01 - Section 01. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.

01 - Section 01. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.  
This book has been notorious since it first appeared and had been banned several times and in several countries. It is a fictional work that details the adventures of an orphaned girl who ends up working in a brothel in London. Early on she falls in love with a young man named Charles, but only to end up being separated from him. She then recounts her experiences as a prostitute who, in spite of her circumstances, manages to retain her humanity and undying faith in true love.  
⚠️If you find insult/get offended or are against extreme descriptions of sexual acts PUT THE BOOK DOWN⚠️

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section one of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by
John Cleland Let her the first part one, Madam, I

(00:28):
sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my
considering your desires as indispensable orders ungracious. Then, as a
task may be, I shall recall to you those scandalous
stages of my life, out of which I emerged at
length to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power
of love, health, and fortune to bestow, whilst yet in

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the flower of youth, and not too late to employ
the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence to
cultivate and understand naturally not a despicable one, and which had,
even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been
tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners
of the world than what is common to those of

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my unhappy profession, who, looking on all thought or reflection
as their capital enemy, keep it at as great a
distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy, Hating
as I mortally do, all long and necessary preface, I
shall give you good quarter in this, and use no
farther apology than to prepare you for seeing the loose

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part of my life, wrote with the same liberty that
I led it. Truth, stark naked, truth is the word.
And I will not so much as take the pains
to bestow the strip of a God's wrapper on it.
But pained situations, such as they actually rose to me
in nature, careless of violating those laws of decency that

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were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours. And
you have too much sense, too much knowledge of the originals,
to sniff prudishly and out of character at the pictures
of them. The greatest men, those of the first and
most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets
with nudities, though in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may

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not think them decent decorations of the staircase or Salon. This,
and enough premised, I go south into my personal history.
My maiden name was Francis Hill. I was born at
a small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely poor,
and I piously believe extremely honest, my father, who had

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received a maime on his limbs that disabled him from
following the more laborious branches of country drudgery, god by
making of nets a scanty subsistence, which was not much
enlarged by my mother's keeping a little day school for
the girls in her neighborhood. They had had several children,
but none lived to any age except myself, who had

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received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy. My education till
past fourteen was no better than very vulgar reading, or
rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain
work composed the whole system of it. And then all
my foundation in virtue was no other than a total

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ignorance of vice and the shy timidity general to our
sex in the tender stage of life, when objects alarm
or frightened more by their novelty than anything else. But
then this is a fear too often cured at the
expense of innocence, when miss by degrees begins no longer
to look on a man as a creature of prey

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that will eat her. My poor mother had divided her
time so entirely between her scholars and her little domestic cares,
that she had spared very little to my instruction, having
from her own innocence from all ill no hint or
thought of guarding me against any I was now entering
on my fifteenth year when the worst of ills befell

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me in the loss of my fond, tender parents, who
were both carried off by the small pox within a
few days of each other, my father dying first, and
thereby hastening the death of my mother, so that I
was now left an unhappy, friendless orphan. For my father's
coming to settle there was accidental, he being originally a Kandishman.

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That cruel distemper, which had proved so fatal to them,
had indeed seized me, but with such mild and favorable
symptoms that I was presently out of danger, and what
I then did not know the value of was entirely unmarked.
Skip over here an account of the natural grief and

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affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little
time and the gildiness of that age dissipated too soon
my reflections on that irreparable loss. But nothing contributed more
to reconcile me to it than the notions that were
immediately put into my head of going to London and

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looking out for a service, in which I was promised
all assistance and advice from one Esther Davis, a young
woman that had been down to see her friends, and
who after the stay of a few days, was to
return to her place. As I had now nobody left
alive in the village, who had concern enough about what

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should become of me to start any objections to this scheme,
and the woman who took care of me after my
parents death rather encouraged me to pursue it. I soon
came to a resolution of making this launch into the
wide world by repairing to London in order to seek
my fortune, a phrase which by the bye has ruined

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more adventurers of both sexes from the country than ever
it made or advanced. Nor did Esther Davis a little
comfort and inspirit me to venture with her by piquing
my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to
be seen in London, the tombs, the lions, the king,
the royal family, the fine plays in operas, and in short,

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all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life
to come at the detail of all which perfectly turned
the little head of me. Nor can I remember without
laughing the innocent admiration, not without a spice of envy,
with which we poor girls, whose church going clothes did
not rise above dowtless shifts and stuff gowns beheld Ester's

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scoured satin gowns, caps bordered with an inch of lace,
towdery ribbons, and shoes belaced with silver, all which we
imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal
into my determination of trying to come in for my
share of them. The idea, however, of having the company

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of a townswoman with her, was the trivial and all
the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of me
during my journey to town, where she told me, after
her manner and style, as how several maids out of
the country had made themselves and all their kin for ever,
that by preserving their virtue, some had taken so with

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their masters that they had married them and kept them coaches,
and lived vastly grand and happy, and some mayhap came
to be duchesses. Luck was all, and why not I
as well as another with other almanacs to this purpose,
which set me a tiptoe to begin this promising journey,

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and to leave a place which, though my native one,
contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and
was grown insupportable to me from the change of the
tenderest usage into a cold air of charity with which
I was entertained, even at the only friend's house that
I had the least expectation of care and protection from.

