To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates,
or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and
the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively
imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a whining lover.
It will be readily conceived that this mode of making love is not
attended with a rapid progress or imminent danger to the virtue of its
object; yet, though I have few favors to boast of I have not been
excluded from enjoyment, however imaginary. Thus the senses, in
concurrence with a mind equally timid and romantic, have preserved
my morals chaste, and feelings uncorrupted, with precisely the same
inclinations, which, seconded with a moderate portion of effrontery,
might have plunged me into the most unwarrantable excesses.
I have made the first, most difficult step, in the obscure and
painful maze of my Confessions. We never feel so great a degree of
repugnance in divulging what is really criminal, as what is merely
ridiculous. I am now assured of my resolution, for after what I have
dared disclose, nothing can have power to deter me. The difficulty
attending these acknowledgments will be readily conceived, when I
declare, that during the whole of my life, though frequently
laboring under the most violent agitation, being hurried away with the
impetuosity of passion I could never, in the course of the most
unbounded familiarity, acquire sufficient courage to declare my folly,
and implore the only favor that remained to bestow.
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