reparation.
\SFanny 2.142:
\N8 I had now liv'd 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 humour'd 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 as
agreeable to me as his fondness and attachment, as well as much
more flattering; the love I had inspir'd him with, bred a
deference to me that was of great service to his health. For
having by degrees, and with most pathetic representations,
brought him to some husbandry of it, and to ensure the
duration of his pleasures by moderating their use, and correcting
those excesses in them he was so addicted to, and which had
shatter'd his constitution, and destroy'd his powers of life, in
the very point, for which he seem'd chiefly desirous to live; he
was grown more delicate, more temperate, and all in course
more healthy; his gratitude for which was taking a turn very
favourable for my fortune, when once more the caprice of it,
dash'd the cup from my lips.
\SFanny 2.142:
\N30 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 with 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, arriv'd 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, which carry'd 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
\PFanny 2.143:
\N1 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 recover'd my chearfulness, and now
beheld myself once more struck off the list of kept-mistresses,
and return'd into the bosom of the community, from which I
had been in some manner taken.
\SFanny 2.143:
\N7 Mrs#. {Cole} still continuing her friendship, offer'd me her
assistances and advice towards another choice; but I was now in
a state of ease and affluence enough to look about me at leisure;
and as to any constitutional calls of pleasure, their pressure or
sensibility was greatly lessen'd by a consciousness of the ease
with which they were to be satisfy'd at Mrs#. {Cole}'s house,
where {Louisa} and {Emily} still continu'd in the old way; and my
great favourite {Harriet}, us'd often to come and see me, and
entertain me, with her head and heart full of the happiness she
enjoy'd with her dear baronet, whom she lov'd with 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.
\SFanny 2.143:
\N20 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 liv'd in, acquainted me
that there was one Mr#. {Barvile}, a gentleman who us'd her house,
just come to town, whom she was not a little perplex'd 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 whipp'd
himself, but of whipping others, in such sort, that tho' 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 expence of their skin: but what yet increas'd the
oddity of this strange fancy, was the gentleman's being young;
whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as are, through age,
oblig'd 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.
\SFanny 2.143:
\N41 This Mrs#. {Cole} could not well acquaint me with, in any
expectation of my offering my service; for sufficiently easy as I
\PFanny 2.144:
\N1 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 express'd, or indeed felt,
the least impulse or curiosity to know more of a taste, that
promis'd 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, mix'd
with the vanity of approving my personal courage to Mrs#.
{Cole}, that determin'd me, at all risques, to propose myself to
her, and relieve her from any farther look-out; accordingly, I
at once pleas'd and surpris'd her, with a frank and unreserv'd
tender of my person to her, and her friend's absolute disposal
on this occasion.
\SFanny 2.144:
\N16 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 turn'd 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} assur'd me,
that bating the pain I should be put to, she had no scruple to
engage me in this party, which she assur'd me I should be
liberally paid for, and which the secrecy of the transaction,
preserv'd safe from the ridicule that otherwise vulgarly
attended it: that for her part, she consider'd 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 blam'd those
unhappy persons, who are under a subjection they cannot shake
off, to those arbitrary tastes that rule their appetites of pleasure
with an unaccountable controul: tastes too, as infinitely diversify'd,
as superior to, and independent of all reasoning, as the
different relishes or palates of mankind in their viands; some
delicate stomachs nauseating plain meats, and finding no savour
but in high season'd, luxurious dishes; whilst others again pique
themselves upon detesting them.
\SFanny 2.144:
\N38 I stood now in no need of this preamble of encouragement, or
justification: my word was given, and I was determin'd to fulfil
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 prepar'd and lighted up, and the
\PFanny 2.145:
\N1 young gentleman posted there in waiting for my introduction
to him.
\SFanny 2.145:
\N3 I was then, by Mrs#. {Cole}, handed in, and presented to him in a
loose dishabil, fitted, by her direction, to the exercise I was to go
through, all in the finest linnen, and a thorough white-uniform:
gown, petticoat, stockings, and sattin slippers, like a victim led
to the 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.
\SFanny 2.145:
\N10 As soon as Mr#. {Barvile} saw me, he got up with a very visible
air of pleasure and surprise, and after saluting me, ask'd Mrs#.
{Cole} if it was possible that so fine and delicate a creature, would
voluntarily submit to such sufferings, and rigours, as were the
subject of this assignation. She answer'd him properly, and now
reading in his eyes, that she could not too soon leave us
together, she went out, after recommending him to use moderation
with so tender a novice.
\SFanny 2.145:
\N18 But whilst she was employing his attention, mine had been
taken up with the examination of the figure and person of this unhappy
young gentleman, who was thus unaccountably condemn'd to
have his pleasure lash'd into him, as boys have their learning.
\SFanny 2.145:
\N22 He was exceeding fair, and smooth complexion'd; and
appear'd to me no more than twenty at most, tho' he was three
years older than what my conjectures gave him; but then he
ow'd this favourable mistake to a habit of fatness, which
spread through a short, squab stature, and a round, plump,
flesh-colour'd face, gave him greatly the look of a {Bacchus}, had
not an air of austerity not to say sterness, very unsuitable even
to his shape of face, dash'd that character of joy, necessary to
complete the resemblance. His light-brown hair was pretty
thick, uncurl'd, and look'd as if it had been trimm'd with a
bowl-dish, as we are told the {Round}-heads were in {Oliver}'s
times. 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, not avarice.
\SFanny 2.145:
\N36 As soon as Mrs#. {Cole} was gone, he seated me near him, when
now his face chang'd upon me, into an expression of the most
pleasing sweetness and good humour, the more remarkable for
its sudden shift from the other extreme, which I found afterwards,
when I knew more of his character, was owing to an
habitual state of conflict with, and dislike of himself, for being
enslav'd to so peculiar a gust, by the fatality of a constitutional
\PFanny 2.146:
\N1 ascendant, that render'd 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, stamp'd at length that cast of sourness
and severity on his features which was in fact, very foreign to
the natural sweetness of his temper.
\SFanny 2.146:
\N7 After then 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: there were
several rods, made each of two or three strong twigs of birch
tied together, which he took, handled, and view'd with as much
pleasure as I did with a kind of shuddering presage.
\SFanny 2.146:
\N14 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 every thing now being ready, he took his coat and waste-coat
off; and, at his motion and desire, I unbutton'd his
breeches, and rolling his shirt up rather above his waist, tuck'd
it in securely there; when directing naturally my eyes to that
humoursome master-movement, in whose favour all these
dispositions were making, it seem'd almost shrunk into his
belly, scarce showing its tip above the sprout of hairy curls that
cloath'd those parts, as you may have seen a wren peep its head
out of the grass.
\SFanny 2.146:
\N25 Stooping then to untie his garters, he gave them me for the
using 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.
\SFanny 2.146:
\N30 I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, plaid at
forcing him to lie down: which, after some little shew of
reluctance, for form-sake, he submitting to, was straitway
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
foot, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining truss'd 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-cheek'd,
and passing white posteriours 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 swell'd, as it were, to meet the scourge.
\PFanny 2.147:
\SFanny 2.147:
\N1 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 himself seem'd no more concern'd, or to mind
them, than a lobster would a flea-bite: in the mean time, I
view'd intently the effects of them, which to me at least appear'd
surprisingly cruel: every lash had skimm'd the surface of those
white cliffs, which they deeply redden'd, and lapping round the
side of the furthermost from me, cut, especially 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 pick'd out
even the splinters of the rod, that had stuck in the skin: nor was
this raw work to be wonder'd at, considering the greenness of
the twigs, and the severity of the infliction, whilst the whole
surface of his skin was so smooth-stretch'd over the hard and
firm pulp of flesh that fill'd it, as to yield no play, or elusive
swagging under the stroke, which thereby took place the more
plum, and cut into the quick.