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She was, however, so just to me as to manage
the turning into money of the little matters that remained
to me after the debts and burial charges were allowed for,
and at my departure put my whole fortune into my hands,
which consisted of a very slender wardrobe packed up in
a very portable box, and eight guineas with seventeen shillings

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in silver stowed up in a spring pouch, which was
a greater treasure than ever I had yet seen together,
and which I could not conceive there was a possibility
of running out. And indeed I was so entirely taken
up with the joy of seeing myself mistress of such
an immense sum, that I gave very little attention to

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a world of good advice which was given me, with
it places then being taken for Esther and me. In
the Chester wagon I passed over a very immaterial scene
of leave taking, at which I dropped a few tears
betwixt grief and joy, and for the same reasons of insignificance,
skip over all that happened to me on the road,

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such as the wagoner's looking liquorice on me, the schemes
laid for me by some of the passengers, which were
defeated by the vigilance of my guardian, Esther, who, to
do her justice, took a motherly care of me at
the same time that she taxed me for her protection
by making me bear all the traveling charges, which I

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defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought myself much obliged
to her into the bargain. She took, indeed, great care
that we were not overrated or imposed on, as well
as of managing as frugally as possible. Expensiveness was not
her vice. It was pretty late in a summer evening

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when we reached the town in our slow conveyance, though
drawn by six at length. As we passed through the
greatest streets that led to our inn. The noise of
the coaches, the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers. In short,
the new scenery of the shops and houses at once
pleased and amazed me. But guess at my mortification and

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surprise when we came to the inn and our things
were landed and delivered to us, when my fellow traveler
and protectress esther Davis, who had used me with the
utmost tenderness during the journey, and prepared me by no
preceding signs for the stunning blow I was to receive
when I say, my only dependence and friend in this

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strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange and
cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming
a burden to her. Instead then of proffering me the
continuance of her assistance and good offices, which I relied
upon and never more wanted, she thought herself, it seems
abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by having brought

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me safe to my journey's end, and seeing nothing in
her procedure towards me but what was natural, and in
order began to embrace me by way of taking leave,
whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that I had
not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention
my hopes or expectations from her experience and knowledge of

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the place she had brought me to, whilst I stood
thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to nothing
more than a concern at parting. This idea procured me
perhaps a slight alleviation of it in the following harangue.
That now we were god safe to London, and that
she was obliged to go to her place. She advised

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me by all means to get into one as soon
as possible, that I need not fear getting one. There
were more places than parish churches. That she advised me
to go to an intelligence office. That if she heard
of anything stirring, she would find me out and let
me know. That in the meantime I should take a
private lodging and acquaint her where to send to me.

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That she wished me good luck and hoped I should
always have the grace to keep myself honest and not
bring a disgrace on my parentage. With this, she took
her leave of me and left me as it were
on my own hands full as lightly as I had
been put into hers. Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless.

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I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of
this separation, the scene of which had passed in little
room in the inn, and no sooner was her back turned.
But the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances
burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved
the oppression of my heart, though I still remained stupefied

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and most perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself. One
of the drawers coming in added yet more to my
uncertainty by asking me in a short way if I
called for anything, to which I replied innocently no. But
I wished him to tell me where I might get
a lodging for that night. He said he would go

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and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came and told
me drily, without entering in the least into the distress
she saw me in, that I might have a bed
for a shilling, and that, as she supposed, I had
some friends in town. Here. I fetched a deep sigh
in vain I might provide for myself in the morning,

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tis incredible, what trifling consolations the human mind will seize
in its greatest feats. The assurance of nothing more than
a bed to lie on that night calmed my agonies, and,
being ashamed to acquaint the mistress of the inn that
I had no friends to apply to in town, I
proposed to myself to proceed the very next morning to

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an intelligence office, to which I was furnished with written
directions on the back of a ballad of Esther's giving me. There,
I counted on getting information of any place that such
a country girl as I might be fit for, and
where I could get into any sort of being, before
my little stock should be consumed. And as to a character,

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Esther had often repeated to me that I might depend
on her managing me one nor, however affected I was,
at her leaving me. Thus did I entirely cease to
rely on her. As I began to think good naturedly
that her procedure was all in course, and that it
was only my ignorance of life that had made me
take it in the light, I at first did accordingly.

