Daniel Defoe

“ I don't see any need of such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of it.'
'Indeed, so I am, Amy; but', said I, 'if there was, I tell you again, I'd die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake.'
Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there I had been happy,' though I had perished of mere hunger; for, without question, a woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let the temptation be what it will. ”

“ Are not we almost starred to death?'
'I am indeed', said I, 'and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore, Amy!'; and there I stopped.
'Dear madam', says Amy, 'if I will starve for your sake, I will be a whore or anything for your sake; why, I would die for you if I were put to it.'
'Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy', said I, 'I never met with before; I wish I may be ever in condition to make you some returns suitable. But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige him to be kind to me ”

“ I began to be so in love with Italy, especially with Naples and Venice, that I could have been very well satisfied to have sent for Amy and have taken up my residence there for life.
As to Rome, I did not like it at all. The swarms of ecclesiastics of all kinds on one side, and the scoundrel rabbles of the common people on the other, make Rome the unpleasantest place in the world to live in. ”

“ I could not without blushing, as wicked as I was, answer that I loved it for the sake of the vice, and that I delighted in being a whore, as such; I say, I could not say this, even to myself, and all alone, nor indeed would it have been true. I was never able, in justice and with truth, to say I was so wicked as that; but as necessity first debauched me, and poverty made me a whore at the beginning, so excess of avarice for getting money, and excess of vanity, continued me in the crime, not being able to resist the flatteries of great persons; being called the finest woman in France ”

“ Another reflection was, how just it is that sin and shame follow one another so constantly at the heels; that they are not like attendants only, but, like cause and consequence, necessarily connected one with another; that the crime going before,' the scandal is certain to follow; and that 'tis not in the power of human nature to conceal the first, or avoid the last.
'What shall I do, Amy?' said I, as soon as I could speak, 'and what will become of me?' And then I cried again so vehemently that I could say no more a great while. ”

“ I have been now asking your sister if ever I told her of any fortune or estate I had, or gave her any particulars of it; and she owns I never did. And pray madam', said I, 'be so just to me, to charge me if you can, if ever I pretended to you that I had an estate; and why, if I had, should I ever come down into this country with you on purpose to spare that little I had, and live cheap?' She could not deny one word, but said she had been told in London that I had a great fortune, and that it lay in the Bank of England. ”

“ I know it all well enough; though I was but a child, I have heard it all.' And thus she run on with such discourse as put Amy out of all temper again; and she raved at her like a bedlam, and told her she would never come near her any more; she might go a-begging again if she would; she'd have nothing to do with her. The girl, a passionate wench, told her she knew the worst of it, she could go to service again, and if she would not own her own child, she must do as she pleased; then she fell into a passion of crying again, as if she would kill herself. ”

“ Fortune had smiled upon me to that degree, and I had thriven so much, and my governess too, for she always had a share with me, that really the old gentlewoman began to talk of leaving off while we were well, and being satisfied with what we had got; but I know not what fate guided me, I was as backward to it now, as she was when I proposed it to her before, and so in an ill hour we gave over the thoughts of it for the present, and, in a word, I grew more hardened and audacious than ever, and the success I had made my name as famous as any thief of my sort ever had been. ”

“ I turned from him, for it filled my eyes with tears too, and asked him leave to retire a little to my chamber. If I had a grain of true repentance for an abominable life of twenty-four years past, it was then. 'Oh, what a felicity is it to mankind', said I to myself, 'that they cannot see into the hearts of one another! How happy had it been if I had been wife to a man of so much honesty and so much affection from the beginning!'
Then it occurred to me, 'What an abominable creature am I! ”

“ I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my eagerness to ask for Amy; but I was confounded when she told me she had heard nothing of her. It is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that rolled about in my mind, and continually perplexed me about her; particularly I reproached myself with my rashness in turning away so faithful a creature that for so many years had not only been a servant but an agent; and not only an agent, but a friend, and a faithful friend too. ”

“ This was the bait; and the devil who laid the snare prompted me, as if he had spoke, for I remember, and shall never forget it, 'twas like a voice spoken over my shoulder, 'Take the bundle; be quick; do it this moment.' It was no sooner said but I stepped into the shop, and with my back to the wench, as if I had stood up for a cart that was going by, I put my hand behind me and took the bundle, and went off with it, the maid or fellow not perceiving me, or any one else. ”

“ It is true she met with unexpected success in all her wicked courses; but even in the highest elevations of her prosperity she makes frequent acknowledgments that the pleasure of her wickedness was not worth the repentance; and that all the satisfaction she had, all the joy in the view of her prosperity—no, nor all the wealth she rolled in, the gaiety of her appearance, the equipages and the honours she was attended with, could quiet her mind, abate the reproaches of her conscience, or procure her an hour's sleep when just reflection kept her waking. ”

