The Boudoir No. 4

CHOICE LETTER FROM THE GREEK OF ARISTENETUS

Terpsion to Polycles To convince you how insensibly love gets admission into the most innocent hearts, be pleased to read over the following story: A young country girl fell desperately in love with her mistress's gallant, and took fire herself, while she contributed to extinguish that of others. Being obliged to keep watch upon the stairs, lest the lovers should be surprised, she could not but often hear their murmuring and fighting. She saw them too, folded in one another's embraces, performing the ceremony of love; and thus through the eyes and ears of this tender girl, the god of love, with his torch and arrows, plunged himself over head and ears in her panting breast.

She bewailed the unhappiness of her condition, and accused her destiny for giving her a mind susceptible of the most tender impressions, yet denying her the means of satisfying them, "Why should not I," said she, "participate in pleasure with my mistress, since I have a soul as sensible as hers?

Why should love, that tramples over all the distinctions of rank and quality, show himself faint-hearted only in my quarrel?" But she did not long afflict herself with these unprofitable complaints. Venus would not suffer her to lose the time in lazy wishes; for being sent one afternoon to invite the gallant to her mistress's lodgings, without any preamble or preface, she accosted him in this manner:

"Sir," said she, "I believe you to be a gentleman, and willing to ease the longings of a young virgin. If my face will go down with you, that, and the rest of my body, are at your service. You know well enough what it is to love, and therefore will have a compassion, I hope, on one that languishes under that distemper."

The gentleman, without further ado, took her at her word, and was so courteous as to play the priest, since she was so willing to be the sacrifice. He soon eased her of that burden she complained of, and owned that he never received more pleasure in his life.

The kisses of married women are generally insipid; the kisses of mercenary harlots are fallacious and deceitful; but those of an innocent, uninstructed virgin are sincere, and consequently the most delicious.

Our lovers had* like to have fainted away under the violence of their agitation; their souls kept hovering about their mouths, but their uninterrupted kisses denied them a passage. While the golden minutes passed away in these transports, the mistress, who was seized with a fit of jealousy to see them stay so long, stole softly into the room, and surprised them in very criminal circumstances. The unhappy maid found the first effects of her indignation, whom she thumped and beat, and dragged by the hair. But the poor wench entreated her to consider, that though her ill stars had sent her a slave into the world, which was none of her fault, she had as strong inclinations as the best of her sex; that love was an imperious deity; and when he had once got entrance into a heart, would not throw up his possession, as she herself could not but know by experience.

"Wherefore, Madame," says she, "in consideration of love, who is our common master, and whose yoke both of us carry, be pleased to forgive this indiscretion in me; which, after the worst gloss you can put upon it, was only the effect of a foolish curiosity, from which the best of women are not exempt."

These complaints, so innocently delivered, soon appeased her mistress's fury, who taking her gallant by the hand, thus rallied him:

"I find," cries she, "you are of the humour of some people, who had rather gather sour grapes, than stay till they are ripe.

What could make you so foolishly trifle your time with a silly raw baggage, that is so far from knowing how to perform her part in the chorus of love, that she does not yet understand how to level her kisses aright. A virgin is dull and heavy, and unacquainted with the true management of a passion; whereas such a woman as I am, that has tried many a fall with many a man in her time, needs not the instruction of anyone, but gives the utmost satisfaction. In short, a woman gives, but a virgin only receives kisses, which makes a sensible difference between them; and this," continued she to her spark, "you know well enough, but if you want to have your memory refreshed, come to me to-night, and I will make you own that I am in the right."

What happened upon this, I cannot tell, neither am I desirous to know, because all men affect to govern themselves by their own peculiar palates, but especially in the business of love.