Daniel Defoe

“ As it happened, Amy was not at home when we accepted this invitation, and so she was left out of the company; but instead of Amy we took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted friend the Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever lived, sure, and who, besides a thousand good qualities unmixed with one bad one, was particularly excellent for being the best company in the world. Though I think I had carried Amy too if she had not been engaged in this unhappy girl’s affair ”

“ This, I say, a little relieved my thoughts, but I was soon down again; for after some time the jade began to grow talkative, and as it was plain that she had told all that her head could retain of Roxana and the days of joy which I had spent at that part of the town, another accident had like to have blown us all up again. ”

“ I was in the utmost extremity between so many particular circumstances as lay upon me, for I was to conceal my disorder from everybody, at the utmost peril, and at the same time expected everybody would discern it. ”

“ If the girl knew me, I was undone, and to discover any surprise or disorder had been to make her know me, or guess it, and discover herself.
I was once going to feign a swooning, and faint away, and so falling on the ground or floor, put them all into a hurry and fright, and by that means get an opportunity to be continually holding something to my nose to smell to, and so hold my hand or my handkerchief, or both, before my mouth, then pretend I could not bear the smell of the ship or the closeness of the cabin. ”

“ Amy, who was over them all, and that she, being the lady’s favourite, got a great deal. She did not know, she said, whether Amy was her Christian name or her surname, but she supposed it was her surname; that they were told she got threescore pieces of gold at one time, being the same night that the rest of the servants had the twenty guineas divided among them.
I put in at that word and said ’twas a vast deal to give away. “Why,” says I, “ ’twas a portion for a servant.” “Oh, madam!” says she, “it was nothing to what she got afterwards ”

“ They paid their visit in form, and I received them as formally, but took occasion two or three times to hint that I was so ill that I was afraid I should not be able to go to Holland, at least not so soon as the captain must go off, and made my compliments, how sorry I was to be disappointed of the advantage of their company and assistance in the voyage; and sometimes I talked as if I thought I might stay till the captain returned, and would be ready to go again. Then the Quaker put in, that then I might be too far gone, meaning with child, that I should not venture at all ”