“ I was but his mother's servant when he was born, and I mourned heartily for the disaster of the family, and I always said, if ever I was worth anything in the world, I would take the child for my own, and I'll be as good as my word now, though I did not then foresee that it would be with me as it has been since.' And so Amy told him a long story how she was troubled for me, and what she would give to hear whether I was dead or alive, and what circumstances I was in; that if she could but find me, if I was ever so poor, she would take care of me, and make a gentlewoman of me again. ”

“ Amy put us to bed, and my new friend—I cannot call him husband—was so well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me that he paid her all the arrear of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five guineas over; and, had it gone no farther, Amy had richly deserved what she had, for never was a maid so true to her mistress in such dreadful circumstances as I was in. ”

“ For you ramble so in your discourse that nobody knows whether you are in earnest or in jest; but as I find the girl, by your own confession, has answered truly, I wish you would do so too, and tell me seriously, so that I may depend upon it, is there anything in it or no? Are you in earnest or no? Are you distracted, indeed, or are you not? 'Tis a weighty question; I wish you would make us easy about it.'
'By my faith, madam', says Robin, '’tis in vain to mince the matter, or tell any more lies about it; I am in earnest, as much as a man is that's going to be hanged. ”

“ I could not digest it very well that I should all this while conceal myself thus from my own child, and make all this favour due, in his opinion, to a stranger; and yet I could not find in my heart to let my son know what a mother he had, and what a life she lived; when, at the same time that he must think himself infinitely obliged to me, he must be obliged, if he was a man of virtue, to hate his mother, and abhor the way of living by which all the bounty he enjoyed was raised. ”

“ When a woman is thus left desolate and void of counsel, she is just like a bag of money or a jewel dropt on the highway, which is a prey to the next comer; if a man of virtue and upright principles happens to find it, he will have it cried, and the owner may come to hear of it again; but how many times shall such a thing fall into hands that will make no scruple of seizing it for their own, to once that it shall come into good hands? ”

“ I set myself close up to a shop-side with my back to the counter, as if to let the crowd pass by, when, keeping my eye on a parcel of lace which the shopkeeper was showing to some ladies that stood by me, the shopkeeper and her maid were so taken up with looking to see who was a-coming, and what shop they would go to, that I found means to slip a paper of lace into my pocket, and come clear off with it; so the lady-milliner paid dear enough for her gaping after the queen. ”

“ The pretence of affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim, and view of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke of', said I. 'She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and, living by faith, not in God, but in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and, in the middle of what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulfed in misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or suspicion of. ”

“ Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to pacify her. 'A whore!' says I. 'Well, and am not I a whore as well as you?' 'No, no', says Amy; 'no, you are not, for you are married.' 'Not I, Amy', says I; 'I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to morrow, if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it I am not married. ”

“ Was it possible I could think of a poor desolate woman with four children, and her husband gone from her, and perhaps good for little if he had stayed I say, was I, that had tasted so deep of the sorrows of such a kind of widowhood, able to look on her, and think of her circumstances, and not be touched in an uncommon manner? No, no; I never looked on her and her family, though she was not left so helpless and friendless as I had been, without remembering my own condition, when Amy was sent out to pawn or sell my pair of stays to buy a breast of mutton and a bunch of turnips ”

“ It was a great while after this that I had occasion, on my business, to go to Bristol, upon which he hired me a coach, and would go with me; and now indeed our intimacy increased. From Bristol he carried me to Gloucester, which was merely a journey of pleasure, to take the air; and here it was our hap to have no lodgings in the inn, but in one large chamber with two beds in it. ”

“ That expression filled me with horror, all my blood ran chill in my veins, and a fit of trembling seized me, that I could not speak a good while; at last, 'What? is the devil in you, Amy?' said I. 'Nay, nay', says she, 'let it be the devil or not the devil, if I thought she knew one tittle of your history, I would despatch her, if she were my own daughter, a thousand times.' 'And I', says I in a rage, 'as well as I love you, would be the first that should put the halter about your neck, and see you hanged with more satisfaction than ever I saw you in my life ”

“ When he saw this, 'My dear child', said he, and took me in his arms, 'what! Have you been making your will and disposing of your effects? Pray, whom do you make your universal heir?' 'So far as to do justice to your Highness, in case of mortality, I have, my lord', said I, 'and who should I dispose the valuable things to, which I have had from your hand as pledges of your favour and testimonies of your bounty, but to the giver of them? ”