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The next morning, I dressed myself as clean and as
neat as my rustic wardrobe, would permit me, And having
left my box with special recommendation with the landlady, I
ventured out by myself, and without any more difficulty than
can be supposed of a young country girl barely fifteen,
and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap.

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I got to the wished for intelligence office. It was
kept by an elderly woman who sat at the receipt
of custom, with a book before her in great form
and order, and several scrolls made out of directions for places.
I made up then to this important personage, without lifting
up my eyes or observing any of the people round

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me who were attending there on the same errand as myself,
and dropping her curtseys nighing deep, just made a shift
to stammer out my business to her. Madame heard me
out with all the gravity and brow of a petty
minister of state, and seeing at one glance so or
my figure what I was, made me no answer but

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to ask me the preliminary shilling on receipt of which
she told me places for women were exceedingly scarce, especially
as I seemed two slight built for hard work, but
that she would look over her book and see what
was to be done for me, desiring me to stay
a little till she had despatched some other customers. On

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this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at
the declaration, which carried with it a killing uncertainty that
my circumstances could not well endure. Presently, assuming more courage,
and seeking some diversion from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured
to lift top my head a little and set my
eyes on a course round the room, wherein they met

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full tilt with those of a lady. For such my
extreme innocence, pronounced her. Sitting in a corner of the room,
dressed in a velvet mantle in the midst of summer,
with her bonnet off, squab fat, red faced, and at
least fifty, she looked as if she would devour me,
with her eyes staring at me from head to foot,

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without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her
eyeing me so fixedly put me to, and which were
to her no doubt the strongest recommendation and marks of
my being fit for her purpose. After a little time
in which my air person and whole figure had undergone
a strict examination, which I had on my part, tried

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to render favorable to me by primming, drawing up my neck,
and setting my best looks. She advanced and spoke to
me with the greatest demureness, qu sweetheart, do you want
a place? A yes, and please you with a courtesy
down to the ground. Upon this she acquainted me that

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she was actually come to the office herself to look
out for a servant, that she believed I might do
with a little of her instructions, that she could take
my very looks for sufficient character, that London was a
very wicked, vile place, that she hoped I would be
tractable and keep out of bad company. In short, she

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said all to me that an old, experienced practitioner in
town could think of, and which was much more than
was necessary to take in an artless, inexperienced country maid,
who was even afraid of becoming a wanderer about the streets,
and therefore gladly jumped at the first offer of a shelter,
especially from so grave and matron like a lady. For

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such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of
mine was I being actually hired under the nose of
the good woman that kept the office whose shrewd smiles
and shrugs I could not help observing and innocently interpreted
them as marks of her being pleased at my getting
into place so soon. But as I afterwards came to know,

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these Beldams understood one another very well. And this was
a market where missus Brown, my mistress, frequently attended on
the watch for any fresh goods that might offer there
for the use of her customers and her own profit.
Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain that,

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fearing I presume lest better advice or some accident might
occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would officially take
me in a coach to my inn, where, calling herself
for my box, it was I being present delivered without
the least scruple or explanation as to where I was going.
This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a

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shop in Saint Paul's churchyard, where she bought a pair
of gloves, which she gave me, and thence renewed her
directions to the coachman to drive to her house in street,
who accordingly landed us at her door. After I had
been cheered up and entertained by the way with the
most plausible flams, without one syllable from which I could

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come clude anything but that I was, by the greatest
good luck fallen into the hands of the kindest mistress,
not to say friend that the varsal world could afford.
And accordingly I entered her doors with most complete confidence
and exultation, promising myself that as soon as I should
be a little settled, I would acquaint as Sir Javis

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with my rare good fortune. You may be sure the
good opinion of my place was not lessened by the
appearance of a very handsome back parlor into which I
was led, and which seemed to me magnificently furnished, who
had never seen better rooms than the ordinary ones in
inns upon the road. There were two gilt pier glasses

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and a buffet on which a few pieces of plates
set out to the most show dazzled, and altogether persuaded
me that I must be got into a very reputable family.
Here my mistress first began her part with telling me
that I must have good spirits, and learned to be
free with her that she had not taken me to
be a common servant to do domestic drudgery, but to

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be a kind of companion to her, and that if
I would be a good girl, she would do more
than twenty mothers for me to all which I answered
only by the profoundest and awkwardest curtesies and a few
monosyllables such as yes, no, to be sure. Presently, my
mistress touched the bell, and in came a strapping maid

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servant who had let us in here. Martha said, missus Brown,
I have just hired this young woman to look after
my linen. So step up and show her her chamber.
And I charge you to use her with as much
respect as you would myself, for I have taken a
prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what
I shall do for her. Martha, who was an archjade

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and being used to this decoy, had her cue perfect,
made me a kind of half courtesy and asked me
to walk up with her, and accordingly showed me a
neat room two of stairs backwards, in which there was
a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to
lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress's,

