FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   585   586   587   588   589   590   591   592   593   594   595   596   597   598   599   600   601   602   603   604   605   606   607   608   609  
610   611   612   613   614   615   616   617   618   619   620   621   622   623   624   625   626   627   628   629   630   631   632   633   634   >>   >|  
f Heart or Quickness of Spirit in the Morning after profound Sleep or indolent Slumbers. He is not to be at Ease any longer than he can keep Reason and good Sense without his Curtains; otherwise he will be haunted with the Reflection, that he could not believe such a one the Woman that upon Trial he found her. What has he got by his Conquest, but to think meanly of her for whom a Day or two before he had the highest Honour? and of himself for, perhaps, wronging the Man whom of all Men living he himself would least willingly have injured? Pleasure seizes the whole Man who addicts himself to it, and will not give him Leisure for any good Office in Life which contradicts the Gaiety of the present Hour. You may indeed observe in People of Pleasure a certain Complacency and Absence of all Severity, which the Habit of a loose unconcerned Life gives them; but tell the Man of Pleasure your secret Wants, Cares, or Sorrows, and you will find he has given up the Delicacy of his Passions to the Cravings of his Appetites. He little knows the perfect Joy he loses, for the disappointing Gratifications which he pursues. He looks at Pleasure as she approaches, and comes to him with the Recommendation of warm Wishes, gay Looks, and graceful Motion; but he does not observe how she leaves his Presence with Disorder, Impotence, down-cast Shame, and conscious Imperfection. She makes our Youth inglorious, our Age shameful. WILL. HONEYCOMB gives us twenty Intimations in an Evening of several Hags whose Bloom was given up to his Arms; and would raise a Value to himself for having had, as the Phrase is, very good Women. WILL.'S good Women are the Comfort of his Heart, and support him, I warrant, by the Memory of past Interviews with Persons of their Condition. No, there is not in the World an Occasion wherein Vice makes so phantastical a Figure, as at the Meeting of two old People who have been Partners in unwarrantable Pleasure. To tell a toothless old Lady that she once had a good Set, or a defunct Wencher that he once was the admired Thing of the Town, are Satires instead of Applauses; but on the other Side, consider the old Age of those who have passed their Days in Labour, Industry, and Virtue, their Decays make them but appear the more venerable, and the Imperfections of their Bodies are beheld as a Misfortune to humane Society that their Make is so little durable. But to return more directly to my Man of Wit and Pleasure. In all Order
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   585   586   587   588   589   590   591   592   593   594   595   596   597   598   599   600   601   602   603   604   605   606   607   608   609  
610   611   612   613   614   615   616   617   618   619   620   621   622   623   624   625   626   627   628   629   630   631   632   633   634   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Pleasure

 

People

 

observe

 

Memory

 
Persons
 
warrant
 

Interviews

 

support

 

Comfort

 

Morning


Spirit

 

Figure

 

Occasion

 

phantastical

 

profound

 

Condition

 

twenty

 
Intimations
 

indolent

 

HONEYCOMB


Slumbers
 
inglorious
 

shameful

 

Evening

 

Meeting

 

Phrase

 

Partners

 
venerable
 

Imperfections

 

Bodies


beheld

 
Industry
 

Virtue

 
Decays
 

Misfortune

 

humane

 
directly
 
return
 

Society

 

durable


Labour

 

defunct

 

Wencher

 

admired

 

toothless

 

unwarrantable

 
passed
 

Satires

 
Applauses
 

Quickness