\SFanny 2.147:
\N20 I was however already so mov'd at the piteous sight, that I
from my heart repented the undertaking, and would willingly
have 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, survey'd the encrease of bloody
appearances, and at length, steel'd to the sight, by his stoutness
in suffering, I continu'd the discipline, by intervals, till I
observ'd 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 approach'd, as
he still kept working, and grinding his belly against the cushion
under him; and first, stroaking the untouch'd and unhurt side of
the flesh-mount next to me, then softly insinuating my hand under
his thigh, felt the posture things were in forwards, which was
indeed surprising; for that machine of his, which I had by its
appearance, taken for an impalpable, or at best a very diminutive
subject, was now, in virtue of all that smart and havock of
his skin behind, grown not only to a prodigious stiffness of
erection, but to a size that frightened even me: a non-pareil
thickness indeed! the head of it alone fill'd the utmost capacity
of my grasp: and when, as he heav'd and wriggled to and fro, in
the agitation of his strange pleasure, it came into view, it had
\PFanny 2.148:
\N1 some thing of the air of a round fillet of the whitest veal, like its
owner, squob, and short in proportion to its breadth; but when
he felt my hand there, he begg'd I would go on briskly with my
jerking, or he should never arrive at the last stage of pleasure.
\SFanny 2.148:
\N5 Resuming then the rod, 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 desir'd me to desist, which I instantly
did, and proceeding to untie him, I could not but be amaz'd at
his passive fortitude, on viewing the skin of his butcher'd,
mangl'd posteriours, late so white, smooth, and polish'd, 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.
\SFanny 2.148:
\N15 Then I plainly perceiv'd on the cushion, the marks of a
plenteous effusion of white liquid, and already had his sluggard
member run up to its old nestling-place, and ensconc'd
itself again, as if asham'd to show its head, which nothing, it
seems, could raise but stripes inflicted on its opposite
neighbours, who were thus constantly oblig'd to suffer for his
caprice.
\SFanny 2.148:
\N22 My gentleman had now put on his cloaths, and recompos'd
himself, when giving me a kiss, and placing me by him, he sat
down himself as gingerly as possible, with the one side off the
the cushion, which was too sore for him to bear resting any part of
his weight on.
\SFanny 2.148:
\N27 Here he thank'd me extremely for the pleasure I had procur'd
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 assur'd
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
proceeded in my consent to it, he would consider the difference
of my sex, its greater delicacy, and incapacity to undergo pain.
Rehearten'd at which, and piqu'd 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
transactions, I was now less afraid of my skin, than of his not
furnishing me an opportunity of signalizing my resolution.
\SFanny 2.148:
\N40 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 the danger they fear, in order to be the sooner
\PFanny 2.149:
\N1 rid of the pain of that sensation, I was entirely pleas'd with his
hastening matters into execution.
\SFanny 2.149:
\N3 He had then little to do, but to unloose the strings of my
petticoat, and lift them, together with my shift, navel-high,
where he just tuck'd them up loosely girt, 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 some trial, the standing it was to be completely
voluntary on my side, and therefore I was to 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 allow'd 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.
\SFanny 2.149:
\N19 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 expos'd to him in fair display: then
springing eagerly towards me, he cover'd all those naked parts
with a fond confusion of kisses; and now taking hold of the rod,
rather wanton'd with me, in gentle inflictions on those tender
trembling masses of my flesh behind, than 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 then
amus'd 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 twigg'd
me so smartly as to fetch blood in more than one lash: at sight of
which, he flung down the rod, flew to me, kiss'd away the
starting drops, and sucking the wounds, eas'd 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, eying it wistfully, he directed the rod so that
the sharp ends of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I
could not help winching, and writhing my limbs with smart;
\PFanny 2.150:
\N1 so that my contorsions of body must necessarily throw it into
an 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 rush'd, as it
were, on that part, whose lips, and round-about, had felt his
cruelty, and by way of reparation, glews his own to them: then
he open'd, shut, squeez'd them, pluck'd softly the over-growing
moss, and all this in a style of wild passionate rapture,
and enthusiasm, that express'd excess of pleasure, till betaking
himself to the rod again, encourag'd by my passiveness, and
infuriate with this strange taste of delight, he made my poor
posterious pay for the ungovernableness of it; for now shewing
them no quarter, the traytor cut me so, that I wanted but very
little of fainting away, when he gave over; and yet I did not utter
one groan, or angry expostulation; but in my heart I resolv'd
nothing so seriously, as never to expose myself again to the like
severities.
\SFanny 2.150:
\N18 You may guess then in what a curious pickle those flesh-cushions
of mine were, all sore, 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.
\SFanny 2.150:
\N24 As soon as my cloaths 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
instants of secrecy, that we were not yet ripe for the admission
of a third to.
\SFanny 2.150:
\N32 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 chear'd, and
restor'd me to spirits; and as the smart began to go off, my good
humour return'd accordingly, which alteration not escaping
him, he said, and did every thing that could confirm me in, and
indeed exalt, it.
\SFanny 2.150:
\N42 But scarce was supper well over, before a change so incredible
\PFanny 2.151:
\N1 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,
detach'd legions of burning, subtile, stimulating spirits, to their
opposite spot, and center of assemblage, where their titillation
rag'd so furiously, that I was even stinging-mad with them: no
wonder then, that in such a taking, and devour'd by flames that
lick'd up all modesty and reserve, my eyes charg'd brimful
of the most intense desire, fired on my companion very intelligible
signals 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.
\SFanny 2.151:
\N17 Mr#. {Barvile}, no stranger, by experience, to these situations,
soon knew the pass I was brought to; soon perceiv'd my
extreme disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out of
the way, he began a prelude that flatter'd me with instant relief,
which I was not however so near as I imagin'd: for as he was
unbutton'd to me, and tried to provoke, and rouse to action his
unactive, torpid machine, he blushingly own'd, that no good
was to be expected from it, unless I took 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 lean'd 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, it 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 refresh'd 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 in 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 batter'd directly against the recent sore: what
\PFanny 2.152:
\N1 should we do now? both intolerably heated! both all in one
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 favour'd
all his 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 a 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 center of my fore-part fairly bearded the now
worthy 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 imagination,
wound up to the heighth, could suffer no delay; he first, with
the utmost eagerness and effort, just lip-lodg'd that broad,
acorn-fashion'd head of his instrument; and still friended by the
fury with which he had made that impression, he soon stuffed in
the rest; when now, with a pursuit of thrusts fiercely urg'd, he
absolutely overpower'd, and absorb'd all sense of pain and
uneasiness, whether from my wounds behind, my most
untoward posture, or the oversize of his stretcher, in an
infinitely predominat 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 receiv'd 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 oily balsamic injection, as soften'd and unedg'd all those
irritating stings of a new species of titilation, which I had been
so untolerably madden'd with, and restor'd the ferment of my
senses to some degree of composure.
\SFanny 2.152:
\N34 I had now atchiev'd this rare adventure, ultimately much
more to my satisfaction than I had bespoke the nature of it to
turn out, nor was it much lessen'd, you may think, by my
spark's lavish praises of my constancy and complaisance, which
he gave weight to by a present that greatly passed my utmost
expectation: besides his gratification to Mrs#. {Cole}.
\SFanny 2.152:
\N40 I was not however, at any time reintic'd to renew with him, or
resort again to the violent expedient of lashing nature into more
hast than good speed, which by the way, I conceive acts
\PFanny 2.153:
\N1 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 appetites wanted the
bridle more than the spur.
\SFanny 2.153:
\N5 Mrs#. {Cole}, to whom this adventrous exploit had more and
more endear'd me, look'd on me now as a girl after her own
heart, afraid of nothing; and, on a good account, hardy 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 procur'd for, and
introduc'd to me.
\SFanny 2.153:
\N13 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 us'd to come
constantly at my toilette hours, when I let down my hair as
loose as nature; and abandon'd it to him, to do what he pleas'd
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 smooth'd 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.