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who she was sure would be vastly good to me.
Then she ran out into such affected encomiums on her
good mistress, her sweet mistress, And how happy I was
to light upon her that I could not have bespoken
better with other the like gross stuff such as would
itself have started suspicions in any but such an unpracticed

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simpleton who was perfectly new to life, and who took
every word she said in the very sense she laid
out for me to take it. But she readily saw
what a penetration she had to deal with, and measured
me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me,
so as to make me pleased with my cage and
blind to the wires. In the midst of these false

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explanations of the nature of my future service, we were
wrong for down again, and I was reintroduced into the
same parlor, where there was a table laid with three covers.
And my mistress had now got with her one of
her favorite girls, a notable manager of her house, and
whose business it was to prepare and break such young

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fellies as I was, to the mounting block. And she
was accordingly in that view, allotted me for a bed fellow,
and to give her the more authority. She had the
title of cousin conferred on her by the venerable President
of this college. Here I underwent a second survey, which
ended in the full approbation of Missus Phoebe Eyres, the

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name of my tutoris elect, to whose care and instructions
I was affectionately recommended. Dinner was now set on table,
and in pursuance of treating me as a companion, Missus Brown,
with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon overruled
my most humble and most confused protestations against sitting down

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with her ladyship, which my very short breeding just suggested
to me could not be right or in the order
of things at table. The conversation was chiefly kept up
by the two madams, and carried on in double meaning expressions,
interrupted every now and then by a kind assurance to me,
all tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my

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present condition augmented they could not so very a novice
was I. Then it was here agreed that I should
keep myself up and out of sight for a few days,
till such clothes could be procured for me as were
fit for the character I was to appear in of
my mistress's companion, observing withal that on the first impressions

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of my figure much might depend. And as they rightly judged,
the prospect of exchanging my country clothes for London finery
made the clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me.
But the truth was missus Brown did not care that
I should be seen or talked to by any either
of her customers or her doze as they'd called the

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girls provided for them, till she had secured a good
market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all
the appearances of having brought into her ladyship's service. To
slip over minutes of no importance to the main of
my story, I passed the interval to bed time, in
which I was more and more pleased with the views
that opened to me of an easy service under these

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good people, And after supper being showed up to bed,
Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluctance in me
to strip and go to bed in my shift before her,
now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and,
beginning with unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me
to go on with undressing myself, and still blushing at

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now seeing myself naked to my shift, I hurried to
get under the bedclothes out of sight. Phoebe laughed, and
was not long before she placed herself by my side.
She was about five and twenty by her most suspicious account,
in which according to all appearances, she must have sunk
at least ten good years, allowance too, being made for

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the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot
waters must have made of her constitution, and which had
already brought on upon the spur that stale stage in
which those of her profession are reduced to think of
showing company instead of seeing it. No sooner than was
this precious substitute of my mistress's laid down. But she,

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who was never out of her way, when any occasion
of lewdness presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kissed
me with great eagerness. This was new, this was odd,
But imputing it to nothing but pure kindness, which for
aught I knew it might be the London way to
express in that manner, I was determined not to be

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behindhand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace
with all the fervor that perfect innocence knew. Encouraged by this,
her hands became extremely free and wandered over my whole
body with touches, squeezes, pressures that rather warmed and surprised
me with their novelty than they either shocked or alarmed me.

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The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions contributed also
not a little to bribe my passiveness, And knowing no ill,
I feared none, especially from one who had prevented all
doubt of her womanhood by conducting my hands to a
pair of breasts that hung loosely down in a size

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and volume that full sufficiently distinguished her sex To me,
at least, who had never made any other comparison. I
lay then all tame and passive as she could wish,
whilst her freedom raised no other emotions but those of
a strange and till then unfelt pleasure. Every part of

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me was open and exposed to the license courses of
her hands, which like a lambent fire, ran over my
whole body and thawed all coldness as they went my breasts.
If it is not too bold a figure to call
so two hard firm, rising hillocks that just began to
show themselves or signify anything to the touch, employed and

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amused her hands awhile till slipping down lower over a
smooth track, she could just feel the soft, silky down
that had but a few months before put forth and
garnished the mound pleasant of those parts, and promised to
spread a grateful shelter over the sweet seat of the
most exquisite sensation, and which had been till that instant,

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the seat of the most insensible innocence. Her fingers played
and strove to twine in the young tendrils of fat moss,
which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament,
but not contented with these outer posts. She now attempts
the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and

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at length to force an introduction of a finger into
the quick itself, in such a manner that, had she
not preceded by insensible gradations that inframed me beyond the
power of modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress,
I should have jumped out of bed and cried for
help against such strange assaults, instead of which her lascivious

