h the
same difficulty: so that it has sometimes befallen me to have had a mind
to deny, when I had not the power to do it.

'Tis folly, then, to attempt to bridle in women a desire that is so
powerful in them, and so natural to them. And when I hear them brag of
having so maidenly and so temperate a will, I laugh at them: they retire
too far back. If it be an old toothless trot, or a young dry consumptive
thing, though it be not altogether to be believed, at least they say it
with more similitude of truth. But they who still move and breathe, talk
at that ridiculous rate to their own prejudice, by reason that
inconsiderate excuses are a kind of self-accusation; like a gentleman, a
neighbour of mine, suspected to be insufficient:

"Languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta,
Numquam se mediam sustulit ad tunicam,"

[Catullus, lxvii. 2, i.--The sense is in the context.]

who three or four days after he was married, to justify himself, went
about boldly swearing that he had ridden twenty stages the night before:
an oath that was afterwards made use of to convict him of his ignorance
in that affair, and to divorce him from his wife. Besides, it signifies
nothing, for there is neither continency nor virtue where there are no
opposing desires. It is true, they may say, but we will not yield;
saints themselves speak after that manner. I mean those who boast in
good gravity of their coldness and insensibility, and who expect to be
believed with a serious countenance; for when 'tis spoken with an
affected look, when their eyes give the lie to their tongue, and when
they talk in the cant of their profession, which always goes against the
hair, 'tis good sport. I am a great servant of liberty and plainness;
but there is no remedy; if it be not wholly simple or childish, 'tis
silly, and unbecoming ladies in this commerce, and presently runs into
impudence. Their disguises and figures only serve to cosen fools; lying
is there in its seat of honour; 'tis a by-way, that by a back-door leads
us to truth. If we cannot curb their imagination, what would we have
from them. Effects? There are enough of them that evade all foreign
communication, by which chastity may be corrupted:

"Illud saepe facit, quod sine teste facit;"

["He often does that which he does without a witness."
--Martial, vii. 62, 6.]

and those which we fear the least are, peradven