\SFanny 2.153:
\N24 Another peculiarity of taste he had, which was to present me
at once with a dozen pair of the whitest kid-gloves at a time:
these he would divert himself with drawing on me, and then
biting off their fingers ends; all of which fooleries of a sickly
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, deliver'd me from this most
innocent, and most insipid trifler; for I never heard more of
him, after his first retreat.
\SFanny 2.153:
\N33 You may be sure a by-job of this sort interfer'd 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 serv'd at the top of the market, and even been
pamper'd with dainties; besides that, in the sacrifice of a few
\PFanny 2.154:
\N1 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 as I high as I did, but still they were far from cheap or
abandon'd, though two of their adventures seem'd to contradict
this general character, which for their singularity I shall give
you in course, beginning first with {Emily}'s.
\SFanny 2.154:
\N8 {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 extremely fair and well
limb'd. They had kept together for some time, when {Louisa}
meeting with an old acquaintance of hers, very cordially gives
her companion the drop, and leaves her under the protection of
her boy's habit, which was not much, and of her discretion
which was, it seems, yet less. {Emily} finding herself deserted,
saunter'd thoughtlessly about a while, and as much for coolness
and air, as any thing else, pull'd off her mask, at length, and
went to the side-board, where, eyed and mark'd out by a
gentleman in a very handsome domino, she was accosted by,
and fell into a chat with, him. The domino, after a little discourse,
in which {Emily} doubtless distinguish'd 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 squeez'd
her hands, pinch'd her cheeks, prais'd and play'd with her fair
hair, admir'd her complexion, and all in a style of courtship
dash'd 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 essentials: but
here was the stress of the joke: He took her really for what she
appear'd to be, a smock-fac'd boy, and she forgetting her
dress, and of course ranging quite wide of his ideas, took all
those addresses to be paid to herself as a woman, which she
precisely ow'd to his not thinking her one: however this double
error was push'd 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, warm'd
too by the wine he had ply'd her with, and the caresses he had
lavish'd upon her, suffer'd herself to be perswaded to go to a
bagnio with him; and thus loosing sight of Mrs#. {Cole}'s
\PFanny 2.155:
\N1 cautions, with a blind confidence put herself into his hands to be
carried wherever he pleas'd: for his part equally blinded by his
wishes, whilst her egregious simplicity favour'd his deception
more than the most exquisite art could have done, he suppos'd,
no doubt, that he had lighted on some soft simpleton fit for his
purpose, or some kept minion broke to his hand, who understood
him perfectly well, and enter'd into his designs; but be
that as it would, he led her to a coach, went into it with her, and
brought her into a very handsome apartment, with a bed in it,
but whether it were a bagnio or not, she could not tell, having
spoke to nobody but himself. But when they were alone
together, and her {enamorato} began to proceed to those
extremities which instantly discover the sex, she remark'd that
no description could paint up to the life, the mixture of pique,
confusion, and disappointment, that appear'd in his countenance,
which join'd to the mournful exclamation, "[By
heavens a woman!"] This at once open'd her eyes which had
hitherto been shut in downright stupidity. However, as if he
had meant to retrieve that escape, he still continu'd to toy with
and fondle her, but with so staring an alteration from extreme
warmth into a chill and forc'd civility, than 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, her sex, or whether her appearance or figure in that
dress still humour'd his first illusion, he recover'd 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
fiercely set on a mis-direction, as to give the girl no small alarms
for fear of losing a maiden-head she had not dreamt of;
however her complaints, and a resistance gentle, but firm,
check'd, 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 flatter'd his taste, he got with much ado whip and
\PFanny 2.156:
\N1 =
spur 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.
\SFanny 2.156:
\N6 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 stamp'd 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 smil'd at my ignorance, and said nothing towards my
undeception, which was not effected but by occular demonstration,
some months after, which a most singular accident
furnish'd me, and I will here set down, that I may not return
again to so disagreeable a subject.
\SFanny 2.156:
\N21 I had on a visit intended to {Harriet}, who had lodgings at
{Hampton}-Court, hired a chariot to go out thither, Mrs#. {Cole}
having promis'd to accompany me: but some indispensible
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 publick-house of a tolerably 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 loose 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.
\SFanny 2.156:
\N34 Here, whilst I was amusing myself with looking out of the
window, a single horse-chaise stopt at the door, out of which
lightly leap'd two young gentlemen, for so they seem'd, who
came in as it were only to bait and refresh a little, for they gave
their horse to be held in a readiness against they came out: and
presently I heard the door of the next room to me open, where
they were let in and call'd about them briskly, and as soon as
they were serv'd, I could just hear that they shut and fasten'd
the door on the inside.
\PFanny 2.157:
\SFanny 2.157:
\N1 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 who they were, and
examine their persons and behaviour. The partition of our
rooms was one of those moveable ones that when taken down,
serv'd occasionally to lay them into one, for the convenience of
a large company; and now my nicest search could not shew me
the shadow of a peep-hole, a circumstance which probably had
not escap'd the review of the parties on the other side, whom
much it stood upon not to be deceiv'd in it; but at length I
observ'd 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 oblig'd to stand on a chair to reach it, which I did as softly as
possible, and with the point of a bodkin soon pierc'd it, and
open'd 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.
\SFanny 2.157:
\N19 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 a cut bob-wig.
\SFanny 2.157:
\N22 The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy,
compleatly well made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty
stripling: He was, I fancy too, 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.
\SFanny 2.157:
\N28 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 too close to it, kept
the light from shining through, and betraying it; he said
something to his companion that presently chang'd the face of
things.
\SFanny 2.157:
\N35 For now the elder began to embrace, to press, to kiss the
younger, to put his hands in his bosom, and give 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
in, for she had certainly made one, when she gave him
the male stamp.
\SFanny 2.157:
\N41 In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to
accomplish their project of preposterous pleasure, at the risque
\PFanny 2.157:
\N1 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.
\SFanny 2.158:
\N4 For presently the eldest unbutton'd the other's breeches, and
removing the linnen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft,
middle-siz'd, and scarce fledg'd, when after handling, and
playing with it a little, with other dalliance, all receiv'd by the
boy without other opposition, than certain wayward coynesses,
ten times more alluring than repulsive, he got him to
turn round with his face from him, to a chair that stood hard by,
when knowing, I suppose, his office, the Ganymede now
obsequiously lean'd his head against the back of it, and projecting
his body, made a fair mark, still cover'd with his shirt, as he
thus stood in a side-view to meet but fronting his companion,
who presently unmasking his battery, produc'd an engine, that
certainly deserv'd to be put to a better use, and very fit to
confirm me in my disbelief of the possibility of things being
push'd to odious extremities, which I had built on the disproportion
of parts; but this disbelief I was now to be cur'd of,
as by my consent all young men should likewise be, that their
innocence may not be betray'd into such snares, for want of
knowing the extent of their danger, for nothing is more certain
than, that ignorance of a vice, is by no means a guard against it.
\SFanny 2.158:
\N24 Slipping then aside the young lad's shirt, and tucking it up
under his cloaths behind, he shew'd to the open air, those
globular, fleshy eminences that compose the mount-pleasants
of {Rome}, and which now, with all the narrow vale that
intersects them, stood display'd, and expos'd 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 render it glib, he pointed, he introduc'd it, as I
could plainly discern, not only from its direction, and my losing
sight of it; but by the writhing, twisting, and soft murmur'd
complaints of the young sufferer; but, at length, the first
streights of entrance being pretty well got through, every thing
seem'd to move, and go pretty currently on, as in a carpet-road,
without much rub, or resistance: and now passing one
hand round his minion's hips, he got hold of his red-topt 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 the other, he wanton'd with his hair,
and leaning forward over his back, drew his face, from which
\PFanny 2.159:
\N1 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-breath'd kiss, after which, renewing his driving, and thus
continuing to harrass his rear, the height of the fit came on with
its usual symptoms, and dissmiss'd the action.