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touches had lighted up a new fire that wantoned through
all my veins, but fixed with violence in that center
appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were
now busied in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening
them again with a finger between till an oh expressed

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her hurting me, where the narrowness of the unbroken passage
refused it entrance to any depth. In the meantime, the
extension of my limbs, languid stretchings, sighs, short heavings all
conspired to assure that experienced Wanton that I was more
pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with

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repeated kisses and exclamations such as, Oh, what a charming
creature thou art, What a happy man will he be
that first makes a woman of you? Oh that I
were a man for your sake, with the like broken
expressions interrupted by kisses as fierce and salacious as ever
I received from the other sex. For my part, I

(30:39):
was transported, confused and out of myself. Feelings so new
were too much for me. My heated and alarmed senses
were in a tumult that robbed me of all liberty
of thought, tears of pleasure gushed from my eyes, and
somewhat assuaged to fire that raged all over me. Phoebe herself,

(31:01):
the hack kneed thorough bred Phoebe, to whom all moods
and devices of pleasure were known and familiar found. It
seems in this exercise of her art to break young
girls the gratification of one of those arbitrary tastes for
which there is no accounting. Not that she hated men,

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or did not even prefer them to her own sex,
but when she met with such occasions as this was
a satiety of enjoyments in the common road, perhaps too
a secret bias inclined her to make the most of
the pleasure wherever she could find it, without distinction of sexes.
In this view, Now well assured that she had by

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her touches sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she rolled
down the bedclothes gently, and I saw myself stretched naked,
my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I
had no power or sense to op pose it. Even
my glowing blushes expressed more desired than modesty. Whilst the candle,

(32:07):
left to be sure not undesignedly burning, threw a full
light on my whole body. No, says Phoebe. You must not,
my sweet girl, think to hide all these treasures from me.
My sight must be feasted as well as my touch.
I must devour with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer

(32:28):
me to kiss it. I have not seen it enough.
Let me kiss it once more. What firm, smooth, white
flesh is here? How delicately shaped? Then this delicious down, Oh,
let me view the small, dear, tender cleft. This is
too much. I cannot bear it. I must, I must. Here.

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She took my hand and in a transport carried it
where you will easily guess. But what a difference in
the state of the same thing. A spreading thicket of
pushy curls marked the full grown, complete woman. Then the
cavity to which she guided my hand easily received it,
And as soon as she felt it within her, she

(33:13):
moved herself to and fro with so rapid a friction
that I presently withdrew it wet and clammy. When instantly
Phoebe grew more composed, after two or three sighs and
heart fetched ohs, and giving me a kiss that seemed
to exhale her soul. Through her lips she replaced the

(33:33):
bedclothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will
not say, but this I know that the first sparks
of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were caught
by me that night, and that the acquaintance and communication
with the bead of our sex is often as fatal

(33:53):
to innocence as all the seductions of the other. But
to go on. When Phoebe was restored to that calm
which I was far from the enjoyment of myself, she
artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern
the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by
my answers drawn from pure, undissembled nature, she had no

(34:17):
reason but to promise herself all imaginable success, so far
as it depended on my ignorance, easiness, and warmth of constitution.
After a sufficient length of dialog, my bed fellow left
me to my rest, and I fell asleep through pure
weariness from the violent emotions I had been led into.

(34:40):
When nature, which had been too warmly stirred and fermented
to subside without allaying by some means or other, relieved
me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of
which are scarce inferior to those of waking real action.
In the morning, I awoke about turn perfectly and refreshed.

(35:01):
Phoebe was up before me and asked me in the
kindest manner, how I did, how I had rested, and
if I was ready for breakfast, Carefully, at the same time,
avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in
at looking her in the face by any hint of
the night's bed scene, I told her, if she pleased,

(35:21):
I would get up and begin any work she would
be pleased to set me about. She smiled. Presently, the
maid brought in the tea equipage, and I just huddled
my clothes on. When in waddled my mistress, I expected
no less than to be told of, if not chid,
for my late rising. When I was agreeably disappointed by

(35:42):
her compliments on my pure and fresh looks, I was
a bud of beauty. This was her style. And how
vastly all the fine men would admire me to all
which my answers did not. I can assure you wrong
my breeding. They were as simple and silly as they
could wish, and no doubt flattered them infinitely more than

(36:04):
had they proved me enlightened by education and knowledge of
the world. We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce
removed when in were brought two bundles of linen and
wearing apparel, in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out,
as they termed it completely. Imagine to yourself, madam, how

(36:25):
my little coquette heart fluttered with joy at the sight
of a white lute string flowered with silver scoured indeed,
but passed on me for spick and span, new a
Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and the rest in proportion
all second hand finery, and procured instantly for the occasion

(36:45):
by the diligence and industry of the good missus Brown,
who had already a chapman for me in the house
before whom my charms were to pass in review, For
he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous
sight of the premises, but also on immediate surrender to
him in case of his agreeing for me, concluding very
wisely that such a place as I was in was

