Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)Cleland, John
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Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)
Cleland, John
England -- Fiction; Erotic fiction; Prostitutes -- Fiction
The landlady leaving us again, he proceeded to shift; in the act of
which, though he proceeded with all that modesty which became these
first solemner instants of our re-meeting, after so long an absence, I
could not refrain certain snatches of my eyes, lured by the dazzling
discoveries of his naked skin, that escaped him as he changed his
linen, and which I could not observe the unfaded life and complexion of
without emotions of tenderness and joy, that had himself too purely for
their object, to partake of a loose or mis-timed desire.
He was soon dressed in these temporary clothes, which neither fitted
him, nor became the light my passion placed him in, to me at least;
yet, as they were on him, they looked extremely well, in virtue of that
magic charm which love put into every thing that he touched, or had
relation to him: and where, indeed, was that dress that a figure like
his would not give grace to? For now, as I eyed him more in detail, I
could not but observe the even favourable alteration which the time of
his absence had produced in his person.
There were still the requisite lineaments, still the same vivid
vermillion and bloom reigning in his face; but now the roses were more
fully blown; the tan of his travels, and a beard somewhat more
distinguishable, had, at the expense of no more delicacy than what he
could well spare, given it an air of becoming manliness and maturity,
that symmetrized nobly with that air of distinction and empire with
which nature had stamped it, in a rare mixture with the sweetness of
it; still nothing had he lost of that smooth plumpness of flesh, which,
glowing with freshness, blooms florid to the eye, and delicious to the
touch; then his shoulders were grown more square, his shape more
formed, more portly, but still free and airy. In short, his figure
showed riper, greater, and perfecter to the experienced eye, than in
his tender youth; and now he was not much more than two and twenty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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