\SFanny 2.159:
\N6 All this, so criminal a scene, I had the patience to see to an
end, purely that I might gather more facts, and certainty against
them in my full design to do their deserts instant justice, and
accordingly, when they had readjusted themselves, and were
preparing to go out, burning as I was with rage, and indignation,
I jump'd down from my chair, in order to raise the house
upon them, 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 must
have lain there some time e'er any one came to my relief, so that
they, alarm'd, I suppose, by the noise of my fall, had more than
the necessary time to make a safe retreat, which they affected, as
I learnt, with a precipitation no body could account for, till,
when come to my self, and compos'd enough to speak, I
acquainted those of the house with the transaction I had been
evidence to.
\SFanny 2.159:
\N22 When I came home again, and told Mrs#. {Cole} this adventure,
she very sensibly observ'd to me, that there was no doubt of 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, at least, put to
a great deal more trouble and confusion than I imagine: 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 woman-kind, out of whose {mouths} this
practice tended to take something more precious 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 seem'd a peculiar blessing on our air and
climate, that there was a plague-spot 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 could not
name an exception hardly of 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
\PFanny 2.160:
\N1 fill'd up with only the very worst vices and follies of ours: that,
in fine, they were scarce less execrable than ridiculous in their
monstrous inconsistency, of loathing and contemning women,
and all at the same time, apeing their manners, airs, lisp,
skuttle, and, in general, all their little modes of affectation,
which become them at least better, than they do these unsex'd
male-misses."]
\SFanny 2.160:
\N8 But here washing my hands of them, I replunge into the
stream of my history, into which I may very properly ingraft a
terrible sally of {Louisa}'s, since I had some share in it myself, and
have besides engag'd 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 when women get once out of
compass, there are no lengths of licentiousness they are not
capable of running.
\SFanny 2.160:
\N16 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, offers us
some nosegays rang'd 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 stammer'd so that there
was no understanding even those sounds that his half-a-dozen,
at most, animal ideas prompted him to utter.
\SFanny 2.160:
\N28 The boys, and servants in the neighbourhood, had given him
the nick-name of {Good}-natur'd {Dick}, from the soft simpleton's
doing every thing he was bid to do at the first word, and
from his naturally having no turn to mischief; then, by the way,
he was perfectly well made, stout, and clean-limb'd, tall of his
age, as strong as a horse, and, with all, pretty featur'd; so that he
was not absolutely such a figure to be snuffed at neither, if your
nicety could, in favour of such essentials, have dispens'd with a
face unwash'd, hair tangl'd for want of combing, and so ragged
a plight, that he might have disputed points of shew, with e'er a
heathen philosopher of them all.
\SFanny 2.160:
\N39 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 seiz'd {Louisa}, and without consulting me, she
\PFanny 2.161:
\N1 calls him in, and began to examine his nosegays, culls out two,
one for herself, another for me, and pulling out half-a-crown,
very currently gives it to him to change, as if she had really
expected he could have chang'd it: but the boy scratching his
head, made his signs explain his inability, in place of words, that
he could not with all his struggling, articulate.
\SFanny 2.161:
\N7 {Louisa} at this, says: "[Well, my lad, come upstairs 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.
\SFanny 2.161:
\N12 As we went up, Louisa whisper'd me, that she had conceiv'd a
strange longing to be satisfy'd, 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; begging 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 enter'd plum into it, on my
own account.
\SFanny 2.161:
\N22 Consequently, as soon as we came into {Louisa}'s bed-chamber,
whilst she was amusing him by picking out his
nosegays, I undertook the lead, and began the attack: at it was
not then very material to keep much measures with a mere
natural, I made presently very free with him, though at my
first motion of meddling, his surprise and confusion made him
receive my advances but aukwardly; nay, insomuch that he
bashfully shy'd, and shy'd 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 turn'd him familiar, and gave nature her sweetest
alarm; so that arrouz'd, and beginning to feel himself, we could,
amidst all the innocent laugh and grin I had provok'd 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 glar'd 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 suffer'd me to do what I pleas'd with him: his
basket was dropt out of his hands, which {Louisa} took care of.
\PFanny 2.162:
\SFanny 2.162:
\N1 I had now, through more than one rent, discover'd and felt
his thighs, the skin of which seem'd the smoother and fairer for
the coarseness, and even dirt of his dress; as the teeth of Negroes
seem the whiter for the surrounding 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 sweet 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 informing 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
unskewer'd, and a rag of shirt that I remov'd, and which could
not have cover'd a quarter of it, reveal'd the whole of the ideot's
standard of distinction, erect, in full pride and display: but such
an one! it was positively of so tremendous a size, that prepar'd
as we were to see something extraordinary, it still, out of
measure surpass'd our expectation, and astonish'd even me,
who had not been us'd to trade in trifles: in fine, it might have
answer'd very well the making of a show of: its enormous head
seem'd in hue and size, not unlike a common sheep's heart; then
you might have troll'd 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,
gather'd, and crisp'd up, round, in shallow furrows, help'd 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 gives rise to the
vulgar saying, "[That a fool's bauble is a lady's play fellow."]
Nor 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 to him in those parts, that she
perhaps held herself acquitted for doing so little for his head.
\SFanny 2.162:
\N36 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 star'd me in
the face, with having rais'd a may-pole for another to hang a
garland; 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 signs of encouragement to go
\PFanny 2.163:
\N1 through-stitch with the 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.
\SFanny 2.163:
\N6 {Louisa}, whose appetite was up, and who, like the industrious
bee, was, it seems, not above gathering the sweets of so rare a
flower, tho' she found it planted on a dung-hill, was but too
readily dispos'd to take the benefit of my cession; urg'd then
strongly by her own desires, and emboldened by me, she
presently determined to risque a trial of parts with the ideot,
who was by this time nobly inflam'd for her purpose, by all the
irritations we had us'd 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 swell'd
it to a bulk! No! I shall never forget it.
\SFanny 2.163:
\N18 {Louisa} then taking and holding the fine handle that so
invitingly offer'd itself, led the ductile youth by that master-tool
of his, as she stept backwards towards the bed, which he
joyfully gave way to, under the incitations of instinct, and
palpably deliver'd up to the goad of desire.
\SFanny 2.163:
\N23 Stopt then by the bed, she took the fall she lov'd, and lean'd
to the most, gently backward upon it, still holding fast what
she held, and taking care to give her cloaths a convenient toss
up, so that her thighs duly disclos'd, and elevated, laid open all
the outward prospect of the treasury of love: the rose-lipt
ouverture presenting the cock-pit 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, but effected it with such a pain of distention,
that {Louisa} cry'd out violently, that she was hurt beyond all
bearing, that she was kill'd: but it was too late; the storm was
up, and force was on her way to give way to it: For now the man-machine,
strongly work'd 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 seem'd at this juncture
\PFanny 2.164:
\N1 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
play'd the fool with: but what is pleasant enough, I myself was
aw'd into a sort of respect for him, by the comely terrors his
emotions drest him in: his eyes shooting sparks of fire, his face
glowing with ardours that gave all 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 over-driven
steer, he ploughs up the tender furrow, all insensible of
{Louisa}'s complaints: nothing can stop, nothing can keep out a
fury like his; 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 still'd, or stemm'd a storm
in winter, as all her strength have quell'd his rough assault, or
put him out of his course: And indeed all her efforts, and
struggles were manag'd in such disorder, that they serv'd
rather to entangle, and fold her the faster in the twine of his
boisterous arms; so that she was tied to the stake, and oblig'd
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 worryings than kisses,
intermix'd with eager ravenous love-bites on her cheeks and
neck; the prints of which did not wear out for some days
after.
\SFanny 2.164:
\N31 Poor {Louisa}, however, bore up at length better than could
have been expected, and though she suffer'd, and greatly too,
yet ever true to the good old cause, she suffer'd with pleasure,
and enjoy'd her pain: and soon now, by dint of an enrag'd
enforcement, the brute-machine, driven like a whirlwind,
made all smoak again, and wedging its way up, to the utmost
extremity, left her in point of penetration nothing either to fear,
or to desire, and now,
"[{Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth}."]