(37:08):
of the hottest to trust the keeping of such a
perishable commodity in as a maiden head, the care of
dressing and tricking me out for the market was then
left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at
least perfectly to the satisfaction of every thing. But my
impatience of seeing myself dressed. When it was over and

(37:30):
I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt
too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at
the change, a change in real truth for much the worse,
since I must have much better become the neat, easy
simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward tawdry

(37:50):
finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to Phoebe's compliments, however,
in which her own share in dressing me was not forgot,
did not a little confirmed me in the first notions
I had ever entertained concerning my person, which, be it said,
without vanity, was then tolerable to justify a taste for me,

(38:12):
and of which it may not be out of place
here to sketch you an unflattered picture. I was tall,
yet not too tall for my age, which, as I
before remarked, was barely termed of fifteen. My shape perfectly straight, thin, wasted,
and light and free, without owing anything to staze. My

(38:33):
hair was a glossy auburn and as soft as silk,
flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and did not
a little set off the whiteness of a smooth skin.
My face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate,
and the shape a roundish oval, except where a pit
on my chin had far from a disagreeable effect. My

(38:55):
eyes were as black as can be imagined, and rather
languishing than spark, except on certain occasions when I have
been told they struck fire fast enough. My teeth, which
I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and white. My
bosom was finely raised, and one might then discern rather

(39:16):
the promise than the actual growth of the round, firm
breasts that in a little time made that promise good.
In short, all the points of beauty that are most
universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity
forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges.
The men who all that I ever knew, at least

(39:38):
gave it thus highly in my favor, and I met with,
even in my own sex, some that were above denying
me that justice whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly
by endeavoring to detract from me in points of person
and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is I

(39:58):
own too much, too strong of self praise. But should
I not be ungrateful to nature and to a form
to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune?
Were I to suppress through and affectation of modesty the
mention of such valuable gifts. Well then dressed I was,

(40:19):
And little did it then enter into my head that
all this gay attire was no more than decking the
victim out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to
mere friendship and kindness. In the sweet good Missus Brown,
who I was forgetting to mention, had under pretense of
keeping my money safe, got from me without the least hesitation,

(40:43):
the dribblet, so I now call it, which remained to
me after the expenses of my journey. After some little
time most agreeably spent before the glass in scarce self admiration.
Since my new dress had by much the greatest share
in it, I was sent for down to the parlor,
where the old lady saluted me and wished me joy

(41:06):
of my new clothes, which she was not ashamed to
say fitted me as if I had worn nothing but
the finest all my lifetime. But what was it? She
could not see me silly enough to swallow. At the
same time, she presented me to another cousin of her
own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up at my

(41:27):
entry into the room, and on my dropping a courtesy
to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted that
I had only presented my cheek to him, a mistake which,
if one, he immediately corrected by gluing his lips to
mine with an ardor which his figure had not at
all disposed me to thank him for his figure, I say,

(41:48):
than which nothing could be more shocking or detestable, For
ugly and disagreeable were terms too gentle to convey a
just idea of it. Imagine to yourself a man rather
past free, score, short and ill, made with a yellow,
cadaverous hue, great goggling eyes. It stared as if he

(42:10):
was strangled and out mouthed from two more properly tusks
than teeth, livid lips, and breath like a Jake's. Then
he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin that made
him perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women with child.
Yet made as he was thus in mock of a man,
he was so blind to his own staring deformities as

(42:33):
to think himself born for pleasing, and that no woman
could see him with impunity. In consequence of which idea
he had lavished great sums on such wretches as could
gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst
to those who had not art or patience to dissemble
the horror it inspired, he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more

(42:58):
than necessity, made him seek in variety the provocative that
was wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment,
which too he often saw himself balked off by the
failure of his powers. And this always threw him into
a fit of rage, which he reeked as far as
he durst on the innocent objects of his fit of

(43:19):
momentary desire. This, then was the monster to which my
conscientious benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way,
had doomed me and sent for me down purposely for
his examination. Accordingly, she made me stand up before him,
turned me around, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him the

(43:40):
rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom
just beginning to fill. Then made me walk, and took
even a handle from the rusticity of my gait to
inflame the inventory of my charms. In short, she omitted
no point of jockeyship, to which he only answered by
gracious nods of approbation, whilst he looked goats and monkeys

(44:02):
at me, For I sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and,
encountering his fiery eager stare, looked another way from pure
horror and affright, which he, doubtless in character, attributed to
nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation
of it. However, I was soon dismissed and reconducted to

(44:26):
my room by Phoebe, who stuck close to me by
way of not leaving me alone and at leisure to
make such reflections as might naturally rise to any one
not an idiot, on such a scene as I had
just gone through. But to my shame, be it confessed,
such was my invincible stupidity or rather portentous innocence, that