Shakespear.
\N41 {Louisa} lay, pleas'd to the heart, pleas'd to her utmost capacity of
\PFanny 2.165:
\N1 being so, with every fibre in those parts, stretch'd almost to
breaking, on a rack of joy, whilst the instrument of all this
overfulness, search'd her senses with its sweet excess, till the
pleasure gain'd 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 the favourite part of her body, the whole intenseness of
which was so fervorously fill'd, and employ'd: there alone she
existed, all lost in those delirious transports, those extasies of
the senses, which her winking eyes, the brighten'd vermilion of
her lips, and cheeks, and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched, so
pathetically express'd. In short, she was now as meer 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 tenderness, and
the force of mettle he batter'd with: their active loins quiver'd
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 ideot 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 escap'd him, so sensibly too for {Louisa}, that she kept
him faithful company, going off, in consent, with the old
symptoms; a delicious delirium, a tremulous convulsive shudder,
and the critical dying oh! And now, on his getting off, she
lay pleasure-drench'd and regorging its essential sweets: but
quite spent, but gasping for breath, without other sensation of
life than in those exquisite vibrations, that trembled yet on the
strings of delight, which had been so ravishingly touch'd; and
which nature had been too intensely stirr'd with, for the senses
to be quickly at peace from.
\SFanny 2.165:
\N32 As for the changeling, whose curious engine had been thus
successfully play'd 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 ideotism; as he stood with his
label of manhood, now lank, unstiffen'd, becalm'd, 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 follow'd, his eyes, by turns cast down
towards his struck standard, or piteously lifted to {Louisa},
seem'd to require at her hands what he had so sensibly parted
\PFanny 2.166:
\N1 from to her, and now ruefully missed; but the vigor of nature
soon returning, dissipated this blast of faintness which the
common-law of enjoyment had subjected him to; and now his
basket re-became his main concern, which I look'd for, and
brought him, whilst {Louisa} restor'd his dress to its usual
condition, and afterwards pleas'd him perhaps more by taking
all his flowers off his hands, and paying him at his rate, for them,
than if she had embarrass'd him by a present, that he would have
been puzzled to account for, and might have put others on
tracing the motives of it.
\SFanny 2.166:
\N11 Whether she ever return'd to the attack, I know not, and to
say the 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 happen'd, had no other consequence, than that the
lad, who retain'd only a confus'd memory of the transaction,
would when he saw her, for some time after, express a grin
of joy, and familiarity, after his ideot manner, and soon forgot
her, probably in favour of the next woman tempted on the
report of his parts to take him in.
\SFanny 2.166:
\N20 {Louisa} too 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 was clearly over:) for, an
occasion presenting itself of proving her passion for a young
fellow, at the expence of her discretion, proceeding all in
character, she pack'd up her toilette, at half a day's warning, and
went with him abroad, since which I lost entirely sight of her,
and it never fell in my way to hear what became of her.
\SFanny 2.166:
\N28 But a few days after she had left us, two very pretty young
gentlemen, who were Mrs#. {Cole}'s especial favourites, and free
of her academy, easily obtain'd her consent for {Emily}'s and my
acceptance of a party of pleasure, at a little, but agreeable house,
belonging to one of them, situate not far up the river {Thames},
on the {Surry} side.
\SFanny 2.166:
\N34 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 Squires, and there drank tea with a chearfulness 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.
\SFanny 2.166:
\N42 After tea, and taking a turn in the garden, my particular, who
\PFanny 2.167:
\N1 was the master of the house, and had in no sense schem'd this
party of pleasure for a dry one; propos'd to us, with that
frankness which his familiarity at Mrs#. {Cole}'s entitled him to, as
the weather was excessive hot, to bathe together, under a
commodious shelter that he had prepar'd 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.
\SFanny 2.167:
\N10 {Emily}, who never refus'd any thing, and I, who ever
delighted in bathing, and had no exception to the person who
propos'd it, or to those pleasures 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 return'd instantly to the
pavilion, one door of which open'd into a tent, pitch'd before it,
that with its Marquise, form'd a pleasing defence against the
sun, or the weather, and was besides as private as we could wish.
The lining of it, imbost cloth, represented a wild forest-foliage,
from the top, down to the sides, which, in the same stuff, were
figur'd with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between fill'd
with flower-vases, the whole having a gay effect upon the eye,
wherever you turn'd it.
\SFanny 2.167:
\N24 Then it reach'd sufficiently into the water, yet contain'd
convenient benches round it, on the dry ground, either to keep
our cloaths, or,(--)or,(--)in short, for more uses than resting
upon. There was a side-table too, loaded with sweet-meats,
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 {chere entiere} 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.
\SFanny 2.167:
\N35 As soon as we had look'd round this inviting spot, and every
preliminary of privacy was duly settled: strip, was the word:
when the young gentlemen soon dispatch'd the undressing each
his partner, and reduc'd 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 machinally carried towards the most interesting
part of us, skreen'd at first all from the tufted cliff
\PFanny 2.168:
\N1 downwards, till we took them away, at their desire, and
employ'd them, in doing them the same office, of helping them
off with their cloaths, in the process of which, there past all the
little wantonnesses, and frolic, that you may easily imagine.
\SFanny 2.168:
\N5 As for my spark, he was presently undrest, all to his shirt, the
fore-lappet of which, as he lean'd 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 fix'd; for now taking off his shirt, and naked as a
Cupid, he show'd it me at so upright a stand, as prepar'd me
indeed for his application to me for instant ease; but tho' the
sight of its fine size was fit enough to fire me; the cooling air, as I
stood in this state of nature, join'd 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 then the way, and showing 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 neck, where, the no more than grateful coolness of the
water, gave my senses a delicious refreshment from the sultryness
of the season, and made me more alive, more happy in
myself, and, in course, more alert, and open to voluptuous
impressions.
\SFanny 2.168:
\N24 Here I lav'd and wanton'd with the water, or sportively
play'd 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 by 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 hands
the regale of going over every part of me, neck, breast, belly,
thighs, and all the sweet {et cetera}, 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 is 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 constriction bred by the
\PFanny 2.169:
\N1 surrounding fluid, and had in effect won 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 aukward 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.
\SFanny 2.169:
\N11 There setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over the
surface of that smooth polish'd, 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-rear'd, between her thighs, as she continued
sitting on his lap, and press'd hard for instant admission,
which the tender {Emily}, in a fit of humour deliciously protracted,
affecting to decline, and elude the very pleasure she sigh'd
for, but in a style of waywardness so prettily put on, and
managed, as to render it only ten times more poignant: then
her eyes, all amidst the softest, dying languishment, express'd
at 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
redoubl'd the impetuous rage with which he cover'd her with
kisses, and kisses that whilst she seem'd to shy from or scuffle
for, the cunning wanton contriv'd such sly returns of, as were
doubtless the sweeter for the gust she gave them, of being
stoln, or ravished.
\SFanny 2.169:
\N34 Thus {Emily}, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in
favour of her principal end, pleasure, had inspir'd her with; the
art of yielding, coy'd it indeed, but coyed 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, that she aim'd at nothing
more than multiplying points of touch with him, and drawing
yet closer the folds that held them every where entwin'd, like
two tendrils of a vine intercurling together, so that the same
\PFanny 2.170:
\N1 effect, as when {Louisa} strove in good earnest to disengage from
the ideot, was now produc'd by different motives.
\SFanny 2.170:
\N3 Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water, had caused
a general glow, a tender suffusion of heighten'd carnation
over their bodies; both equally white, and smooth-skinn'd; 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.
\SFanny 2.170:
\N10 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
tender friendly feint! she was presently driven forcibly out of
the power of using any art: and indeed, what art but must give
way, when nature corresponding with her sweet 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, and
happily well over with her.
\SFanny 2.170:
\N29 For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in
the water all this time, to view this warm action, I lean'd
tenderly on my gallant, and, at the close of it, seem'd 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 shoal'd the
water together towards the shore, shew'd 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 suffer'd the youth to burst with
straining, when the remedy was so obvious, and so near at hand.
\SFanny 2.170:
\N39 Accordingly we took to 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 observ'd, we were
well under weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and full-freighted:
\PFanny 2.171:
\N1 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.
\SFanny 2.171:
\N5 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 no where more
allowably 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
forbid it.
\SFanny 2.171:
\N13 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 of) 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 'squires, who deliver'd us safe to Mrs#.
{Cole}, with generous thanks for our company.
\SFanny 2.171:
\N21 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 very
good circumstances, and who had been punish'd for their
partiality to their son, in the loss of him, occasion'd by a
circumstance of their over-indulgence to his appetite: upon
which, the so long engross'd stream of fondness, running
violently in favour of this lost, and inhumanly abandon'd child,
whom, if they had not neglected all enquiry about, they might
long before have recover'd, they were now so overjoy'd at their
retrieval of her, that, I presume, it made them much the less
strict in examining to the bottom of things; for they seem'd
very glad to take for granted, in the lump, every thing that the
grave and decent Mrs#. {Cole} was pleas'd to pass upon them; and
soon afterwards sent her, from the country, a handsome acknowledgment.
\SFanny 2.171:
\N37 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 weakness to good-nature,
and an indolent facility that kept her too much at the
\PFanny 2.172:
\N1 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 her 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, with as much
simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and regularity,
as if she had never swerv'd from a state of undebauch'd
innocence from her youth.
\SFanny 2.172:
\N18 These desertions had, however, now so far thinn'd Mrs#.
{Cole}'s cluck, that she was left with only me, like a hen with one
chicken; but tho' she was earnestly entreated and encourag'd to
recruit her {corps}, her growing infirmities, and above all the
tortures of a stubborn hip-gout, which she found would yield
to no remedy, determin'd 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 improv'd my small
matters into a competency that would create me an independence
on the world; for I was now, thanks to Mrs#. {Cole}, wise
enough to keep that essential in view.
\SFanny 2.172:
\N30 Thus I was then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the
Philosophers of the Town the White Crow of her profession;
for, besides that, she never ransomed her customers, whose
taste too she ever studiously consulted; besides that she never
racked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put
their hand earnings, as she call'd them, under the contribution
of poundage; she was a severe enemy to the seduction of
innocence, and confin'd her acquisitions solely to those
unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the
juster objects of compassion: amongst these indeed, she pick'd
out such as suited her views, and taking them under her
protection, rescu'd them from the danger of the public sinks of
ruin and misery, to place or form them, well, or ill, in the
\PFanny 2.173:
\N1 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 anxiety, perfectly maternal: in short, she
affected me so much that I was not presently reconcil'd to
myself for suffering her, at any rate, to go without me; but fate
had it seems, otherwise dispos'd of me.
\SFanny 2.173:
\N8 I had, on my separation from Mrs#. {Cole}, taken a pleasant
convenient house near {Marybone}, but easy to rent and
manage, from its smallness, which I furnish'd neatly and
modestly: there, with a reserve of eight hundred pounds, the
fruit of my deference to Mrs#. {Cole}'s counsels, exclusive of
cloaths, some jewels, 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.
\SFanny 2.173:
\N16 Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman,
whose husband was gone to sea, I had mark'd me out such lines
of life and conduct, as leaving me at a competent liberty to
pursue my views, either 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}'s.
\SFanny 2.173:
\N23 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 alarm'd with the noise of a violent coughing,
turning our heads towards which, we distinguish'd a plain well-dress'd
elderly gentleman, who, attack'd with a sudden fit, was
so much overcome as to be forc'd to give way to it, and sit down
at the foot of a tree, where he seem'd suffocating with the
severity of it, being perfectly black in the face: not less mov'd
than frighten'd with which I flew on the instant to his relief, and
using the rote of practice I had observ'd on the like occasion, I
loosen'd his cravat, and clapp'd him on the back; but whether to
any purpose, or whether the cough had had its course, I know
not; but the fit went immediately off; and now recover'd to his
speech, and legs, he returned me thanks, with as much emphasis
as if I had sav'd his life: this naturally engaging a conversation,
he acquainted me where he lived, which was at a considerable
distance from where I met with him, and where he had stray'd
insensibly on the same intention of a morning-walk.
\PFanny 2.174:
\SFanny 2.174:
\N1 He was, as I afterwards learn'd, in the course of the intimacy,
which this little accident gave birth to, an old batchelor turn'd
of sixty, but of a fresh, vigorous complexion, insomuch that he
scarce mark'd five and forty, having never rack'd, or forc'd his
constitution, by permitting his desires to over-tax his ability.
\SFanny 2.174:
\N6 As to his birth, and condition; his parents, honest and fail'd
mechanicks, 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 compting-house, from whence being sent to a
house in {Cadiz}, he there, by his talents and activity, acquired a
fortune, but an immense one; with which he return'd to his
native country, where he could not, however, so much as fish
one single relation out of the obscurity he was born in. Taking
then a taste for retirement, and pleas'd to enjoy life, like a
mistress, in the dark, he flow'd his days in all the ease of
opulence, without the least parade of it, and rather studying the
concealment, than the show of a fortune, looking down on a
world he perfectly knew; himself, to his wish, unknown, and
unmark'd by it.
\SFanny 2.174:
\N21 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
connexion of my history, and to obviate your surprise that one
of my high blood, and relish of life, should count a gallant of
threescore such a catch.
\SFanny 2.174:
\N28 Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent, at first,
insensibly changed nature, and ran into unplatonic lengths, as
might well be expected from one of my condition of life, and
above all from that principle of electricity which 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 robb'd him of the power of pleasing, since
whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of youth, he
atton'd 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 that I first learn'd 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
\PFanny 2.175:
\N1 essential encouragement, and instructions how to put it into
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 serv'd to exalt
and perfect the taste of the other, to a degree that the senses
alone can never arrive at.
\SFanny 2.175:
\N10 Himself a rational pleasurist, as being much too wise to be
asham'd of the pleasures of humanity, lov'd me indeed, but
lov'd me with dignity, in a mean equally remov'd from that
sourness, or frowardness which age is unpleasingly characteris'd
by, 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.
\SFanny 2.175:
\N17 In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season
of Life, was, in him, repair'd 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
allowances, those in that class do not forget, that it 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 proportionably more skill and cultivation, to force
them.
\SFanny 2.175:
\N26 With this gentleman then, who took me home soon after our
acquaintance commenc'd, I lived near eight months, in which
time, my constant complaisance, my docility, my attention to
deserve his confidence and love, and a conduct, in general,
devoid of the least art, and founded on my sincere esteem, and
regard for him, won, and attach'd 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 authentick 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 distance, and stood there naked-breasted, and expos'd to
the fatal impressions of a damp night-air.
\SFanny 2.175:
\N40 After acquitting myself of my duty towards my deceas'd
benefactor, and paying him a tribute of unfeign'd sorrow,
which a little time chang'd into the most tender, grateful
\PFanny 2.176:
\N1 memory of him, that I shall ever retain, I grew somewhat
comforted by the prospect that now open'd to me, if not of
happiness, at least of affluence, and independence.
\SFanny 2.176:
\N4 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 heighth of impudence in me, to
have rais'd my wishes, much more my hopes, to: and that this
unexpected elevation did not turn my head, I ow'd to the pains
my benefactor had taken to form and prepare me for it, as I
ow'd his opinion of my management of the vast possessions he
left me, to what he had observ'd of the prudential #oeconomy I
had learned under Mrs#. {Cole}, of which the reserve he saw I had
made, was a proof, and encouragement, to him.
\SFanny 2.176:
\N14 But alass! how easily is 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 a just one, since it had my
only truly belov'd {Charles} for its object.