(44:48):
I did not yet open my eyes to missus Brown's designs,
and saw nothing in this titular cousin of hers but
a shocking, hideous person, which did not at all concern me,
unless that my gratitude for my benefactress made me extend
my respect to all her cousinhood. Phoebe, however, began to
sift the state and pulses of my heart towards this monster,

(45:11):
asking me how I should approve of such a fine
gentleman for a husband. Fine gentleman, I suppose, she called him,
from his being daubed with lace. I answered her very
naturally that I had no thoughts of a husband, but
that if I was to choose one, it should be
among my own degree. Sure, so much had my aversion

(45:32):
to that wretch's hideous figure indisposed me to all fine gentlemen,
and confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank
had been necessarily cast in the same mold that he was.
But Phoebe was not to be beat off, so but
went on with her endeavors to melt and soften me
for the purposes of my reception into that hospitable house.

(45:54):
And whilst she talked of the sex in general, she
had no reason to despair of a compliance which more
than one reason showed her would be easily enough obtained
of me. But then she had too much experience not
to discover that my particular fixed aversion to that frightful
cousin would be a block not so readily to be

(46:14):
removed as suited the consummation of their bargain and sale
of me. Mother Brown had, in the meantime agreed the
terms with this licorish old goat, which I afterwards understood,
were to be fifty guineas peremptory for the liberty of
attempting me, and a hundred more at the complete gratification

(46:34):
of his desires in the triumph over my virginity. And
as for me, I was to be left entirely at
the discretion of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous contract
being thus settled, he was so eager to be put
in possession that he insisted on being introduced to drink
tea with me that afternoon when we were to be

(46:56):
left alone. Nor would he hearken to the procurases from
constances that I was not sufficiently prepared and ripened for
such an attack, that I was too green and untamed,
having been scarce twenty four hours in the house. It
is the character of lust to be impatient, and his
vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the

(47:18):
common resistance of a maid. On those occasions made him
reject all proposals of a delay, And my dreadful trial
was thus fixed unknown to me. For that very evening
at dinner, Missus Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run
riot in praises of this wonderful cousin, and how happy
that woman would be that he would favor with his addresses.

(47:41):
In short, my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to
persuade me to accept them that the gentleman was violently
smitten with me at first sight, that he would make
my fortune if I would be a good girl and
not stand in my own light, that I should trust
his honor, that I should be made forever and have
a chariot to go abroad in with all such stuff

(48:04):
as was fit to turn the head of such a silly,
ignorant girl as I then was. But luckily here my
aversion had taken already such deep root in me my
heart was so strongly defended from him by my senses that,
wanting the art to mask my sentiments, I gave them
no hopes of their employers succeeding at least very easily

(48:26):
with me. The glass too, marched pretty quick with a
view I suppose to make a friend of the warmth
of my constitution in the minutes of the imminent attack.
Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about
six in the evening, after I was retired to my
own apartment and the tea board was set enters my
venerable mistress followed close by that satire who came in

(48:50):
grinning in a way peculiar to him, and by his
odious presence, confirmed me in all the sentiments of detestation
which his first appearance had given birth to. He sat
down fronting me, and all tea time kept oggling me
in a manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion,
all the marks of which he still explained to be

(49:10):
my bashfulness and not being used to see company tea
over the commode, old lady pleaded urgent business, which was
indeed true, to go out and earnestly desired me to
entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both for
my own sake and hers, And then with a pray, sir,

(49:31):
be very good, be very tender of the sweet child,
she went out of the room, leaving me staring with
my mouth open and unprepared by the suddenness of her
departure to oppose it. We were now alone, and on
that idea, a sudden fit of trembling seized me. I
was so afraid, without a precise notion of why and

(49:51):
what I had to fear, that I sat on the
settee by the fireside, motionless and petrified, without life or spirit,
not knowing how to look or how to stir. But
long I was not suffered to remain in this state
of stupefaction. The monster squatted down by me on the settee,
and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about

(50:14):
my neck and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him, obliged
me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage
from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding
me then next to senseless and unresisting, he tears off
my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there to his

(50:34):
eyes and hands. Still I endured all without flinching, till
emboldened by my sufferance and silence, for I had not
the power to speak or cry out. He attempted to
lay me down on the settee, and I felt his
hand on the lower part of my naked thighs, which
were crossed, and which he endeavored to unlock. Oh. Then

(50:55):
I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing
from him with than activity he was not prepared for,
threw myself at his feet, and begged him in the
most moving tone not to be rude, that he would
not hurt me. Hurt you, my dear, says the brute.
I intend you no harm. Has not the old lady

(51:16):
told you that I love you, that I shall do
handsomely by you. She has indeed, Sir, said I. But
I cannot love you. Indeed, I cannot pray. Let me alone. Yes,
I will love you dearly if you let me alone
and go away. But I was talking to the wind.
For whether my tears, my attitude, or the disorder of

(51:37):
my dress proved fresh incentives, or whether he was not
under the dominion of desires he could not bridle. But
snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack,
seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me
on the settee, in which he succeeded so far as
to lay me alone, and even to toss my petticoats

(51:59):
over my head and lay my thighs bare, which I
obstinately kept close. Nor could he, though he attempted with
his knee to force them open, effect it so as
to stand fair, For being master of the main avenue,
he was unbuttoned both waistcoat and breeches. Yet I only
felt the weight of his body upon me whilst I

(52:20):
lay struggling with indignation and dying with terror. But he
stopped all of a sudden and got off, panting, blowing, cursing,
and rehearsing upon me, old and ugly. For so I
had very naturally called him in the heat of my defense.
The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought

(52:40):
on by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of
his hot fit of lust, which his power was too
short lived to carry him through the full execution of
of which my thighs, and linen received the effusion. When
it was over, he bid me, with a tone of displeasure,
get up, saying that he would not do me the

(53:01):
honor to think of me any more, that the old
bitch might look out for another collie, that he would
not be fooled so by ever a country mock modesty
in England that he supposed I had left my maidenhead
with some hobnail in the country, and was come to
dispose of my skin milk in town with a volley
of the like abuse, which I listened to with more

(53:22):
pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love
from her darling minion. For incapable as I was of
receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him,
I looked on this railing as my security against his
renewing his most odious caresses. Yet plain as Missus Brown's

(53:43):
views were now come out, I had not the heart
or spirit to open my eyes to them. Still, I
could not part with my dependence on that Beldam. So
much did I think myself hers soul and body, or
rather I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of
my good opinion of her, and chose to wait the

(54:03):
worst at her hands, sooner than being turned out to
starve in the streets without a penny of money or
a friend to apply to. These fears were my folly.
Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head,
and I sat pensive by the fire, with my eyes
brimming with tears, my neck still bare, and my cap

(54:25):
fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was
in the disorder. You may guess the villain's lust began.
I suppose to be again in flow at the sight
of all that bloom of youth which presented itself to
his view, a bloom yet unenjoyed, and in course not
yet indifferent to him. After some pause, he asked me,

(54:46):
with a tone of voice mightily softened, whether I would
make it up with him before the old lady returned,
and all should be well. He would restore me to
his affections, at the same time offering to kiss me
and feel my breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears,
my indignation, all acting upon me gave me a spirit
not natural to me, so that, breaking loose from him,

(55:08):
I ran to the bell and rang it before he
was aware, with such violence and effect as brought up
the maid to know what was the matter or whether
the gentleman wanted anything, And before he could proceed to
greater extremities, she bounced into the room, and seeing me
stretched on the floor, my hair all disheveled, my nose
gushing out blood, which did not a little tragedize the scene,

(55:33):
and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point,
unmoved by all my cries and distress. She was herself
confounded and did not know what to do. As much, however,
as Martha might be prepared and hardened too transactions of
this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her heart.

(55:53):
Could she have seen this unmoved? Besides that, on the
face of things, she imagined that my letters had gone
greater lengths than they really had, and that the courtesy
of the house had been ashley consummated on me and
flung me into the condition I was in. In this notion,
she instantly took my part and advised the gentleman to

(56:15):
go down and leave me to recover myself, and that
all would be soon over with me. That when missus
Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were returned, they
would take order for everything, to his satisfaction that nothing
would be lost by a little patience with the poor
tender thing. That for her part, she was frightened. She

(56:37):
could not tell what to say to such doings, but
that she would stay by me till my mistress came home.
As the Wench said all this in a resolute tone,
and the monster himself began to perceive that things would
not mend by his staying. He took his hat and
went out of the room, murmuring and pleading his brows
like an old ape, so that I was delivered from

(57:00):
the horrors of his detestable presence. As soon as he
was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her assistance in anything,
and would have got me some hartshorn drops and put
me to bed, which last I at first positively refused,
in the fear that the monster might return and take
me at that disadvantage. However, with much persuasion and assurances

(57:24):
that I should not be molested that night, she prevailed
on me to lie down, And indeed I was so
weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful apprehensions,
so terror struck that I had not the power to
sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions
with which the curious Martha applied and perplexed me. Such too,

(57:47):
and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the
sight of Missus Brown as if I had been the
criminal and she the person injured, A mistake which you
will not think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue
nor principles had the least share in the defense I
had made, but only the particular aversion I had conceived

(58:07):
against the first brutal and frightful invader of my tender innocence.
I passed then the time till Missus Brown came home,
under all the agitations of fear and despair that may
easily be guessed. End of Section one