\SFanny 2.176:
\N18 Given him up I had indeed compleatly, 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.
\SFanny 2.176:
\N25 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 produc'd me
no more light, than that his father had been dead 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 enquiry, been absent two
years and seven months: a little eternity in love!
\SFanny 2.176:
\N39 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 assign'd to it, in order to divert, and amuse my
impatience for his return, after settling my affairs with much
\PFanny 2.177:
\N1 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 show
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 besides distant ones,
and to prove a benefactress to them. Then Mrs#. {Cole}'s place of
retirement lying in my way, was not among the least of the
pleasures I had propos'd to myself in this expedition.
\SFanny 2.177:
\N14 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
sprang up, as made me congratulate myself on having got under
shelter before it began.
\SFanny 2.177:
\N20 This had continu'd a good half hour, when bethinking me of
some directions to be given to the coachman, I sent for him, and
not caring that his shoes should spoil 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
observ'd two horsemen driven in by the weather, and both
wringing wet; one of whom was asking if they could be assisted
with a change, till their cloaths could be 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 confirm'd its
information; in spite of so long an absence, and of a dress one
would have imagin'd studied for a disguise: a horseman's great
coat with a stand-up cape, and his hat flapp'd; but what could
escape the piercing alertness of a sense surely guided by love? a
transport then, like mine, was above all consideration, or
schemes of surprize, 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 swoon'd
away, under the oppressing agitations of joy and surprise.
\SFanny 2.177:
\N41 Recover'd out of my entrancement, I found myself in my
charmer's arms, but in the parlour, surrounded by a croud
\PFanny 2.178:
\N1 which this event had gather'd round us, and which immediately,
on a signal from the discreet landlady, who currently took
him for my husband, clear'd the room, and desirably left us
alone to the raptures of this re-union, my joy at which, had like
to have prov'd, at the expence of my life, its power superior to
that of grief at our fatal separation.
\SFanny 2.178:
\N7 The first object then, that my eyes open'd on, were their
supreme idol, and my supreme wish, {Charles}, on one knee,
holding me fast by the hand, and gazing at me in a transport of
fondness. Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak, and
give vent to his impatience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy
him once more that it was {me}: but the mightiness, and suddenness
of the surprize continuing to stun him, choak'd his
utterance: he could only stammer out a few broken, half-form'd,
faultering 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 same time with kisses, that
stopping my mouth, at once prevented the answer that he
panted for, and encreas'd the delicious disorder, in which all my
senses were rapturously lost. Amidst, however, this croud of
ideas, and all blissful ones, there obtruded only one cruel doubt,
that poison'd nearly all this transcendent happiness: and what
was it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real? I
trembled now with the fear of its being no more than a dream,
and of my 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 should vanish and
leave me in the desart again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I
clung to him, I clasp'd 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 consolidate 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, observ'd no order: all crossing, or interrupting one
another in sweet confusion, whilst we exchang'd hearts at our
eyes, and renew'd the ratifications of a love unabated by time or
absence: not a breath, not a motion, not a gesture on either side,
\PFanny 2.179:
\N1 but what was strongly impressed with it. Our hands lock'd in
each other, repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that their
fiery thrill went to the heart again.
\SFanny 2.179:
\N4 Thus absorpt, and concenter'd 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 by the
by {Charles} knew nothing of) had gain'd me an interest in, for
me, and mine, interrupted us, by bringing in a decent shift of
linnen, and cloaths, which now, somewhat recover'd into a
calmer composure by the coming in of a third person, I prest
him to take the benefit of, with a tender concern, and anxiety,
that made me tremble for his health.
\SFanny 2.179:
\N14 The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift, in the act
of which, tho' he proceeded with all that modesty, which
became these first solemner instants of our re-meeting, after so
long an absence, I could not contain certain snatches of my eyes,
lur'd by the dazzling discoveries of his naked skin, that escap'd
him as he chang'd his linnen, 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-tim'd desire.
\SFanny 2.179:
\N23 He was soon drest in these temporary cloaths, which neither
fitted him, nor became the light my passion plac'd him in, to me
at least: yet as they were on him, they look'd extremely well, in
virtue of that magic charm which love put into every thing that
he touch'd, 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
ey'd him more in detail, I could not but observe the even
favourable alteration which the time of his absence had produc'd
in his person.
\SFanny 2.179:
\N32 There were still the same exquisite lineaments, still the same
vivid vermilion, and bloom reigning in his face, but now the
roses were more fully blown: the tant of his travels, and a
beard somewhat more distinguishable, had, at the expence of no
more delicacy than what he could better spare, than not, given it
an air of becoming manliness, and maturity, that symmetriz'd
nobly with that air of distinction and empire, with which nature
had stamp'd 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
\PFanny 2.180:
\N1 shape more form'd, more portly, but still free, and airy. In
short, his figure show'd riper, greater, and perfecter to the
experienced eye, than in his tender youth; and now, he was not
much more than two and twenty.
\SFanny 2.180:
\N5 In this interval, however, I pick'd 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 wreck'd on the {Irish} coast, for
which he had prematurely embark'd, 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 assur'd me, in a vein of sincerity, that flowing from his
heart, penetrated mine, gave him no farther pain, than that he
had it not in his power, to make me as happy as he could wish.
My fortune, you will please to observe, I had not enter'd upon
any overture of, reserving to feast myself with the surprize 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 stile of plainness and simplicity, that I have ever
kept to with studied art. He press'd 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
had the address to elude his questions, by answers that shewing
his satisfaction at no great distance, won upon him to wave
his impatience, in favour of the thorough confidence he had in
my not delaying it; but for respects I should in good time
acquaint him with.
\SFanny 2.180:
\N31 {Charles} however thus return'd to my longing arms, tender,
faithful, and in health, was already a blessing too mighty for my
conception! but, {Charles} in distress!(--){Charles} reduc'd, and
broke down to his naked personal merit, was such a circumstance,
in favour of the sentiments I had for him, as exceeded my
utmost desires: and accordingly, I seem'd so visibly charm'd, so
out of time, and measure pleas'd at his mention of his ruin'd
fortune, that he could account for it no way but that the joy of
seeing him again, had swallow'd up every other sense, or
concern.
\SFanny 2.180:
\N41 In the mean time, my woman had taken all imaginable care of
{Charles}'s travelling companion; and, as supper was coming in,
\PFanny 2.181:
\N1 he was introduc'd to me, when I receiv'd him, as became my
regard for all of {Charles}'s acquaintance, or friends.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N3 We four then supp'd together in the stile of joy, congratulation,
and pleasing disorder, that you may guess. For my part,
though all these agitations had left me not the last stomach, but
for that uncloying feast, the sight of my ador'd youth, I
endeavour'd to force it, by way of example for him, who, I
conjectur'd, must want such a recruit after riding, and indeed,
he eat like a traveller; but gaz'd at, and addressed me all the time
like a lover.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N11 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, to be the best in the
inn.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N16 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.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N21 As soon then as we were in the room together, left to
ourselves, the sight of the bed starting 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 lean'd 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.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N29 But now the true refining passion had regain'd thorough
possession of me, with all its train of symptoms; a sweet
sensibility, a tender timidity, love-sick yearnings temper'd 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 nuptual bed, could give more bashful
blushes to unblemish'd innocence, than I did to a sense of guilt;
and indeed I lov'd {Charles} too truly not to feel severely, that I
did not deserve him.
\SFanny 2.181:
\N41 As I kept hesitating, and disconcerted under this soft distraction,
{Charles}, with a fond impatience, took the pains to undress
\PFanny 2.182:
\N1 me, and all I can remember, amidst the flutter and discomposure
of my senses, was, some fluttering exclamations of
joy and admiration, more especially at the feel of my breasts
now set at liberty from my stays, and which panting and rising
in tumultuous throbs, swell'd upon his dear touch, and gave it
the welcome pleasure of finding them well-form'd, and unfail'd
in firmness.
\SFanny 2.182:
\N8 I was soon laid in bed, and scarce languish'd an instant for the
darling partner of it, before he was undress'd and got between
the sheets, with his arms clasp'd round me, giving and taking,
with a gust inexpressible, a kiss of welcome, that my heart rising
to my lips, stamp'd 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.
\SFanny 2.182:
\N16 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 of 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
wish'd for it, without other circumstance, a pleasure to die of.
\SFanny 2.182:
\N22 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 deliver'd up every faculty of my soul to the
sensiblest of joys, that affecting me infinitely more with my
distinction of the person, than of the sex, now brought my
conscious heart deliciously into play; my heart, which,
eternally constant to {Charles}, had never taken any part in my
occasional 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.
\SFanny 2.182:
\N42 I have, I believe, somewhere before remark'd, that the feel of
\PFanny 2.183:
\N1 that favourite piece of manhood has, in the very nature of it,
something inimitably pathetic. Nothing can be dearer to the
touch, or can affect it with a more delicious sensation. Think
then! as a lover think, 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 scepter-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 work'd 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 glow'd, 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 imminent 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, pour'd such an ocean of
intoxicating bliss on a weak vessel, all too narrow to contain it,
that I lay overwhelm'd, absorpt, lost in an abyss of joy, and
dying of nothing by immoderate delight.
\SFanny 2.183:
\N28 {Charles} then rouz'd me somewhat out of this extatic distraction,
with a complaint softly murmur'd amidst a croud of
kisses, at the position, not so favourable to his desires, in which
I receiv'd his urgent insistance for admission, where that
insistence 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 entrance at pleasure: I
see! I feel! the delicious velvet tip!(--)he enters might and main
with(--)oh!(--)my pen drops from me 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
\PFanny 2.184:
\N1 that hailed and accompany'd 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 blaz'd in every vein, and every pore of me: a system
incarnate of joy all over.
\SFanny 2.184:
\N6 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 of 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
embrac'd 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.
\SFanny 2.184:
\N15 As we were giving then a few moments of pause to the
delectation 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 mighty for utterance, the organs of our voice,
voluptuously intermixing, became organs of the touch: And,
oh, that 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 stiled 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.
\SFanny 2.184:
\N30 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 was now consummating the fruition
of.
\SFanny 2.184:
\N34 {Charles}, whose whole frame all 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, touch'd me so vitally, took me so much out of my
own possession, whilst he seem'd himself so much in mine, that
in a delicious enthusiasm I imagin'd such a transfusion of heart
and spirit, as that coaliting, and making one body and soul
with him, I was him, and he, me.
\SFanny 2.184:
\N42 But all this pleasure tending, like life from its first instants,
\PFanny 2.185:
\N1 towards its own dissolution, liv'd too fast, not to bring on upon
the spur its delicious moment of mortality; for presently the
approach of the tender agony discover'd itself by its usual
signals, that were quickly follow'd by my dear love's liquid
emanation of himself, that spun out, and shot feelingly indeed!
up the ravish'd indraught, where the sweetly soothing balmy
titillation open'd at the warm jerk, all the sluices of joy on my
side, which extatically in flow, help'd to allay the prurient glow,
and drown'd our pleasure for awhile, soon however to be on
float again! for {Charles}, true to nature's law, in one breath
expiring, and ejaculating, languish'd not long in the dissolving
trance, but recovering spirit again, soon gave me to feel that the
true-mettle springs 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 stiffness still stood my friend:
resuming then the action afresh, without dislodging, or giving
me the trouble of parting from my sweet tenant, we play'd over-again
the same opera, with the same delightful harmony and
concert: our ardours, like our love, knew no remission: and, all
as the tide serv'd, my lover, lavish of his stores, and pleasure-milk'd,
overflow'd me once more from the fulness of those his
oval reservoirs of the genial emulsion: whilst on my side, a
convulsive grasp in the instant of my giving down my liquid
contribution, render'd me sweetly subservient at once, to the
increase of his joy, and of 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 breast, by the pleasure they find in
the motion of their little mouths and cheeks, to extract the
milky stream prepar'd for their nourishment.
\SFanny 2.185:
\N33 But still there was no end of his vigour: this double-discharge,
had so far from extinguish'd his desires, for that time,
that it had not even calm'd 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 inspir'd me with self-denial enough to spare, and
not overstrain him, and accordingly, entreating him to give
himself and me quarter, I obtain'd at length a short suspension
of arms, but not before he had exultingly satisfy'd me that he
gave out standing.
\PFanny 2.186:
\SFanny 2.186:
\N1 The remainder of the night, with what we borrow'd upon the
day, we employ'd with unweary'd fervour, in celebrating thus
the festival of our re-meeting; 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 at
victory is to an army, repose, refreshment: every thing.
\SFanny 2.186:
\N7 The journey into the country being now intirely out of the
question, and orders having been given over-night 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.
\SFanny 2.186:
\N12 {Charles} and I were in my coach, the captain and my companion
in a chaise hir'd purposely for them, to leave us the
conveniency of a te^te-a`-te^te.
\SFanny 2.186:
\N15 Here, on the road, as the tumult of my senses was tolerably
compos'd, I had command enough of head, to break, properly,
to him, the course of life that the consequences of my separation
from him had driven me into, which, at the same time that he
tenderly deplor'd with me, he was the less shock'd at, as on
reflecting how he had left me circumstanc'd, he could not be
entirely unprepar'd for it.
\SFanny 2.186:
\N22 But when I open'd the state of my fortune to him, and with
that sincerity, which from me, to him, was so much a nature in
me, I begg'd 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
unreserv'd, 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 wave the remonstrance I did not fail of
making strongly to him, against his degrading himself, and
incurring the reflexion, however unjust, of having, for respects
of fortune, barter'd his honour for infamy and prostitution, in
making one his wife, who thought herself too much honour'd in
being but his mistress.
\SFanny 2.186:
\N38 The plea of love then over-ruling all objections, {Charles},
entirely won with the merit of my sentiments for him, which he
could not but read the sincerity of in a heart ever open to him,
oblig'd me to receive his hand, by which means I was in pass,
amongst other innumerable blessings, to bestow a legal parentage
\PFanny 2.187:
\N1 on those fine children you have seen by this happiest of
matches.
\SFanny 2.187:
\N3 Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of
virtue, I gather'd 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, immers'd in a gross sensuality, are insensible to the so
delicate charms of VIRTUE, than which even PLEASURE has not a
greater friend, nor than VICE a greater enemy. Thus temperance
makes men lords over those pleasures that intemperance
enslaves them to: the one, parent of health, vigour, fertility,
chearfulness, and every other desirable good in life, the other, of
diseases, debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only every evil
incident to human nature.
\SFanny 2.187:
\N16 You laugh perhaps at this tail-piece of morality, express'd
from me by the force, of truth, resulting from compar'd
experiences: you think it, no doubt, out of place; 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 compleatly disguis'd 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
can 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
strew'd with roses, but then they are for ever infamous for
many a thorn; for many a canker-worm: those of Virtue are
strew'd with roses purely, and those enternally unfading ones.
\SFanny 2.187:
\N41 If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly
consistent in the incense I burn to virtue: if I have painted vice
\PFanny 2.188:
\N1 all in its gayest colours, if I have deck'd it with flowers, it has
been solely in order to make the worthier, the solemner sacrifice
of it, to virtue.
\SFanny 2.188:
\N4 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 fixt, a
rational contempt for vice, he condescended to be his master of
the ceremonies, and led him by the hand thro' the most noted
bawdy-houses in town, where he took care that he should be
familiariz'd 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 the least
attention to?
\SFanny 2.188:
\N15 I shall see you soon, and in the mean time think candidly of
me, and believe me ever.
\SFanny 2.188:
\N17 {Madam},
{Yours, &c#., &c#., &c#.}
* * * * *